Chapter 28 – Towards the City (1/2)

As I turned to leave the store, I remembered one more thing I was interested in.

”Oh”

”Yes? Is there anything I can help you with? Like maybe dinner? I have a bottle of fine wine we'd been keeping for a special occasion”

(If you have something like that, sell it and get some more stock in. Or at least use it to find a way to bring in more business instead of lazing around in the back room)

His over eagerness almost made me turn back around and leave immediately, but someone who worked at the village's only store was likely to have the information I needed.

”Have...you heard of the name Alicia?”

”Huh? Oh, I have...”

(Bingo)

He looked to the side awkwardly.

”I was wondering if I you could tell me where her family lives? She was a little girl about six and couldn't see”

”If you don't mind me asking, but what's your relationship with Alicia?”

”We lived together for a while”

”Really? In that case, how's she doing right now?”

”She...even when we first met, she was sick, and just recently...”

I bit my lip. I'd been crying so much lately, I didn't want to do so in front of a stranger.

”Haaa...I see. Well, I suppose that much is alright”

After receiving directions and a bit of wandering, I found the house I was looking for. The single floored wooden building was dilapidated and had dried mud forced into cracks in the walls.

Once again, I wiped my face with my sleeve. In the end, I couldn't stop the tears from falling, but I did manage to stifle any open weeping. I suppose that was progress, but progress towards what? I wasn't sure that was a destination I wanted to ever reach.

The sun was starting to reach the top of the forest to the west as the trees cast looming shadows that climbed over the western village walls.

There was a faint orange glow visible through the open windows, and I could hear people talking.

I walked up to the door, but my courage faltered and I couldn't bring myself to knock.

”Mama, I'm hungry”

”I know dear. But you know that if we don't finish spinning these threads, we won't be able to buy dinner”

(What?)

”I know, but I'm still hungry”

”That's right mama!”

”I'm hungry too!”

”sigh The faster we finish, the faster I can buy ingredients for dinner. If we make enough, maybe we'll even have enough for breakfast tomorrow”

”I'll do it! I'll make a ton!”

”Me too! It's been so long!”

”What's breakfast?”

(Just what is...)

I slumped down on to my butt as I heard their conversation through the open windows. Without any glass, anything they said was clear to me through the open shutters.

(To think it really was this bad)

Right up until this moment, I had suspected that what Alicia had said about always being hungry was something that only happened to her, that her family might have taken advantage of the fact that she was blind and unfairly given her smaller portions or something.

But everything about this village screamed poverty, and if Alicia's family couldn't even afford three meals a day, then things had to be pretty bad.

I had no idea what I was going to do when I confronted them, but now I couldn't bring myself to even show my face. I wanted to blame them, to yell at them for abandoning a helpless little girl, but it was obvious they had no choice. From the sound of it, they really were near their limit.

Anything I would've done, could've done, it was all gone now.

There was only really one thing I could do.

And so, I took a few steps from the door and put a few haunches of boar meat along with some fruit and vegetables on to the ground. Beside them I folded an old potato sack with some holes cut out of it and left it on top of a magically made a stone slate with an etched message.

[Thank you for taking care of her until we could meet]

I flew through the air awkwardly. After leaving those gifts, I activated [Spirit Form] and bounded over the village walls.

For some reason, it felt like there was warmth spreading from my chest. Was this Alicia giving her approval?

(Naw, it's probably just my imagination)

I shook my head of my delusions and concentrated on the future. Apparently the next city was five days away if I followed the only road out of this village. If that was the case, then I might as well learn a form of high-speed movement that wasn't just sprinting really fast.

At first I concentrated on leaping into the air while using [Float], but the air resistance really messed that up and prevented me from going too fast for long. Alternatively, using wind magic to eliminate drag meant that I fell back to the ground pretty quickly. Using both on the other hand got me the best of both worlds, though changing direction mid-air was a problem, as any attempt to do so using magic would bring back all the drag as the first spell would fizzle out. But with just this, I could leap far and quickly, and it was really efficient on my MP.

Though I had to stop because the little fluffballs couldn't keep up.

Instead of going at full tilt, the second the sun sank under the horizon, I tried experimenting with something different.

