Chương 1067: Day One Thousand And Sixty-Five

Dear Diary, Man, this Season could probably be titled 'Archmage Sister Siobhan Darling reminds Tabitha that not everyone can bench press small cars'. Seriously, I get that not everybody is as strong as I am. Even as just little Blended tentacle tip me, I'm still Strong as fuck when compared to pretty much anybody save top tier Deities known for their Strength.

Yes, I'm pretty sure that when I've got access to my whole body for whatever typically massive atrocity trauma prompted that kind of cooperation from the rest of me, I can overpower just about anybody out there. Maybe some of the East Asian Deities might give me a run for my money. I would not want to tangle with Gojira, for example.

Yes, I'm fully aware that Gojira is not actually a traditional East Asian Deity, and thus might not exist here and now, but he's what Japanese folks in the fifties thought of when they thought 'unstoppable force', which I'm guessing puts a lower limit on what they think of as 'Physically Strong Deities'.

Growing up in a place like Camden may have left me with all kinds of trauma that I'm still digging through with the help of my family, but the pragmatic cynicism and pessimism I learned there have stood me in good stead here, if only because nobody ever said, 'oh, no, you hit the Evil Atrocityfest Deity so hard he took no damage'.

'Ew', 'oh, Goddess, I'm gonna vomit, and 'aim a little to the left next time, the fields downrange could use the fertilizer', sure, but not 'you hit them too hard to hurt them'. Of course, there's also that ongoing knowledge that anybody who can go Strength to Strength with me is at that point where Zack Snyder, despite not really getting the Kryptonian Boy Scout's basic character, would be completely correct about the side effects of me punching them in the face full force, or vice versa.

Any time I'm gonna face one of those fucks, I need to be someplace where I'm not worried about nearby collateral. While I am surprisingly not sanguine about doing so underwater, what with the Kraken apparently being drawn to anyplace I hang out long enough, doing so right above the middle of the ocean seems fine, what with the relative density of air and water providing some shock absorption.

The only other places I can think of where I'd be okay going all out like that would be maybe the middle of a desert, deep underground somewhere otherwise geologically stable, or maybe someplace where I didn't really care about the locals. Olympus comes to mind, but even there some of the nominal Olympians aren't complete assholes. Shit, Hestia seems pretty solid.

If her daughter is anything to go by, Demeter isn't terrible, although the entire 'make everybody starve until and unless my daughter comes back' is a big assed red flag. Diana... I don't think she really lives on Olympus any more. I guess I'd have to give her the heads up if I was gonna throw down there, maybe ask her to evacuate Hestia and Demeter.

Not sure on Athena; her High Priest being just fine overseeing rape and murder is not something I'm copacetic with, but who knows, Lancaster managed to remove his head from his ass pretty well on his own. Y'know, once he realized that him sans head wasn't really something we'd cry big tears over. At any rate, I get that I personally am Strong beyond any reasonable measure, Strong to the point where I might be able to go toe-to-toe with some of those beefy superhero types.

I've got even more Endurance than Strength, which is why along with that acknowledgement about shit like shockwaves above, I'm more comfortable fighting my peers in M-Space than in the Mortal Realm. But the thing is, most of the people I have any reason to test are, to put it mildly, well beyond human norms. Seriously, Murder Mittens can put her claws right through Cold Iron Plate, which means there's no Mystical Claw Fu Woo going on there, just vaguely blunted claws and muscle power.

Okay, Mana enhanced muscle power, but Mana is pretty much behind everything 'beyond the norm' here and now. From what I can tell, even Skills like Kitchen Witchery use it in some ways, even if most of that is just, y'know, me learning the how and why of doing things in the kitchen. I haven't had a lot of reason to push Heroes to their limits, but I do so to Cadets on the regular.

So while I don't actually Inspect them on the regular, and when I do it to get an idea whether they need help with something in particular I don't so much look over everything as scan through looking for anomalies like one Attribute being multiple Tiers higher than the others or something like that, I do have a solid idea of what a 'normal' Cadet can lift. Which, to be clear, is a bar that keeps going up through the Season, as they're all working toward whatever their personal plateau is.

Because everybody has those, and I've gotten really lucky in that mine are so high nobody can tell I've plateaued. At any rate, after spending yesterday getting every supposedly rational reason I might hate myself shot down and stomped on by the fam, I gave Dad a hug, stepped home, did the same to Mom, who left for Dad's place almost immediately. Yeah, given the look on her face, I suspect she was in the mood to practice making more kids.

Good to know that even after all the time and tribulations they've been through, they're still attracted to one another. At any rate, sat down and started feeding Siobhan. Feeding her what I vaguely remembered as the right shit to eat the night before working out, which wasn't exactly what she wanted.

"Why must I eat the greasy meat?" I shook my head at that.

"Nothing Marie makes is greasy, and you know it. But getting some lipids in you tonight will help you keep going tomorrow without falling over." Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. Yeah, that got me a pouty look, but she ate more tendies. Dark meat, as requested, because some part of my brain remembered that being better for pre-workout.

Which may or may not be correct, mind you, but after a whole day of people telling me not to doubt myself except when I was down on myself, I figured I'd go with it anyhow. Besides, it tasted good. I nommed one as she watched, still pouty. When she finished chewing and swallowed she said, "ought I not eat lightly, lest I bring it all back up?"

