First Flight
Huvel was in a small closed cabin. His heart was beating fast. It was not because he was making love with someone but because he was soaring through the sky at a very high speed!
"AHHHH!!"
He could not help but cried inwardly although he already knew the process of launching the 'Crane Cabin'. He felt as if he was on a rocket launched to the space! But, of course, he never reached the space. The Crane Cabin stopped advancing upward once it reached a desired altitude. It floated mid-air for a moment before starting to move horizontally.
Huvel thought that the Crane Cabin would be similar to an early day plane of his past world when he first heard about it. But when he actually rode one, he realized that Crane Cabin was more amazing than he thought.
Crane Cabin was an advanced magic tool that could fly with the application of wind magic. It had a tapper front and cylinder body so it looked like a short pencil. It had four seats inside and heavy things were not allowed to be boarded on it. The 'pilot' was a wind mage with precise wind controlling skill. He enveloped the whole cabin with continuously running wind and made it fly in a straight line to the destination.
"It is fast and yet stable. Such a good way of using wind magic!" Huvel marvelled inwardly; his heart was pounding with excitement. "The cabin is impressive as well. It can withstand the wind surrounding it without breaking apart! It seems the technology of this world is improving together with magic."
Huvel also saw some other magic tools in the capital like magic stone gate, magic fountain, magic stove, etc. The ones he like most were the magic lamps along the main roads in the city. They reminded him of his old world where electricity was essential for people. But the magic lamps there were not run by electricity but by fire magic. It was said that fire apprentice-mages from the magic academy came to those roads and put a spell in the lamps everyday as a part of their training.
In contrast to the excited Huvel, the other passengers on board were very calm. A Crane Cabin could not be piloted by anyone other than a wind magician that had attained at least the 4th mana circle. The rarity of such magicians made the price of the ride ridiculously expensive. Even most nobles would not ride them unless they had urgent matters to attend.
Even so, the other passengers that rode together with Huvel seemed to be accustomed with flying on it. Among them, two of them were humans and the other one, who was also Huvel's travel companion, was a demi-human. To be precise, he was a hucanis, who had a humanoid body with dog ears and fur. He belonged to the hucarnis merchant group, 'Luvurem', which did business between the hucanis lands and human kingdoms.
Huvel was introduced to that merchant group by Prince Leonard when he asked the prince for a fake identity. Huvel noticed that there were some people that seemed to monitor his every movement whenever he went out. He had an urge to visit Warso Valley quickly without letting those people know so he asked for the prince's help. Since Luvurem Merchant Group was affiliated with Prince Leonard, they let Huvel use the identity of one of their merchants.
Huvel disguised as the hucanis merchant while the real hucanis merchant pretended as him and stayed in his house. He even made the prince send him a manservant once every two days to make the people monitoring him think that he was playing with those manservants in his house.
"I hope I can get there soon. This plane is so stuffy and my disguise is even worse!" Huvel thought, trying his best to not touch his fake dog ears.
After flying half a day, they arrived a border city of Blue Hippogriff Kingdom. They had to stop by there for inspection and rest. As soon as the inspection was finished, Huvel ran quickly to an inn to find a toilet. He had been holding back his urge to take a dump for the whole day since he could not on the Crane Cabin. There was a small room in the cabin for the passengers to pee but taking a dump there was forbidden.
They stayed in that city for the night and they departed again the next morning. Huvel could not get used to the sudden raise in altitude and almost felt like vomiting. Nevertheless, he arrived at Blue Hippogriff, the capital of Blue Hippogriff Kingdom in the evening without any more trouble.
Huvel bid farewell to his travel companion and removed his disguise in a dark alley. Since he was in another country, he did not have to be concerned about spies seeing him.