Chapter 204: Whole New World

Chapter 204: Whole New World

Bee still felt surprisingly awake when the party finally ended. Despite having one of the most full days she'd experienced in a while, her levels kept her up when everyone else was looking for their beds.

She sat atop the castle wall with a small smile, watching over the castle grounds. Honestly, with everything going on, she had forgotten that today was even her birthday. A few months ago, it was all she could think about. But when it actually came? She had been doing so many other things that she lost track of the days.

Had this been why Tony insisted on training so much this last week? Well, if it was just a distraction, he was going to regret lying to her. Perhaps she could think about it as payback for surprising her, but she wouldn't. His reasoning had been solid enough, and he'd still made good progress besides.

As she sat there plotting how to make Tony's life miserable, Void trundled up beside her. She made to stand, but her master waved her down before she could get up. When had Void started doing that? Sometimes she could swear that it was still growing, still learning to read people better.

They just sat next to each other for a few moments, enjoying the view. Eventually, Void broke the tranquility with a few images. Floating above it was a moving picture that replayed a few short seconds over and over.

It was her taking a gift-wrapped box from Void, opening it, and being happy. The message seemed clear enough, but she wanted to make sure. "You want to give me a gift?"

Void beeped, and Bee stood to follow her master into the castle. She grinned with excitement. A gift from her master? As much as it shouldn't have been surprising, she was still struck by how much the gesture mattered to her. It was heartwarming how much her deity cared. Not only that, but she had seen the other gifts Void had given out today. The thought of what it may have saved for her sent her thoughts racing.

Void led her back to her room and disappeared under her bed for a moment before coming back out, dragging something large behind.

Initially, she wasn't sure what to make of the purple rug that Void fished out. Her first thought was that it looked strangely familiar. Where had she seen it before? Thinking back, she realized her mistake. She hadn't seen exactly this rug before, but instead, something remarkably similar. A memory of Void resting before the Dean's desk flashed through her mind. Resting on a fluffy red carpet that looked remarkably like the one in front of her.

Void rolled back and gestured grandly with his claw at the rug. Bee stood and stared. What was she supposed to do? It was a very nice rug, but it was still a rug. Still, her master seemed immensely proud of the gift.

Void let out a small cheer of encouragement. Her first clumsy attempts to control the flying carpet hadn't ended in disaster. Despite the relatively low bar, Bee couldn't help but smile through her trepidation. If she could really learn how to fly like her master... She let the thought trail away as she focused on figuring out how to do more than simply go up and down.

It didn't take long to figure out how to move forward, backward, right, and left. They were just variations of holding the rug and leaning. As she practiced, she felt each movement become more natural. Each time, she required less and less physical motion to get the rug to respond to her desires as if the carpet was learning how she would indicate where she wanted to go and simply followed along.

Void, though, was impatient with her slow learning speed and started to zip circles around her. It pushed her to go faster and encouraged her so she could fly with her master. And after several minutes of practicing, they were soon doing laps around the castle at quite a quick pace.

The wind fluttered through her hair but was nowhere near as powerful as it should have been based on the speeds they were going. As if there was a bubble of air protecting her from most of the turbulence. Perhaps it was another feature of the carpet? She was hesitant to test that against something like dirt or a wall. But it was nice that she was able to see, despite moving at a pace faster than she could run. And that normally left her eyes watering from the wind.

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I coached Beatrice as she took her first steps into the air. I did my best to encourage her to try new things and zip around, as I had soon learned to love.

Watching her lean cautiously and slowly move around was a little silly at first. But I hadn't forgotten my first experiments with thrusters and how terrified of falling I had been when I first learned to fly. But I knew the freedom was well worth it if I could get her past this hump. Sometimes I would use some air manipulation to correct her course and prevent her from crashing into the ground. Thankfully, the rug managed to correct her for the most part, and rarely did I have to intervene.

The rug was quite beautiful, not just because of its physical appearance and incomparable comfiness but also its capabilities. I did manipulate some of the air for Beatrice, but even after doing that for a little bit, I realized it was unnecessary. The rug seemed to have some in-built defenses against high speeds. And after a dozen minutes or so, I pretty much didn't have to do anything besides make sure she didn't randomly crash into a castle wall. Beatrice was much less silly than most humans, so I would be surprised if she did randomly decide on that course of action, though. It would probably be an accident if that did happen. She was too competent for anything else.

So I was mostly here just to enjoy the experience with her and provide moral support, which I did in spades, cheering her along all the while. After a bit more practice, I was ready to take her up higher.

Bee seemed to sense my excitement. She had grown more and more comfortable the more she practiced with her new piece of floor decoration. With some simple commands to her rug, she followed me up and over the castle wall.

Instead of going back down to fly amongst the trees and the roads, I soared high several hundred feet above the trees, and Bee followed. My human gasped at the view: the beautiful mountains, the twinkling stars, and the ocean of trees underneath us. She wasn't ready to fly over the mountains and explore the snow yet, but this was enough.

I took her along the valley path at a speed that would have left even her running on the ground in the dust. The trees zipped by, and the only sound was the wind whistling through my microphone and the laughter as we flew through the night sky.