The Wind Whispered: The Bridge

Arthur crossed his arms, staring at the river as if he intended to intimidate the current, or the problem itself.

“Then we will have to go around the river. Two more days of travel, if all goes well. The delay is unacceptable.”

Brianna stepped forward, gripping her staff so tightly I feared for the poor piece of wood.

“I-I can… I can try wind magic,” she said, her voice small but filled with nervous determination. “Not strong enough to lift everything at once, but I can lift one carriage at a time, with the people inside. A-and… your caravan. It will consume a lot of mana, but I can do it.”

Arthur nodded immediately. He despised delay more than the risk of exposing the mage.

“Then that will be our solution.”

He turned toward me, his commanding tone returning.

“Boy. Return to the carriage immediately. Do not involve yourself.”

I did not even respond. The sight of the broken bridge and Lurbec’s resigned acceptance struck me deeply. That was a problem my modern self could solve.

I walked past him, heading toward the riverbank.

“Boy!” Arthur almost shouted. His voice was a dry thunder. “Where do you think you’re going!?”

I crouched near a bush where several long, dry, straight sticks lay scattered. I began picking them up, one by one.

Lurbec followed behind, confused, watching my movements.

“What are you doing there, young man?”

“Trying to show something,” I murmured.

I began assembling the first miniature. Two sticks in parallel, then another placed across them, locking the structure by fitting over and under. Then two more forming a simple arch. Each piece held the other, like arms interlocked in a firm grip. The principle was Leonardo da Vinci’s bridge, or as I knew it, the self-supporting bridge.

Arthur frowned, the contempt evident in his tone, even as he tried to conceal it.

“Are you playing house? We are dealing with a real problem, let’s go, hero…”

He stopped himself at the word “hero,” remembering Lurbec’s presence.

Silence. A deadly silence along the riverbank.

Lurbec’s eyes widened.

“Hero?”

He looked back at me, serious, understanding dawning on his face.

“You are one of the heroes of the prophecy?”

I sighed, knowing the secret was compromised.

“I am. Yes. But please, keep it secret. I am on… a confidential mission.”

“Of course, Sir Hero. That is why the hood. I understand.”

“Yes,” I said, returning to what I was doing.

I finished the miniature and released my hands. The small structure of sticks remained standing, supported only by its own interlocking joints.

Lurbec stepped closer, crouching beside me.

“This… this is standing on its own?”

“It is,” I replied. “It’s a self-supporting bridge. The pieces fit together in a way that the weight of one locks the other. The more weight you add, the stronger it becomes, because the force pushes everything downward and increases friction between the wood. No nails, no ropes. Just the right fit.”

He carefully extended his hand and pressed the structure slightly. The sticks trembled, but remained firm.

“Incredible…” he whispered. “May I…?”

“You may.”

He pressed harder. The miniature held. Lurbec let out a surprised laugh.

“This is a wonderful idea!” Lurbec murmured. “But… to be sure… could we build a larger version?”

My YouTube engineer side lit up like a lamp. There was my purpose, not in a dagger or useless diplomacy, but in solving real problems.

“Yes, we can. We will need thicker wood. Since we can’t use the old bridge beams, we’ll cut some thinner trees. That one, for example,” I pointed toward a group of tall, slender trunks. “It looks like eucalyptus, or something with similar density.”

Lurbec smiled faintly.

“Men! Bring axes! We will cut some of those trees!”

As he gave orders, I felt a hand of steel, cold even through the sleeve, seize my arm. Arthur.

“Return to the carriage now,” he said in a low, sharp tone so Lurbec would not hear. “I already told you not to involve yourself. Your mission is more important than a villager’s bridge.”

I looked at him, gathering all the courage that frustration and newfound purpose gave me.

“Don’t grab my arm like that. I’m not a child, Captain. I’m just going to teach them. It will be quick.”

“No.” His gaze hardened into pure ice. “Return. Now.”

We stared at each other, the tension palpable, neither willing to yield. Me, the Torch Hero, challenging the Infantry Captain.

“P-please, don’t fight!” Brianna stepped between us, nearly stumbling from nervousness. She was the most unlikely mediator. “Captain Arthur, please… let him try. It won’t take long…”

Arthur looked at her, then back at me. I held his gaze firmly, even with my heart pounding in my throat. He was measuring the risk against the delay in the mission.

After several seconds that felt like an eternity, he released my arm.

“Very well. But as soon as this is finished, we continue the journey.”

I nodded.

“Agreed.”

I looked at Brianna and gave her a small smile of gratitude. She looked away, her cheeks flushed. She was not just a prodigy mage, she was my bridge to sanity.

Soon, the workers returned with thinner but sturdy logs. With their help, I began assembling a larger version of the bridge, medium in size but large enough to support the weight of people. The logs formed an arch, interlocked in crosses, each piece locking the next. It was like assembling a giant wooden puzzle, and the manual work calmed me.

We worked quickly, sweat running down my face beneath the hood. Soon, the structure was ready, a work of art born from geometry and physics.

