Ritzy moved his mana-filled hand while expecting the same thing to happen again. He thought that his hand would simply pass right through the Deathbed. The previous experiences were too striking for him to simply assume that things would change by merely adding some mana to his hand.
Ritzy movements also made Gerhart and Mognog think the same. So, they were all equally surprised when Ritzy smacked the Deathbed with a soft tap. But if it had been just that, they wouldn’t have been so surprised since it would still have been reasonable.
What they didn’t think was reasonable was Ritzy’s smack pushing the Deathbed as if it weighed as much as a feather.
The Deathbed moved with Ritzy’s hand effortlessly. It didn’t even leave any traces behind in the ground.
Ritzy was instantly enraptured by the sensation and grabbed the bedframe and began moving the bed back and forth over the ground.
“Woah…!”
Mognog’s gaze didn’t move from the moving bed.
“What does it feel like, kiddo? Is it heavy? Does it take a lot of mana?”
Ritzy shook his head without diverting much attention from the bed. He still had to control his mana to grab it, and any too-intense distraction would break that control.
“I don’t know.”
Gerhart snapped out of his amazed daze.
“We’re going to need more details, Ritzy.”
It was good that Ritzy could seemingly move the Deathbed without it taking any effort or strength since that meant they could still use it to transport Talia without Ritzy collapsing from exhaustion. However, it was only valid if Rittzy didn’t have to use mana to do it or if it was sustainable.
They also had to figure out if there were any limitations on how he could move it. Otherwise, it would be a pain in the ass to finesse the bed through the forest. It would be possible to fit the bed through the trees if they could flip it. They would probably still have to find and use wider paths, but it would be more doable than dragging or pushing the wide bed between the trees.
Ritzy didn’t pull his gaze or hand away from the bed, but his voice sounded a little clearer as he answered Gerhart.
“It doesn’t weigh anything, and it doesn’t really feel like I’m moving anything. And it doesn’t consume any mana. I could do this for days without getting tired.”
“If it doesn’t weigh anything, can you raise it?”
Mognog’s eyes flickered thoughtfully as he watched the bed. Ritzy followed the skeleton’s suggestion and grabbed the bedframe a little tighter, and began lifting it.
Although he had said the Deathbed felt weightless when he moved it from side to side, Ritzy had still expected to have to use some effort as he tried to lift it. But the feeling was unchanged, and the Deathbed followed his move without even a hint of being affected by gravity.
“Huh. That seemed a little too easy, kiddo. What happens if you drop it?”
Ritzy moved the bed around in all directions a little before following the empirical suggestion Mognog gave him.
“Are you sure you let go, Ritzy?”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Are you blind?”
Ritzy showed off his free hands. He even stood up and stepped back from the bed to prove that he had nothing to do with the fact that it remained locked in place in the middle of the air.
Gerhart and Mognog didn’t have a choice but to believe Ritzy. But mostly because they didn’t think Ritzy could do something like that without them noticing.
“Okay… So, if Ritzy doesn’t move the bed, the bed doesn’t move? Even if it stays in the middle of the air. That could be pretty useful, right, Mognog?”
“As a distraction or something? Yeah. Go ahead and try doing the same, archer guy.”
“Me?”
“Yeah. You’re the archer guy, aren’t you, Gerhart? Wait. You can use mana, right?”
“...a little.”
“Well, we’ll deal with that later. If you have enough, try and do what Ritzy did.”
Gerhart nodded and began steering his mana into his hand. Since he had done it when they entered the dungeon, it wasn’t something completely unfamiliar. But he was a little worried about what would happen.
Nothing had happened when he tried without mana, but something obviously changed when Ritzy used his mana. So, it was very likely it would be the same for Gerhart. The only question was in what way it would change.
Mognog had bounced off the Deathbed for unknown reasons. So, the bed could differentiate between different entities. At least, that’s what Gerhart surmised.
Gerhart reached out and put his hand on the bed with trepidation in his heart and mana in his hand.
By this point, ritzy and the other two had already been stunned, shocked, and surprised too many times to really care. But it was still slightly startling when Gerhart’s hand passed through the bed as if it wasn’t there, even when he had guided his mana into his hand.
“Didya use enough mana, Gerry?”
Ritzy taunted Gerhart a little as he moved the bed around again.
Gerhart glared at Ritzy and was about to snap back when Mognog spoke.
“Not impossible. But it’s most likely an identity issue. The bed is conjured using your mana, so your mana is needed to control it, kiddo.”
Gerhart’s frown softened.
“...I see. But wait, if it’s controlled using Ritzy’s mana, shouldn’t he be able to control it using only mana? He shouldn’t have to need his hand to push it around, right?”
Mognog didn’t even need to say anything as he and Gerhart looked at Ritzy with eyes shining with expectation. Well, Mognog’s eyes were literally fire, so they shone all the time.
After Gerhart made that realization, it didn’t take much for them to realize that their future would get a lot more diverse and easy to extend if Ritzy could use his mind and mana to control the bed.
Depending on Ritzy’s skill and control, it would be a lot easier to move through the forest with the Deathbed carrying Talia if he didn’t manually have to drag and push it to fit between the trees.
Ritzy felt the weight of Mognog’s and Gerhart’s gazes. They were significantly heavier than the Deathbed.
But even without them looking at him like that, he would still have tried. Controlling the bed with his mind seemed pretty fun, after all.
So, Ritzy closed his eyes and focused on the bed the same way he connected with Maya’s skeleton when he first cast Deathbed. But this time, he had a much easier time finding and connecting the bed since it shone with the same light as his mana.
Even with closed eyes, Ritzy felt as if he could clearly see the bed sitting mid-air in front of him.
However, he couldn’t move it just like that. No matter how hard he imagined or willed the bed to move, it didn’t budge.
Ritzy frowned in concentration as he controlled the mana in his body again. He dragged it a lap around his body to gather strength before he launched it out and toward the bed.
Without the supporting power of a spell, it was nearly impossible to maintain control over the mana he let loose in the air. It would have dissipated almost immediately if it didn’t reach the bed fast enough and anchored to it.
And just like that, Ritzy had managed to create a tether between himself and the bed using his mana. Ritzy felt a little elated at his idea working. But he still had to see if the tether would let him control the bed or if it would just pull the bed along without him having to do anything.
Gerhart and Mognog looked on in silence as Ritzy’s frown deepened in concentration.
Ritzy focused on the tether linking him and the bed. He quickly inspected its stability and quality before repeating what he did before he launched and connected his mana with the bed.
He imagined the bed moving to the left.
The bed moved.