"Nah. This stuff will be well on it's way through you by tomorrow. In the morning we'll stick with mostly carbs and fiber. Maybe some more protein as well to give your body something to work with."

"I did not know that being my personal trainer would also put you in charge of my menu." I smiled at her and fed her another tender.

"Yeah, well. Do you really mind all that much?" She just smiled at me through her pout.

"Not really," she said after swallowing. Dreamt of my ladies doing more choreography. Again, they pulled one of my tentacles in. Really weird thing, it didn't seem so much like 'dancing' as some kind of weird stage play. Like one of those Avant Garde things that used to pop up on my feed for no particular reason. Weirdest part is that some parts of it seemed almost like I ought to remember them.

Woke up confused, but not entirely displeased, because part of the choreography had me dunking ladies, which is always a treat. Breakfast consisted of eggs, waffles, and Marie's signature syrup gravy. I mean, back in my first Season I put away a lot of protein on PT days, but I thought she might need the carbo loading just as much. Besides, we didn't have those loaves of black bread that I nommed by the handful back then. When we got to the Practice Yard, once the Cadets got into formation, I called Siobhan in.

She stepped in right next to me, and I put a hand on her shoulder.

"Cadets, we've got a special guest joining us today and for the foreseeable future. This is Archmage Sister Siobhan Darling, the woman in charge of the Ladies' Dormitory Infirmary." That got some real odd looks from the female Cadets, so I nodded and said, "she's been on maternity leave for about a year. At any rate, Sister Siobhan, these are my Phileo Physical Training Cadets, Cadets, this is Sister Siobhan." One of the Cadet's hands shot up. Cadet Lands, of course.

At my nod he asked, "will she be attempting to test for Cadet status?" I hadn't even thought of that, so I glanced over to her. She stepped forward and announced, "I will not. I will, however, be returning to my duties in the Infirmary soon, and felt this will help speed my convalescence. Also, while I will not be seeking the Title of Hero, there are other reasons I might need more physical prowess in the future." Didn't think you'd talk about the Bedroom to the Cadets, but I'm here for it! Not that...

Does it really make that much of a difference? I just waggled my eyebrows, then turned to Lands.

"Does that answer your question, Cadet?"

"Yes, Champion!"

"Okay then, let's start our new trainee off with a nice morning run!" Yeah, turns out Siobhan isn't anywhere near as fast as the Cadets, and by the time she'd finished one lap, the slowest of them had done two. Good Cadets, though, they neither trampled her nor slowed down, they just raced past her like they did their slower classmates. Some time around her third lap, she waved me over.

"Aren't... There... Skills... For this?" She panted out, stumbling forward despite how sweat soaked her robes. Which she'd insisted on wearing for some reason, despite me suggesting she might be better off in trousers or a shorter skirt.

"Do you want the good news or bad news?"

"Your... Choice..." I nodded, wondering if I'd need to step her to the Infirmary sooner than later.

"Yeah, the good news is that there are Skills like that, and once you've got your baseline worked up I'll teach them to you, and what with that Archmage mojo you've got going on, they'll probably work really well for you."

"Bad... News?"

"I'm not teaching them to you until we've got your baseline worked up, because they'll totally screw with training your physical body, and training it will screw with training the Skills.

"Fuck." I just jogged backwards in front of her.

"If you keep going like this, sure. But I'm guessing you'll want me to do all the work?"

"Didn't... Aren't... Scandalous?"

"Oh, noes, there will be a scandal about me and my Concubine." Yeah, she just slapped weakly at me with her sopping wet sleeve. I stepped in some water for her, because she hadn't really had as much as I normally drank with breakfast. When she finished a mile, I did a little surreptitious Stabilizing to pump some Mana into her, because that was when the rest of the Cadets were ready to do weight lifting. She couldn't move the lightest weights we had on the bench press. She struggled with the bar.

"I'm so weak." I shook my head.

"You're not Strong. But that doesn't mean you're weak. It just means you've never worked your muscles like this. Give it time and practice." Credit to her, she tried. She managed a full set with just the bar, even if on the last rep her arms had noodled completely and I had to catch it before it clotheslined her. The leg press she did better on, even if the most she could do was less than the weakest of the Cadets had managed by the end of their first week. Finally she did squats, and those were better and worse.

Better because she didn't try nearly as much weight, and she managed to both balance the bar well and actually squat down far enough, which I had some problems with at first. Worse because I had to tag her with some healing because some stuff was still apparently slightly loosey goosey from her being just post preggers. Yeah, apparently Dan age slow, but they heal slow too. For Agility practice I had the Cadets dancing today. So we got to dance together. So fun watching her blush. Especially when I had her lead.

At lunch she insisted on going home. Fortunately, not quitting for the day. She needed to feed Aoibh, because for the last couple hours things had been getting less and less comfortable in her chest region. While she offloaded milk into Aoibh, I spoon fed her pudding and bisque.

I kinda wished there was something better for it, but food is still kinda seasonal, and sweet fruit is in sorta short supply; most of what we had on the Homestead was going into stuff like pie, where Marie and I could stretch it out so everybody got some. The afternoon was dancing, then lifting, then running. Pretty typical for a day of PT, really.

Okay, typical PT day I don't have to carry one of my students home while she dreamt of what she wanted to do in the Bedroom, but I can't say where I mind that all that much.