The second that Rune stepped out of he lab, he could feel a trembling from the floorboards. It was as if something was stampeding towards him.

In front of him, he could see a body with two fuzzy ears pointing upwards that were charging at him. He spread his arms open to embrace the oncoming Sophia.

“I missed you!!”

She spoke while rubbing her face in his chest. He started to pat her head and felt the amazing fluffiness of her ears. They stayed like that for several seconds before Sophia pulled away and stood in her tippy toes to kiss him.

“Yeah, I missed you too. How is Roxana?”

“You can ask her yourself. She is coming after all. Anyways, how was the trip?”

“It was…”

He tilted his head up for a moment to honk about it. His mission wasn’t detailed enough, but his main goal was to at least stop the Irregular Dragons who were going to terrorize him and everyone else just to bring a five headed dragon to the realm.

“... tiring? We haven’t really managed to find any more leads on the Irregular Dragons, but I managed to kill some more Hierarchs.”

Sophia had been briefed about the general idea of what their mission was before she was brought to the Manticore village.

“I hope you do well! I have just been teaching and making potions…”

She said he last bit with a little guilt, as if she was feeling regret about not going on the mission with him. She looked down at her feet, but turned her gaze back towards Rune when she felt his hand on her head.

“It’s fine. You teaching people is enough here. Plus it’s good exercise and a source of experience for me.”

“Ok.”

She nodded with more vigor than before and she seemed determined to teach as well as she could. Just as she was finishing that thought, a little tiger girl came and practically pounced on Rune.

Behind her were two half-elves who were her friends, Lysp and Enya. The one who was hugging Rune with all her night was Roxana.

“Hi papa!!”

She rubbed her face against his jacket. It seemed like she learned this from Sophia who did it constantly to him. Both Enya and Lysp were enjoying the look of her happiness, but it seemed like Lysp had a slight romantic interest in her. It was like a childhood’s crush.

“Hey! How’s it going? You doing well in school?”

He looked down at her and smiled a genuine smile. He was tired from him having to deal with regular human needs and limits. Luckily, he was healed by the sight of his wife and daughter.

“Yeah! The teacher even complimented me on my homeworks!”

“That’s good.”

Then Lysp walked up to Rune timidly and he told Rune something.

“Um, my father wants to talk to you for a moment. When he heard you came back, he wanted to meet with you. He should be in front of the house now.”

Roxana and Sophia let go of him and he started to move towards the front. Then a black silhouette appeared on the wall to Rune’s right and a form materialized from it.

The first thing that he saw when he turned was a pair of large breasts that were swinging towards him. Behind him, Sophia breathed in sharply and started to run towards him.

In the next instant, Rune had finished a combat maneuver and had thrown the large breasted demon over his shoulder and into the wall. Sophia stumbled and fell on Rune, knocking him over, in the next second. Not anticipating the accident, he was swept off his feet and the two of them fell over each other.

Enya was covering both Lysp and Roxana’s eyes as she herself turned away. The scene wasn’t too great, but it was fine in the area where Rune and Sophia were. They only ended up kissing while the demon was bleeding in a crumpled pile of limbs.

“Ahh! Sorry! I tripped on my own foot in a hurry!”

“Hey, it’s fine. I’m more worried about the thing that tried to assault me just now.”

Sophia quickly got off of him and was blushing as she had done all that in front of the three children. Rune sat up and looked at the bloody pile of limbs that was rearranging itself to reform into Hela.

He sighed and pushed hins led to an upright position where he looked down on the succubus with a look of annoyance. Hela got up and started to pick the blood from her hand.

“I’m more powerful than ever now!”

She held up a victory sin on her right hand that was extended towards him. Unbeknownst to Rune, she learned it from Tyler who dropped by a lot to check up on people.

“See!! My demonic powers have grown!! I can now regenerate!! So please, hit me more!!”

Rune grabbed her face and started to walk towards the front of her house. She was making some strange sounds and Rune did not want to turn around.

As soon as he opened the door, he saw Ulf standing on his porch. He moved his arm to push Ulf to he right gently before moving into a throwing stance.

From behind him, he could hear a voice full of ecstasy.

“Yes!! Throw me!!”

And he threw her straight into the ground. A massive hole appeared in the grass and some nearby students watched in shock. Many of the students had gotten to know her, but were mostly disgusted due to her unusual personality and fetishes.

As soon as he threw her, Rune covered the hole with his [Earthen Guard] and turned to Ulf as he was done with some business.

“You wanted to see me?”

“A-ah, yes. I did. Um, anyway.”

He cleared his throat as he decided to choose his next words carefully. He watched the devastating scene up close.

“So, I was wondering if you would allow my son, Lysp, to be engaged with Roxana…”

Rune looked at him to see if he was serious before sighing.

“Sure. Just wait a couple years before they actually marry and it can be called off at any time by either party. Also, both children need to agree.”

“Ah, thanks.”

“No problem. Just check in with me if they do get engaged.”

