The precaution of using the southern path towards the island of Sicily, as a means to avoid further contact with Olympians, proved to be a good idea as eventually my little group reached so far, that we left the sphere of influence of the Olympian pantheon, so to speak. This way I also learned that there were indeed more such beings such as Persephone, other than the Olympians. Although given the amount of different deities ancient humanity had, there was no surprise, that there were more. Looking back on my first life as a Japanese salaryman, it was possible that there were some beings similar to Aphrodite, if Izanami and Izanagi were anything to go by. Beings who were once called Primordials, but eventually, over the course of centuries they diminished themselves in order to be able to communicate with humanity.
Going outside of the Olympian territory, proved to be slightly daunting for Persephone since she was never that far from her homeland. She mentioned that there were technically no problems with us passing through the territories of others, but she did mention a warning that was given to her and that was to not try to convert people to follow Olympian religious practices and neither cause any damage to the region or its people. Simply put, these rules existed to keep idiots, like Athena, from causing international accidents.
I personally had no intention to cause any form of bad PR. Especially, when I was trying to keep a low profile while avoiding any unnecessary attention from Olympians. If anything, encountering the Egyptian pharaoh, during the travel throughout the Levant region, and helping him escape the mortal danger of encirclement by enemies, should help my little group pass through the Egyptian pantheon's territory with no problem. Horray for nepotism!
All went as well as planned. My travel companions and I were not once stopped, by some unreasonable Egyptian god-pretender, or even bothered by them at all. It was great that we did not need a visa, to travel across Egypt.
Although having to pay the price of doing whatever the Egyptian pharaoh, Ramesses the Great, came up with, was not the in my itinerary, it was necessary to keep the good relations. In the end, my group and I spent only a few weeks traveling to Egypt, observing the boasting pharaon. But at least I got a monetary reward after discussing possible war strategies with the king of Egypt.
A curious thing was an observation of the little fact that Egypt or northern Africa, was a whole less covered in sand than during my time, in the Imperial Army in my second life. In the end, it was preferable this way, rather than reenacting the whole debacle known as the southern campaign, under General Romel.
And then, the greatest thing of this third life of mine happened. We were about to leave Egypt, just one border city, when suddenly a snake-oil salesman appeared. In other words a scammer of the ancient world. He started with quite an unbelievable story, ending it with a request for money. I could see Medusa and to some degree even Persephone falling for the obviously fake sob story, that was why I decided to get rid of him as soon as possible. But then he showed the content of container of his "miraculous" medicine. It was coffee! The whole pot contained somewhat freshly looking, non-roasted coffee beans! I could not believe my eyes at that moment. But it was true, there in front of me was a coffee! Of course, it would need some processing before it was a drinkable beverage, but through the sheer random accident, I managed to come across the one thing I wanted the most. Hallelujah! Or not, since Being X was not involved in this.
But there was just a slight problem, with obtaining the coffee. The price the scammer asked for the coffee beans, was just too high for very few beans. Moreover, if I wanted a steady supply of coffee, I would have to be able to grow it on my own, since the content of the scammer's pot would be consumed in a few short months. And given that my lifespan was now functionally infinite, I had no intention of waiting several centuries, until the coffee was once again rediscovered by humanity. Maybe I could introduce the coffee culture early? If people discovered its greatness during the time of antiquity, it could spread around the world way faster. By doing this, I would be able to taste many different varieties of coffee, in some time.
Either way, since it was an obvious scammer, who was intending to scam the less worldly Medusa and Persephone, I had absolutely no problem scamming him back. Given that he seemed in a hurry, even if his excuse for it was fake, I suggested that he leave the vessel full of coffee behind, so that he can run faster. For a scammer, he was not very intelligent.
Alas, I had no pity for him, unlike Medusa. She berated me for tricking the poor soul. At least until I reminded her that the scammer introduced himself as Egyptian royalty, which he could not be since she met the Egyptian pharaon, just the other day. With all the remaining amniosy being cleared a few hours later, me and my group encountered a mob of angry people, who did recognize the coffee pot, I was holding. It was Medusa herself who pointed the mob, to the nearest city where the scammer had run to. So much so for the pity.
Arriving near the city of Carthage, the last stop on the continent, before departing for the island of Sicily, was not without complications. There in front of the city, was a numerous armored force stationed. Although calling it numerous, would be perhaps an overestimation at least compared to my second life. But for this time and age, something over two thousand soldiers was not a small number.
Yet perhaps, to breach the city of the size of Carthage it was too little. Moreover, any kind of appropriately sized logistics was nowhere to be seen. Rather the troops appeared to be camping outside of the city, instead of trying to occupy it. Perhaps they had their supplies provided through a sea route? But nothing out of the ordinary could be seen on the horizon, and more importantly, no armada trying to block the sea access to the Carthage.
Then there was the other option and it was, that the two battalions of armed soldiers outside of the city, were just preparing for some other campaign somewhere else, and were gathering there, rather than inside of the city. In that case, there would be no great danger to my group.
Alas, there was probably no need to find out what, the armed forces were gathering in front of Carthage for since my group should be able to avoid them and pass to the city without much of a problem. Though it never hurt to be prepared for any possibility.
Statistically speaking it was highly unlikely that the good luck, of not encountering any major danger, would last should I change the plans and and venture a longer path through the straight of Gibraltar. Therefore this left me with immediate risk, but the probable higher reward, in the form of a shorter path to Sicily.
Also, I should take into consideration, that the possible enemy were only humans. How strange that sounded, but I had to accept the fact that I was not a human anymore, neither I was the monster I thought myself to be for several centuries, but rather an Olympian, certainly not a god, even if many of my kind liked to call themselves as such.
Ultimately the the whole situation of not being human anymore was very similar to the fact that I was a mage during my second life. As such an average soldier and even most of the other aerial mages, were nowhere near my, back-then, capabilities. The only difference was that, right now humans did not possess technological means to hurt me in any significant manner. However, that would change in the future.
But for now, I was shielded from the potentially fatal consequences of my actions, therefore I was safe to assume that getting through a potential siege, was less dangerous than I would have estimated it to be.
Yet, it did not mean, that I could become arrogant since the consequences were inconsequential. This would be a way to become and self-absorbed arrogant and incompetent individual just like Being X. Now thinking about it, what if this was exactly his plan? It could not be, as I established many times, that Being X was not present in this world, moreover, his modus operandi was very different. If he wanted me to become like him, he would have not gained any faith in me, therefore it was impossible for him to put me in such a situation.
And even if, this was some form of long-term plan, which was not capable of, I was nothing like him and never would become anything like him. Certainly not, since I had no people worshipping me, nor I would ever demand it from anyone. Yes, I would much rather have my human resources to be competent atheists, than foolish zealots.