11 Chapter 11

Scáthach was a total slave driver... No other words described her as not even Cid with his bullshit knew as much physical training, magical training, mental training, pain tolerance training. emotional control training. Or just any other forms of training that Scáthach decided teaching me and the other girls in the meantime was worth her time in the mortal world.

That was my life for the last month, non-stop training with Scáthach every other day due to the gods having to come together to fuel her stepping into the mortal realm.

Other than me going to bed dead tired every night due to training and the trickle of people coming to see if miracles were actually being given out willy-nilly which they were, the biggest news was Herakles had blessed both Delta and Zeta with particular blessings.

Delta being the Hulk smash girl she was, got her already ridiculous strength even further increased with her skin becoming almost impervious to weapons. Any weapons that didn't have a lot of mana running through them would just shatter when they smashed into her and Beta was terrified of Delta after they played tag after shooting Delta with several light arrows that just exploded the on-wolf girl, Beta was taken down, and smothered with kisses for the game.

Zeta on the other hand received Herakles's blessing when it came to archery and a copy of his Nemian Lion pelt that would allow Zeta to throw the pelt in the air and it would transform into an actual Nemian Lion that was about five meters tall and could run at obscene speeds to say nothing of its vaunted durability and strength. Apparently, Zeta reminded Herakles of his old friend Atalanta so he gave the treasure which was a point of pride for Zeta as she and Delta saw each other as rivals.

That. Plus, Cats and Dog beastkin didn't get along typically.

"Mghhh." I groaned as I tiredly blinked and with a cracking noise popped my stiff joints that had locked up after going to sleep super stiff and exhausted from Scáthach making me run up brick wall she had me conjure. Why a brick wall instead of just running up a hill or using one of the game trails in the forest?

Because in her words. 'Running uphill is great. So let's not waste time and you need to run up the face of a wall now go!' She said and she was right... Running up a cliffside with my magical energy filling my body was far more exhausting than just naturally running for a much longer period.

"Zeta..." I groaned before a whip of black fur flumped across the side of the bed and I groaned as the young woman's grip around my waist tightened. "Delta..." I drawled out and in response, Delta's large floofy black tail started slapping the bed with loud thumping noises to me calling out her name.

"Delta is here!" She excitedly whispered from under my blanket and I couldn't help but giggle at the thought of her face curled up into an excited smile to match her big thumping tail that was hitting the bed.

"Was Delta a good girl?" I asked as my hand went under the blanket and with an ecstatic chuckle from the girl my hand reached her head and began scratching behind her dog ears.

"Yes! Delta was a good girl. Alpha didn't even hear me get out of bed last night to sneak in here!" Delta said excitedly and I grinned as the door to my room opened with a very loud ominous creaking noise and Delta went stock still in mind-bending terror.

Deeeeltaaaa." Alpha's voice droned on like a zombie and my blankets began to vibrate and shake in terror as Alpha's form became covered in a dense mist and then tentacles of the mist pushed under my blanket and latched onto Delta.

"Noooo, Master save Delta!" Delta screamed tearfully as Alpha's shadowy mist tentacles dragged the black-haired dog girl out of my bed.

Alpha's face twitched at the sight of Delta's fingernails scratching half an inch through the thick tiles used as my floor while she dragged the girl to her and at the sight she spoke with an obviously irritated tinge to her tone. "You and Zeta are always sneaking into Jake's bed! Have some common decency as neither of you is in a relationship with him!" Alpha scolded Delta and her dog ears went down in submission to what she considered to be the second alpha female of our 'tribe'

Scáthach was the true matriarch of our tribe in Delta's point of view... Seeing her slap and punch Alpha out of her mist form with her magic-covered hands and then use Delta's body to smash through a mountain had cleanly set the scary woman as the top female. But still Alpha was next in line in terms of power that Delta respected.

"Alpha make sure Beta is also up for our expedition," I spoke as I got up from my bed and threw on some clothes.

At my words, Alpha nodded seriously as I had decided to take fate into my own hands, so I wasn't going to be just sitting around doing nothing in my church. I was going to make my presence more well known to the northeast where the elf kingdom was.

There was a major elf city a day or so away from here and I wanted to check it out and not have to deal with the drama of going to the capital of Midgar with all the trouble that had followed us.

"I will make sure Beta has gotten out of bed and is getting ready," Alpha said with a soft smile as she knew her old friend was rather prone to sleeping late due to her enjoying staying up super late to read.

