Chapter 138: Levitation Experiment

Tauro and his group left the mountain village at noon to head home.

As we were leaving, I was impressed by the way the villagers looked at us with words of gratitude.　Some of them were a little teary-eyed, which drove Rumeya to tears, but I decided to pretend not to notice.

Perhaps it was the time spent helping with the carpentry work and interacting with the villagers that brought about the friendship.

Over the next few days, they were on their way home, camping out again, but on the way, Tauro would try out his newly learned ability “levitation” at night.

I was really excited inside that I might finally be able to fly, one of the best parts of fantasy.

I couldn’t resist trying it out.

“Okay, everyone is asleep, right? …’Levitate’!”

Tauro’s body floated lightly as he chanted.

“Oh! Interesting! …But is this the limit?”

Tauro’s body floated up, but as he had commented, after about 50 centimeters, there was no sign of floating any further, as if it was the limit.

“…Hmmm.. It’s definitely levitation, but… it’s not what I imagined!”

Tauro hung his head in disappointment as he floated in the air, but continued with his experiment.

“Stay afloat and approach the tree…”

Tauro grabbed the tree, confirming that he could proceed by walking in the air.

He then began to climb the tree effortlessly using only the power of his hands.

“Oh! This ‘levitation’ means that I’m floating because I’m lightening my weight, not because of some height limitation!”

He climbed to the top of the tree, then let go.

He slowly descended.

“…Huh? Could this be…?”

Tauro kicked the tree to get some distance and suddenly fell.

“Whoa!”

Tauro’s body came to a stop just short of the ground, and he bounced back up to about 50 centimeters.

He felt as if his momentum had been absorbed by an invisible cushion.

“That was scary….This means that the ‘levitation’ effect is probably spherical, centered around me and if I’m on the side of the tree, I’ll slowly descend while acting on the tree, but if I’m out of range, I’ll fall head long into the area of effect.”

While chilling, Tauro understood the characteristics of “Levitation”.

“Anyway, it seems that the fall damage can be offset, so depending on how I use it, this could be useful. And it seems to consume very little magic power.”

He confirmed this by jumping and running while floating.

“I’ll have to see how it works on water.”

Wanting to be sure, Tauro checked the surrounding terrain with his “true eye”.

There is a river in the forest.

“Okay, let’s try that river over there!”

Tauro ran into the depths of the forest, still floating.

But that was a bad idea.

He crossed the boundary of the barrier Aeris had set up.

Aeris jumped up and called out a warning to Leada, who was sleeping in the tent with her. Shin, Rumeya, and the coachman also got up in a hurry.

Tauro, who was on his way to the river, could hear the commotion faintly.

“Oh, I forgot about the barrier…”

He was so absorbed in his work that he realized his mistake and hurriedly turned back.

When he returned to the encampment, he found Aeris and the others with their weapons at the ready and told them that it was he who had broken the barrier.

“I’m also at fault for not recognizing Tauro because it was a simple barrier I had put up, but what are you doing in the middle of the night!”

“…I’m sorry.”

“…Hmmm. I’m sorry for making a scene, guys. I’ll talk to Tauro, so everyone get some rest.”

Aeris urged Leada and the others to go to bed then turned to Tauro, who was sitting upright.

“Since it’s you, you were probably just learning and testing your abilities again anyway, right?”

…I’m being read.

Tauro broke out in a cold sweat at Aeris’s good intuition.

“I learned about ‘levitation’ magic and wanted to try it out…”

“It’s a very rare ability that a ‘sage’ or a ‘pope’ or a ‘hero’ skill level learns!”

Aeris said in surprise at the unexpected ability, in a whisper but with a strong tone.

“Really? But it isn’t that great of an ability, is it?”

Tauro reported the results of his experiment to Aeris.

“You know how those things get more versatile as you get more proficient, which means the more skill you have, the more versatile it becomes. Maybe it might even grow into ‘flight’ on top of that?”

Aeris replied with dismay.

“Is that so? But the conditions for learning my abilities are too specific and often restrictive…”

Since Tauro didn’t understand his own skills, he couldn’t help but wonder if he would be able to learn them in a sensible way, like Aeris had said.

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