The combined weight of Rosily and Elqi made the flying staff look quite small, even though they were still only young girls.
Rosily wrapped her arms around Elqi’s waist, tilting her head to look down.
They were roughly 3 meters above the ground.
She could reach the ground just by jumping, and their current speed was relatively slow.
She watched as the staff struggled to carry the two of them, flying toward the half of the Academy at the pace of an ordinary person running.
At this speed, there wasn’t even a breeze to make their hair flutter. It wasn’t exciting at all, which caused Rosily to knit her brows.
Rosily withdrew her gaze from the ground and leaned close to Elqi’s ear, whispering, “Elqi, do you have what it takes?”
“I…”
Elqi wanted to speak, but the explanation seemed to get stuck in her throat.
She pouted, narrowed her eyes, and stopped being so cautious about controlling the staff’s speed.
A faint glow of Magic Power began to emanate from her body.
Following this change, the thin layer of light-green air swirling around the staff began to rotate more violently.
At the same time, their speed began to pick up.
As the wind grew more turbulent, the roaring sound in Rosily’s ears grew louder.
The gale sounded as if it were howling…
Rosily looked up at the sky, and a strange sensation washed over her.
‘What is this?’ She couldn’t quite understand it. It felt as if the closer she got to the sky, the more a certain desire stirred within her, wanting to break through some kind of shackle.
Rosily was puzzled. There seemed to be something inside her that even she didn’t know about. ‘Should I ask Mother?’ After a moment’s thought, she decided not to ask for now.
Since her mother hadn’t mentioned it, it likely had something to do with her potential “father.”
The role of “father” seemed to have been deliberately avoided ever since she was born, and the person doing the avoiding was the very mother who had given birth to her.
Rosily lowered her head and noticed that as they climbed higher, the speed at which the scenery blurred past them had doubled—no, it had likely tripled.
Elqi was still accelerating.
After being asked if she was capable, she had felt a bit of anger.
Originally, she wanted to explain that she simply wasn’t used to this “dance” for two… but then she figured, didn’t Rosily want more speed?
‘Then I’ll give it to her!’
Elqi narrowed her eyes into slits. Ever since she had learned Wind Element Magic, she had always used her magic with extreme caution, and she had never engaged in anything like a staff race with anyone else. Just because she hadn’t competed with others didn’t mean she hadn’t experimented in private. Elqi gripped the neck of the staff tightly, continuously funneling in Magic Power as the flight speed continued to climb.
Then, as expected, an accident happened. Just as Elqi felt Rosily leaning against her back, she had barely started to smirk when she realized her body was tilting uncontrollably to the right. She tried her best to regain control, but it was useless.
The speed of the wind was too fast—it had already exceeded the current limit of her Spirit Power!
The foundation of Wind Element Magic, the Wind Control Magic, had spiraled out of control. Because Elqi had injected an excessive amount of Magic Power, the Wind Control Magic had “overclocked.” This was precisely why those of a lower Order of Magic could not use high-order magic. Without sufficient Spirit Power, one could not maintain control, leading to the magic backfiring and causing injury.
“It’s… it’s out of control…”
Elqi’s eyelid twitched, and she broke out in goosebumps. She was just about to tell Rosily that they had lost control when she heard Rosily shout from behind her.
“So fast! So powerful! This is amazing!”
The two of them were spinning through the air. After just a short while, Elqi felt a powerful urge to forcefully vomit up everything in her stomach. The sky and the earth were constantly swapping places. This was a rare experience for Rosily, and the sensation of flight brought a strange sense of exhilaration. The spinning had very little effect on her.
This was the sheer gap in physical constitution.
Although she was in high spirits, Rosily also noticed that something was wrong with Elqi. While keeping one arm around Elqi’s waist, she reached her other hand through to grab the staff. Rosily didn’t know Wind Element Magic; magic was a remarkably complex thing. Or rather, it was a “black box.”
One could not reconstruct a spell simply by observing the fluctuations of Magic Power. This was very, very different from Warrior-type Skills.
By now, Elqi was on the verge of fainting. Her Spirit Power had been heavily depleted during the acceleration. It was already impressive that she hadn’t immediately closed her eyes and fallen into a deep sleep.
At an altitude of 50 or 60 meters, they crossed the plains and meadows at a speed of 100 meters every 2 seconds—roughly 180 kilometers per hour—and streaked into the city streets. Their appearance caused the people on the ground to look up in curiosity. Although flying wasn’t banned in Red Pine City, very few people flew through the sky so blatantly. It was a rare sight indeed.
“Uncle Tom, look over there!”
“Whoa, so fast!”
“My Goddess, what is that?”
“Heh, it’s a person, obviously.”
“Screw your mother! I was asking my Goddess, why the hell are you the one answering?”
“…Damn you, you want to fight?”
“What are you looking at?”
“What if I am looking?”
The two men started fighting for no apparent reason. Between the excitement on the ground and the excitement in the sky, onlookers were overwhelmed, not knowing which way to look. In the Inner City, the patrolling City Guard Knights immediately went to report the situation after spotting Rosily and Elqi, while also sending men to monitor them. Meanwhile, the bastards who had been fighting were rounded up and tossed into jail.
In the sky, Rosily watched the houses on the ground receding rapidly. She grinned and leaned her body back. Her hand, which was wrapped around Elqi’s waist to hold the staff between the girl’s legs, pulled upward with force. As the angle of the staff changed, they transitioned from a gradual descent into a steep climb.
“Are you ready, Elqi? I’m going to speed up!”
Elqi was already delirious from the spinning. At this point, she just wanted to vomit, but her logic told her she couldn’t. The two thoughts were battling inside her head. Rosily, receiving no answer, took it as Elqi’s silent consent.
As she pulled the staff upward, they drew a rising arc over the city, going from a flat glide to a direct charge into the clouds. Her orange-red eyes widened slightly as she gazed at the endless sky. Rosily didn’t find it empty or boring at all; instead, her heart was filled with the feeling that the vast world was hers to roam freely.
‘Could I go out for a walk too?’
She had always wanted to be like the people in the storybooks her mother gave her—to go out and walk across this wide world. But she didn’t want to leave her mother…
‘Then I’ll just take Mother along on the trip!’
Rosily grinned.
The Wind Control Magic Elqi had placed on the staff actually began to decrease rapidly after they ascended. The source had been cut off, and the higher they flew, the greater the consumption. Soon, the wind vortex circling the staff was blown apart by the natural gales, and the girls were exposed to the high-altitude currents.
Rosily held the staff with one hand and the unconscious Elqi with the other as they began to fall toward the ground. However, she didn’t show the slightest hint of panic.
A normal person falling from this height would surely turn into jam. But she might be different…