Chapter 28 – Towards the City (2/2)

Without anything nearby to compare against, it was hard to tell, but it seemed like my high rank in [Flight] meant that even small flaps meant that I'd rise quickly and easily. The possibility of what I could do once I got used to this was pretty terrifying, yet extremely exciting.

The image of flying through a dense city fast enough to shatter windows while weaving in between buildings and through narrow alleys made me grin like a little kid.

Though actually doing such a thing would cause a ton of trouble I didn't want to deal with, so such a dream would never come true. Maybe I could try weaving through the foliage in the forest around my home instead someday?

As I slowly got used to actual flying rather than simply gliding, I flapped my wings again and again, gaining speed as I circled around the small army of glowing multi-coloured lights that chased after me all excited.

From simply banking, I moved on to doing loops and barrel rolls (the real kind, as well as the weird useless kind otherwise known simply as an aileron roll), flat and rolling scissors, a vertical climb ending in a stall turn, then to a flat spin and a recovering dive as I fell. If someone was looking, they'd probably be wondering what the retarded bat was doing, but I was having so much fun I couldn't care what any observer was thinking, though it wasn't like anyone aside from the spirits could've seen me. It was both dark and I was using [Spirit Form].

Maybe once I got good enough, I could dogfight like this, firing off [Tempest Magic] at flying enemies or something? When I went back to the dungeon, it was definitely something I wanted to try against all those flying enemies I found annoying to fight against.

By the end of it all, I found the dirt road I was following at the beginning and came down, ending my little air show by flaring up with a cobra as I fiercely flapped my wings, sending up dust and dirt before I touched down as gently as I could.

With another strong flap to push the dust away from me, I turned around and waited for the spirits to catch up. In the end, I had been going much faster than they could, but they seemed to enjoy chasing after me as I did those weird manoeuvres.

As if to emphasize that point, as each one got close, I could've sworn that they all did their own impressions of the cobra manoeuvre as they gathered around me.

Kinda as a reward, I gave each one a mana treat as they completed their imitations, though it was really hard to tell since they were more spherical than anything, it just sort of felt like they did cobras.

No sooner as they danced around after eating their little treats did they become curious of my little addition, and started flocking to my bat-like wings stick out through the slits in my robes. They circled around me, bounced off of the thin membranes, or just rubbing their bodies against them.

Whether it was because the sensation of touch on body parts that I didn't normally have or because the spirits were so fluffy, I had a hell of a time trying to avoid jerking around, like they were trying to deliberately tickle me. But the more I resisted the harder they rubbed themselves against my wings, and the more my wings trembled as I tried to desperately avoid batting the fluffballs away.

In the end, their persistence overcame my self control and I flapped my wings hard, knocking all the spirits away before shaking my wings to get rid of the tingly sensations that was left.

”Geez you guys. That was going too far”

But as if they didn't hear my words, the fluffballs circled around me. Rather than be scared of what I did, they were all laughing, enjoying the little ride of being blown away. At least that's what it felt like.

Exasperated, I shook my head before stretching my wings out again.

With a short run up, I jumped lightly and flapped my wings, lifting off again, this time actually following the road eastward rather than simply fooling around while doing circles.

While the intent was to make progress to the city, we ended up fooling around along the way. Simply flying in one direction quickly got boring, especially when I was trying to maintain a low speed so that the glowing spirits wouldn't fall behind. Instead, I went back to doing all sorts of aerial manoeuvres as if I was practising for a stunt show or something.

The fluffballs followed me the best they could into my manoeuvres, though less like a military squadron doing formation flying and more like a mob of children playing reverse tag.

(...?)

Below, I sensed quite a few presences. It looked like a large group on the side of the road.

Looking down, I could see just that. It was a wagon with a pair of horses tied nearby. Surrounding it was a small group of people, and around them was a much larger group of brown wolves.

(This...is probably bad, isn't it?)

The people only numbered four, and one of them didn't even have a weapon, while the wolves numbered over twenty, and at the head there was a striped wolf twice the size leading the pack.

Rather, I recognized the monsters. The smaller wolves were the same as the ones from the first floor of the dungeon, while the big one was like the boss, though even bigger. They weren't really that tough at all, but this was quite the number. When I first came to this world, I'd have been easy prey, but now even these numbers wouldn't have been able to do so much as scratch me. I was more concerned with not getting my clothes dirty than getting hurt.

But these guys, they were shaking. And one of them was completely backed against the wagon. He didn't even have a weapon, effectively making the fight about eight to one. That boss was also quite a bit stronger than the other wolves, easily worth as many as five or six of the normal ones if my memory was accurate.

It looked like that same boss wolf got tired of waiting and charged towards the closest person.

Without a moment to lose, I flapped my wings and went into a dive, accelerating as much as possible.

As I got close to the ground, I erased my wings and undid [Spirit Form]. With a quick spin, I gave the big wolf a simple heel kick in the back of it's neck before landing with a heavy thud. No matter how light my body felt, it seemed like the momentum was enough to dent the ground with a foot print several centimetres deep and kick up a ton of dust all around me.