Either way, I ate my breakfast rather quickly and the girls helped me lock up the church while I left a large sign stating to the townspeople. 'We were going to be out of town for the next week so don't lose a limb or something.'

Will the peasants who had come to rely a bit on my miracles listen? Maybe or maybe not either way they needed to know I could just split at a moment's notice as I wasn't beholden to them.

Once we got into the well-padded and reinforced carriage that actually had a shock system, I worked hard to implement into it. It was going to take us to the border of the elf kingdom in the North with Zeta took the first turn driving the horses and leaving Alpha. Beta and Delta to sit with me in the carriage.

'I wonder if Scáthach can help teach me how to make a car or some motorbikes with runes?' I wondered with a wry smile as I imagined Scáthach would first kick the shit out of me for suggesting I have her come up with how to do everything before making me do all the work and only telling me where I fucked up and leave me to figure out how to fix my screw up so I would actually learn what I did wrong and how not to do the same thing.

"Beta, could we make something like this?" I asked as I took out some paper and a pencil, I made with Transmutation and drew out a diagram for a large metal blimp that would hopefully be powered by fire and wind magic with something like antigravity runes used to make the whole thing much lighter while still allowing it to be made out of metal and thus be pretty durable.

"Hmm..." Beta hummed as she took in the extremely crude diagram I made. I was many things but an artist or an engineer who could sketch out accurate depictions of his work was something I most certainly was not.

Honestly, it was more of a proof of concept as Beta began speaking to me about the runes she knew, and I chipped in what I did know along with Alpha doing the same even though all her runic knowledge was aimed at making things explode as violently and precisely to her designs as possible.

"Why make a weird flying balloon and try to ride it when you can just make your church fly Jake?" Delta asked me while pouting at her inability to actually speak as she... She couldn't even remember the design for runes so most of the time the things she made just spluttered and did nothing, firmly making the wolf beastkin throw rune stuff to side as it was too complicated.

At Delta's words, all I got was two images stuck in my head. First, the flying castle that was supposed to be Aincrad in Sword Art Online. And more importantly a meme about Warhammer 40k about how they would mount massive cathedrals atop their stupidly large Titans, with the message that if you didn't go to church... The church will come to you. In the form of a civilization-ending mech armed with weapons that would make Godzilla cry.

"Uhm Jake... You look like the time you contemplated genocide on the magic wolves in the neighboring forest." Alpha said dryly and my face twitched at her reminder.

Wolves shouldn't be at a minimum the size of horses and have howls that reach the same level of volume, which in other words lead to me being kept up at night.

"Anyway," I said changing the subject and raising my voice so Zeta in the front could also hear us. "When we get into the city, I will go aside and start plying my services while you girls gather information. If something happens, we will either meet back home at the church in the worst-case scenario or otherwise we will just meet at a designated inn or something." I explained but all of a sudden I felt a shiver run down my spine that was the same as when Herakles or Scáthach trained me in the sense of killing intent and just knowing when a painful ass-kicking was on my way.

-

Dozens of miles away a woman wearing a large hood with a long katana strapped to her back was walking through the streets of the elven city Jake was traveling to and within her arms was a stack of flyers and pamphlets and without fail she stopped literally every man, woman and child she saw handing them the flyers and pamphlets while asking softly if they had seen the person on the flyer.

Without fail everyone except the youngest of children would deny any knowledge of the young blonde girl depicted on the pamphlet while looking at the woman with soft pity and care for her as all elves recognized their nations and race's most prominent member.

The War Goddess Beatrix for the last couple of years made it her life's goal to search for her lost niece after her caretakers 'lost' her when Beatrix was out looking for a cure for the Demon Possession that plagued her most beloved niece. That was truly the only reminder of her beloved sister who she loved at a perfectly natural amount thank you very much.

Those caretakers likewise 'lost' their lives when they unexpectedly all for some odd reason snapped their necks as they fell out of a tree.

"Have you seen her?" She would ask softly, duly, not expecting any confirmation. And denials to her answer were the only ones she received to her question. But she was undaunted as she walked through every alley, every shop, and every location in the elven city to find a single shred of evidence as to the location of her niece.

She would find her niece even if she had to spend every day of her life searching for her and even if she were to die, she would hunt for her in the afterlife as that's what family did for one another.