My suspicions regarding the trip being boring proved right. It has become routine to just pull the cart for most of the day, pretend to sleep for some four hours, using an excuse of checking the surrounding to spend a little time with Dixy and being on night watch with the insufferably quiet Shadow. In addition, Yasia constantly seems to want to talk to me, but backs out. I wonder if it is about why she told Big Mother about Dixy?
This has persisted for a week and we are not even half-way to our first stop on the way. I can’t go on like this. I have already contemplated revealing my secrets just to alleviate the boredom, but disclosing it to virtual strangers seem like a bad move.
It torments me for most of the eighth day until I cave. The metal carriage seems durable and I do want more practice with my flying magic… What’s the worst I can happen.
It is in the middle of the eighth day since we left and I suggest it.
“You know, I actually know some pretty unique magic that could make this journey a lot faster.”
“Really?” Benen looks interested.
“Yian, no!” Patir screams out.
“Oh come one, this is so boring! And this is much safer than last time… Probably!” I honestly don’t know, but I imagine leaving the ground would make harder to crash.
“I am not risking the safety of my client!” Shadow chimes in, which is rarity.
“Yeah, tell him!” Patir adds.
“Nono, watch this.” I channel the levitation magic into the carriage and exert a bit of force to lift it off the ground. It wobbles a little, and I quickly adjust it so it stays relatively level and cancel out the lifting force so that it floats in mid-air. It is surprisingly difficult to keep it upright, since it is so disconnected from my own body and it takes a great deal more thrust to move, perhaps because it is so heavy. This might be a bad idea after all.
“Woah, what the hell?” “How??” “What?” Benen, Patir and Kurat are all flabbergasted. Right, Patir hasn’t even seen my levitation magic. Yasia is surprisingly the only one that seems calm, as Kassa and Shadow are clearly surprised despite their lack of utterances.
“What the hell is going on?” Sounds from inside the carriage. Shadow looks at me. Does he want me to explain it? I am not really sure, so I just wait.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“Okna! Explain!” Okna?
Shadow turns back to the carriage at those words and speaks. “The carriage it’s… in the air… but still… Like, it doesn’t fall… I don’t know how to explain it.” Okna sounds like a woman’s name… is that why he goes by Shadow?
“What?” Even though the Tarrun is confounded, he appears to have no intention of leaving the carriage.
“Put it down!” Patir shouts at me. Jeez. I create several small forces on top of it to push it down to the ground gently, then cancel all of the magics.
“I don’t know what the hell that was, but don’t do it again!” Shadow shouts at me. I feel a little hopeless. I had just wanted to make this journey easier on us.
“Right… Then, let’s move along.” I give up on my attempt and resign myself to dragging the carriage again.
“Hey, hey you can’t seriously think we can just ignore this?” Benen said. I turned around and no one other than me and the carriage has moved.
“What the hell was that?”
“Just… magic?” I replied.
“I ain’t never seen any magic like that before! Just where did you learn it?!”
“Erhm… From a book?”
“Eh?! A book?! Do you have it?! That must be worth millions of Pekos!”
“It’s not for sale!” Dixy is the one companion I will have throughout however long I live.
“Can I at least see it?”
“No!”
We slowly get moving again, while Benen continues to pester me with questions about the book. I am such a fucking idiot, trying this.
Once we set up for the evening, Patir concurs. “What were you thinking? Don’t you realize what may happen now?” His concerns seem to be something other than being bothered by Benen though.
“This is going to be told as a story. People love telling stories about the unusual. This is gonna spread like wildfire… And then people are going to want that book.” Patir explains his concerns. “You should have lied and told them it was part of your gift!”
“Just that? Do you not think I can handle a couple of thieves?” I reply.
“You never know what kind of gifts lurk out there. There was a guy in service to the duke, could make himself completely imperceptible for a few seconds. And it’s not just thieves. People in power by try to exert pressure on you to get the book.” I think I caked it again. I have learnt it is unwise to attract the attention of powerful people in this world.
“Shit. What do we do?” Patir shrugs. “Not much for now, but once the story is being shared, I will start spreading the rumor that it was already stolen. But think before you act, man!”
I feel compelled to tell him that I knew it was probably a bad idea, but I couldn’t stand the boredom of this trip… But then I thought that made me sound like a kid and refrained.
The night continues like the others before it, except Shadow glares at me extra hard today, during our shift. The others awake, breakfast is made, but as Shadow delivers the breakfast, we hear a “What!?” exclaimed from the carriage.
It was Shadow's voice and soon he comes out of the carriage and approaches me. "Boss wants you to do the thing you tried yesterday. But be careful!" Huh?
"The Tarrun said that?" But as soon as I had uttered those words, and was on and a fist threatened to hit me.
"Just where did you learn that?"