Rune walked back into his home and Ulf followed him inside to ask Roxana and Lysp if they agreed to the engagement. Just as Rune was going back over to Sophia who was sitting on the foyer sofa, the door burst open.

It was Hela who seemed to be a bit upset and was pouting. She stomped over to Rune and looked at him as she put her hands on her hips.

“Why did you leave me? I want to be hurt more!!”

Rune slowly turned his head and glared at her. She immediately regretted her words and tone of voice as soon as Rune turned his entire body towards her. She seemed to shrink down in fear and trembled.

This was due to him using bloodlust to get his point across. The point being that he didn’t want to deal with a masochist.

Then he softened his expression and looked at Sophia. She smiled as he asked her a question.

“Want to go get some food?”

She nodded fiercely and he pulled her up to a standing position. Then they teleported.

The world seemed to distort around them and, in the next moment, they were in the capital of the Human continent.

“I used up most of my mana so I’m really hungry. If I eat some food, I should be able to get some more mana back.”

Sophia was more used to the teleportation than others and was only feeling a slight headache. Then she shook it off and he two of them held hands to walk as they were going to find a place to eat.

It turned out that, in the teachers’ lounge, Sophia learned of several great restaurants and cafes within the capital. She wanted to check out a cafe where they sold many sweet pastries.

There weren’t too many disturbances within the city. Only one king occurred where five large, burly men decided that they could easily take on Rune and steal his things and use Sophia.

Of course, Rune was used to fighting much larger and more powerful beings and just flicked one of them. They flew high in the sky while Rune knocked down the rest of them with a single sweeping kick that started with them being surprised and ended with their legs being broken.

Then, after a period of time that was less than a second, the man who went skyward fell to the ground, instantly breaking over half of his bones. Everyone around could hear a loud crunch as they could see the bones from his leg emerge from his body.

He then quickly cast [Heal] and their wounds faded as their legs and bones straightened. They were still unconscious due to the pain they had felt, but now they weren’t dying. Rune wiped a bit of blood from the edge of his jacket as best he could after he stood up.

The two continued on their way to the cafe with no other obstacle in their path. People were actually steering clear of them for several streets since they all heard men screaming and a man, bloody and battered, fly into the air. To be truthful, they were scared of him. The only ones not feeling the least bit scared were Sophia and Rune.

Within fifteen minutes of walking, they found the place, sat down, and were ordering food from the waitress. The interior of the building was clean and there were polished, wooden chairs and tables all around the place. Even outside, they had some seats to eat at. The exterior of the building was just as clean, if not more so, and had a sign that read “Delightful Cafe” in large, black letters.

There weren’t many people there for many people did not have the money to waste on sweets nor did they like sweet things. Since Sophia grew up without a taste of such sweet and savory delicacies, she gained a sweet tooth as soon as she had one. Rune was just a person who liked baked goods.

While Rune and Sophia were off eating food, two things occurred. The first one was with the rest of the group in Hell’s Gate. At the moment when Rune and Sophia stepped into the shop, they were being attacked by giant wasps.

Rouna was quite busy with casting poison spells to kill off the wasps and the rest of the group tried to help as best they could. They fired off bullets from their guns, but it seemed that nothing was happening as, every time they killed a wasp, another one would take its place.

Rena was currently dual wielding sub-machine guns and downing several at a time. Each wasp was like a bullet sponge where each one could take up to ten bullets and still live. Of course, when they were filled with bullets, their messy remains splattered all about the ground underneath them.

Elisa was having a hard time shooting her pistol as she had never shot one before. She was muttering under her breath something that no one else could hear.

“Rune!! I’ll get you for this!! You dare stick me on a floating death trap several stories high and surrounded by disgusting bugs?! I promise I will get you back for this!!”

She was loudly whispering and some people turned their heads to try and listen in on her, but no one could understand and they went back to filling the insects with bullets.

The second thing that was happening was that Jared was sighing as he used his machine to help with the construction of the city. His sigh was due to the heat and how much he didn’t want to work.

To him, this was basically his first job for he didn’t count researching technology as one because he had fun during that time. This time, he was in a vehicle that had a giant scoop in front of it and a crane with a scoop on it connected to a portion of the vehicle that could rotate on the hull of the vehicle.

This machine was basically a loader mixed with an excavator and ran on magical energy. To refuel, he would just go to the lab and get another large battery cell. Within the batteries, they had electrical energy which was turned into magical energy before entering the machine. They were also rechargeable as well.

He was using the machine to create a divet in the ground to set up the road system and he was done with about ten roads. Unfortunately, he had ninety more to go. It was only midday and he already had his lunch break, but he was thinking about stopping for the day.

Of course, he couldn’t. He was the only one who knew how to operate the machine and, even if he taught someone, they would likely not be able to use the only machine they had as well as he could.

In the lab, it took his several years to just come up with how everything in the machine would come together and it took even more time to actually build it with such low manpower and a small supply of resources.