But such dust was meaningless to my [Sense Presence].

Remembering the position of everyone here, I put my hands to the ground and spread out my mana into the earth before activating [Terranian Magic]. Stone spikes jutted up from the dirt, the scent of blood filling the grasslands as most of the reactions to [Sense Presence] disappeared.

A quick application of [Tempest Magic] and all the dust was blown away, revealing the carnage I had just conducted. All the wolves had been cleanly impaled by the stone spikes where they stood, not even given a chance to react.

Well, there was a massive difference between level one and level 255 after all. It would've been more weird if I couldn't do something like this at this point.

A quick glance around confirmed that I hadn't missed any wolves nor accidentally gotten any of the people I was trying to save.

What an embarrassment it would be to be commit friendly fire against the very people you were trying to save.

But as fortune would have it, all four people and two animals were accounted for, with no unwanted damage done at all. Aside from the unarmed guy's pants. Those were one casualty to water damage, but I pretended not to notice.

With their safety confirmed, I undid my magic and the wolf bodies collapsed to the ground with a series of thuds, making everyone jump for a moment.

The three armed people put away their weapons as they stared at me.

First was young girl in a worn out one-piece dress and a simply made leather chest plate over it. She had a dull grey metal long sword strapped to her hip.

Second young man in an equally worn out shirt and pants with the same leather chest plate on top. He had an axe with a dull grey metal axe head on one hip and a small wooden shield on the other.

Third was another young man wearing worn out pants and a vest that didn't look like it was big enough to close to cover his chest. He wasn't wearing any armour, but had a spear with a gleaming silvery spearhead strapped to his back. Unlike the others, he had pointed ears on top of his head and a thin, erect tail sticking out from behind.

(Why are the cat bois always so sexy?)

Frankly, it was more annoying than anything that he'd deliberately expose himself like that. What was his deal anyways?

”Umm...are you guys...”

Before I could finish, the closest person rushed up to me and grabbed my hands.

”You! That magic was you just now, right? Thank you! Thank you very much for saving us all!”

(Close! Too close! Way too CLOSE!)

The young man stared at my eyes as he thanked me, so close I could smell his breath. The only thing that actually registered in my mind beyond him being so close was the fact that he really needed a breath mint.

”That's right! We're really grateful! Thank you so much!”

Another person grabbed my left elbow as she came close, practically pressing her chest against my arm.

(Very close! Much too close!)

”Ah, to be saved by such a beauty! We're truly thankful”

On my right, the third person also grabbed my arm as he tugged my right elbow.

(Personal space! Assault on personal space!)

”Aah. All three of them have the right of it. We're all thankful for what you have done. If there's anything I can do to repay you”

Thankfully, the older man didn't decide to approach me, but the disappointing smell still reinforced the others on the attack on my personal space.

”I, I was...just...”

”That's right! If there's something we can do to repay you”

”Could you give us your name? Mine's Mary, and this is Jason and Aaron”

”Is there anything you want? Maybe a warm bed to sleep in?”

(Aaahh, it's too much!)

”No, I...”

”””Yes?”””

All three of them pressed their bodies against mine in excitement. Their youthful faces covering up my view of the surroundings. Rather, their bodies as well, as they were all taller than me despite not looking past half their teenage years.

”I need to get going!”

I forcefully broke out of their grip and went off in a run.

”We're going you guys!”

Calling out to the spirits who were fooling around the wagon and horses, I activated [Spirit Form] to disappear, then leapt into the air and used [Alter Silhouette] to produce my wings and fly off, escaping from my situation.

To think that I'd be punished in such a way for my good deed.

Or rather, for me to react so poorly just for getting a bit of attention. My years of solitude must have done a number on me.

Or maybe I've always been like this? I never was one for attracting attention. It took me more than a little effort just to talk to strangers, and I've always hated doing presentations of any kind.

I didn't think I was this bad around people though. Maybe only having Alicia to talk to for the last four years had a bad effect on me? I didn't think I was doing so bad around those villagers, but none of them stared so closely at me, and they were all one on one.

(This...was probably going to become an issue in the future, wasn't it?)

Ninetailed_Furball

Hey again, it's everyone's favourite nine-tailed ball of hair again, in author's note format this time. So this time, I've noticed a trend that's been going on for a long time now. I kinda disregarded it at first, but some recent activity on the front page made it hard to ignore.

The fact that this site basically just uses total views in the last few days as the only real metric for deciding your story's rank!

And you now what? The very fact that a relatively new story like mine has basically been on the front page constantly for the last two weeks is amazing, and it's entirely thanks to readers like you!

I won't point fingers (especially since I read some of those stories myself), but the vast majority of stories on the top of the rankings take advantage of this feature, so I've been wondering.

Do people prefer shorter, but more frequent updates? Do you like my current average 4000 word chapters twice a week (plus extras), or the 1200 word chapters every day that's more common on this site?

Please give me your opinion and vote just below.

But remember, this is only to see what the reaction is. I plan on continuing this style for the time being, as its much more conductive to my writing style.

Thanks as usual for taking the time to read my story!