It was the artificial wings made from [Alter Silhouette].

Remembering how I did it months ago, I formed large wings from my back, complete with the proper bone and muscle structure needed to make them move the way I wanted. Together with a running start, I flapped those wings and took off using the [Flight] skill.

Then smashed my face into the ground a few meters ahead.

The fluffballs circled around me. It felt like they were laughing. At least someone was enjoying it.

My pride and dignity had been caved, but my motivation to hadn't.

With my feet under me again, I move my wings up a bit along my spine and try again, this time making it a few meters before landing on my hands and knees. A few more adjustments and tries later, and I was gently gliding across the ground as I did my best to avoid having my arms and legs flail around in the new, awkward position.

It felt so unnatural having my body supported by nothing but the air under my artificial wings and the power of my [Flight] skill. Instinctively, I wanted to keep reaching out and grab something to support my body, but being a few meters from the ground, there was obviously nothing to grab on to, aside from the little fluffballs who'd been orbiting around me excitedly like they were looking at a baby deer take it's first few steps.

No, from their perspective, maybe it really was something like that.

I never liked zoos anyways.

That aside, I doubted very much that the spirits would be able to support my weight. Even worse, if I tried it, their lack of a physical body suggested that they lacked any real mass as well, so I'd probably just flip end over end and fall to the ground out of control.

I wasn't about to give them another reason to laugh at me.

Run, leap, glide, land. Run, leap, glide, land.

Until I was able to make myself settle down and glide without any flailing, I monotonously continued to practice basic gliding for minutes, maybe even an hour or two.

The little spirits quickly got bored, so I gave them a few mana treats here and there so that they wouldn't run off and disappear on me. Sometimes it felt like I was just taking care of a bunch of feral cats. At least they didn't scratch me out of nowhere.

When I felt like I had a hang on just gliding straight forward, I tweaked it, banking side to side, more and more...until I fell into an uncontrolled spin and over corrected to spin the other way and slammed into the ground, raising dust into the air.

As the dust cleared, the fluffballs were laughing again.

Never in my two lives did I want a fly swatter more than I did then.

My persistence paid off and I avoided repeating that mistake. Banking from side to side became reliable and easy.

But the real test was to move from simply gliding to actually flying.

I took a few deep breaths and folded my wings to give myself as much height as I could in a single jump.

With a running start, I hopped, planted both feet onto the ground, then sprung up with all the force I could muster, leaving the ground behind. The air rushed past me, flipping back my hood. I held my hat down with a hand before it could get blown away.

As all things that go up, gravity won out over my momentum and I started my descent. But of course, I wasn't content to go without a fight, so I spread my wings, entering a smooth glide as I pulled up from the near vertical drop.

The glide was as perfect as I could ask at my level of skill. There was some great forward momentum helping to maintain my stability as I felt the wind wisp past my body, giving my senses the feedback I needed in absence of an actual instinctive sense of how to balance myself in flight.

The wind felt good, the way it caressed my cheeks and flowed roughly around my body. The noisy flapping my robes did in the wind was annoying, but it was better than going around in what was little better than a bikini. I was in human territory now, no excuses to be uncivilized.

(But speaking of flapping...)

floomf!

The heavy sound as my wings beat against the air reached my ears as I felt a sense of instantaneous vertigo, before the feeling flipped on itself and I was back in free fall.

My mind had trouble coping with the unfamiliar mix of sensations, but the instinct I had started developing came to my rescue, arresting my fall and bringing me back into a glide as they stretched out and stabilized me.

(What was...?)

I tried to wrap my mind around the feelings. It was like I was suddenly throw into the air by a giant, then immediately after being in a high-speed elevator that suddenly started to descend.

(Actually, when I word it that way...)

What I experienced was obvious. The single flap was strong enough to lift my body up a substantial amount, and in my confusion, I simply didn't raise my wings back to prevent me from dropping right after.

I felt stupid, but humans weren't made to fly like this. Not like I was human, but that was beside the point.

Once more, and much more carefully, I flapped my wings. This time, the same hard pull of momentum resisting my body assaulted my senses, but it wasn't nearly as bad as the first time.