He was sweating like a pig and was seriously thinking about deserting when he saw someone come up to him. It was a younger pair of people who were slightly acquainted with him. The two younger people were a boy and girl, but they were only friends with zero romantic interest in each other.

They looked at him with pleading eyes, as if they knew he was going to stop working, and they put both their hands together to seem like they were begging.

“Please work! We know it’s hard, but don’t give up! We are counting on you!”

This gave him the push he needed and he started to work again. Meanwhile, the two kids jogged away and high fived. This was all part of their plan. It mostly consisted of making him feel bad for them and to have him work so they could have jobs.

They weren’t that young, but they absolutely looked like they were younger than their actual age. The two of them were both 15 years old and had a lot of experience in manipulating people.

They weren’t “bad kids”, it was just that they wanted to earn money in actual jobs instead of the strange and odd jobs they had taken before. The two of them were both from the slums, but they only just met in ALF for the first time and seemed to be like a match made in heaven with personalities that were similar and contradictory enough to let them get along.

So far, in the town, three apartments were already made and one of them had even installed an elevator for easy access. That one was the highest that they planned to build with twelve stories and a secure foundation.

Kelly was the one who had created the basic structure of metal beams, but she had Rune enchant each one of them with a sturdiness and durability enchantment which exhausted his entire mana supply, leaving him stuck in the lab for several days. When he came out, he was thankful that only about a minute and a half passed.

On the perimeter of the city area, there were barrier mages working on the magic barrier structure and how it would be formed. The core for the barrier needed nothing, but to stay in one piece. Rune decided to place a fake core under the school and the real core was buried underground where only he knew the location of it.

There was also a cafe, two restaurants, three different stores, and six more apartments that seemed to be almost completed. Within a couple days, many people would find houses to live in and employment in work sectors. Even now, some people were already working and getting pay for helping in the building process or helping Kelly and Jared with things in the lab.

The apartment complexes were going to be made with a sturdy foundation of metal and limestone. Then there would be balconies with glass doors leading up to them. Each floor would house anywhere from four to ten apartments depending on the building. There would be at least one bedroom, a kitchen connected to a dining area, a bathroom, and a small living room/foyer.

There was a smithy being made, but it was far from being completed and it was quite evident that it was a pain making it.

Along with the original workers, there were the people that Jared had brought in along with the people the king had sent over. There was a total of around 300 people working, each equipped with construction tools and safety gear.

Back to the cafe, Rune was wiping the mouth of a slightly clumsy Sophia who had finished a creampuff. He was smiling a goofy smile as he saw how cute she was and she was blushing as she was embarrassed. The reason why she was clumsy was due to her being only focused during potion and alchemy making and she wasn’t really used to the outside world.

At this point, they were finished with their meal and they had paid for them. They decided to leave the shop and, at the moment they stepped out, teleported back to his home.

She immediately braced herself against Rune and then wobbled over to the sofa. She was happy that she got to go out with Rune, but exhausted by the walking and the teleportation.

Then Rune waved goodbye to her, told her to tell everyone else that he said “Hi” and left.

Rena was having a hard time dealing with the insects. She was burdened with more work as Rouna had used up most of her mana and was resting to try and get some back. Currently, she was lying face first on the floor trying to speak to them, but they were too tired to listen.

Elisa was putting down covering fire for Rouna and was sitting down next to her. She was in quite the predicament as she was terrible at shooting and there was no one else to rely on. Rouna couldn’t move in the slightest and was lying with her arms at her sides.

Erin was using a chain gun that used mana as its power source. Since Erin was a Dragonborn, he was able to use magic, but he was a neutral element dragon meaning that he relied more on physical strength than magical prowess. Even so, it took a lot of strength to hold the gun and even more to withstand the pressure after each blast.

Riika was cowering under a shield with her radio. The radio was now just a smaller part of the radio, but still effective. She was forced to ditch a large chunk behind in the caverns as the rest was broken and barely good enough to be called scrap metal.

Hika was expertly using a burst shot rifle where she could shoot three insects with just a single tug on the trigger. Each bullet from the rifle destroyed the head of a single insect. Their brains turned to mush and their heads became shredded as she killed.

As all hope seemed lost and Riika was desperately trying to not die, Rune appeared in a flash of blue light. He looked around and created three rings of dark smoke around them. As the insects breathed it in, the life seemed to leave their eyes as they tumbled downwards where, as soon as they fell, Rune stored or absorbed them.

Then the ring of fog drew nearer to the group and he cast [Ultimate Shine] which dispersed the fog leaving the rest of the group a clear image of the sand dunes around them and clear skies with no insects.

Rune had first decided to cast [Dark Fog] which would have likely killed everyone except him if he wasn’t careful. It wouldn’t harm him not because he was the user, but because he was immune to Dark attacks and effects.

He looked around at the group and sighed. He was currently in his Human form and was not wearing any armor, just his usual dark clothes.

“It looks like I need to train people more…”