“Alright… time to test,” I murmured, feeling the adrenaline.

I climbed slowly up one side of the small bridge. It creaked, a sound of tension, but did not yield. I placed one foot, then the other. The full weight of my body transferred to the structure. It swayed slightly… but remained firm, like a drawn bow.

“It’s going to fall!” a child’s voice shouted from afar.

It did not fall.

Lurbec’s eyes widened in wonder, disbelief written across his face.

“This can’t be…”

He stepped onto it beside me. The bridge groaned, but remained standing. The children, who had fled from me before, ran back laughing and climbed onto the side of the structure, as if it were a playground toy, instinctively trusting its stability.

The little girl with braids looked at me, her eyes shining.

“Uncle, this is really cool! What is it called?”

“Self-supporting bridge,” I replied, laughing.

“No, no!” she insisted, laughing too. “I meant… what is your name?”

It took me a second to understand. I had a name. A name that was not “Hero” or “Traveler.”

“Ah. My name is Arven.”

“That’s so cool, Uncle Arven!”

When I realized it, half of the villagers were smiling, and the other half were murmuring in awe. Then Lurbec almost shouted:

“This is incredible, my dear hero…”

He stopped, covering his own mouth, too late.

“Hero?” he finished in a whisper.

The workers around us spoke almost in unison:

“Hero?”

Everyone began staring at me as if I had just stepped out of a legend. I froze for a moment, sweating beneath the hood. The secret had been revealed, not by my mistake, but by the astonishment of a village leader.

I looked at Arthur. He ran a hand across his forehead, shook his head in denial, and let out a heavy sigh, accepting the inevitable.

The next half hour became a sequence of handshakes and gratitude. Calloused hands gripped mine. I simply kept shaking hands, saying things like “It was nothing” and “I’m only repaying your efforts,” while internally thinking, I only saw a video of this once on YouTube… What would Captain Arthur think if he knew that a thousand years of wisdom came from a social network? But he doesn’t even know what that is, obviously.

When I could finally breathe again, I returned to speaking with Lurbec, this time standing on the bridge itself.

I picked up a stick and pointed to specific parts of the structure.

“This is the basic idea,” I explained. “But if you want something that lasts much longer than a few years, you can reinforce it. If you join these main beams with stronger joints, like mortise and peg, they won’t shift over time.”

I pointed to another section.

“If you add diagonal braces here and here, you’ll prevent the bridge from swaying in the wind or under the weight of animals. The greatest enemy of these bridges is lateral movement, fatigue.”

Then the base.

“And never let the wood touch damp soil directly. Place large stones as a foundation. That way, moisture won’t rot the beams as quickly, through capillary action.”

Lurbec listened as if I were revealing a secret of the gods.

“If we do all that… how long could such a bridge last?”

I thought for a moment, considering maintenance and the local wood.

“If done properly… it could last longer than anyone alive today. Maybe a thousand years, with simple maintenance every century.”

Absolute silence fell over the group. Even the river seemed quieter, in reverence.

“A-a thousand years…?” Lurbec repeated, barely able to speak, processing the longevity.

“Yes. It is entirely possible. It will take effort, but it is possible.”

He stepped back, took a deep breath, and smiled in a way I was not used to seeing in adults, like a child who had just received the toy of his dreams.

“Young man… you have given us hope. Every year we lose weeks and men to that cursed bridge. If what you said is true…”

“The rest is up to you,” I finished, raising my hands. “I only taught the basics.”

The people gathered again, thanking me with hugs, handshakes, blessings, and wishes of good fortune.

“May the gods protect you, Hero Arven!” said Lurbec, shaking my hand for the tenth time. “I always believed heroes would come to save this continent. And you… you confirmed my faith.”

I truly felt good hearing that. For the first time, it seemed I had done something a hero was meant to do.

Arthur mounted his horse, taking a deep breath, clearly impatient, but the coldness in his expression was now tempered by something that looked like… reluctant respect.

“We move,” he ordered.

Brianna approached me, still breathless from everything, her eyes shining like stars.

“You… are incredible, you know that?”

“Me?” I laughed. “No. This is just simple engineering. Your magic is what will get us across.”

She gave a shy smile.

“Simple for you.”

Arthur called her.

“Brianna, prepare yourself. We cross now.”

She straightened her staff, took a deep breath, and gave me a quick glance, a mix of nervousness and pride.

“My turn to shine,” she said, blushing.

I gave her a thumbs-up.

She walked to an open part of the bank, planted her staff into the ground, and closed her eyes. The wind, which had been lazily drifting, began to swirl around her. First as a breeze, then as a steady current, lifting her cloak and making her hair ripple like a halo of motion.

The pressure in the air changed drastically. Even the villagers fell silent, in reverence to the power of Wind Magic.

Gradually, the carriage I had been riding in, the supply wagons, the horses, and the guards were enveloped by a dense, luminous spiral of wind. The ground seemed to fall away. The wheels lifted from the earth, the horses’ hooves lost contact with the soil.

We were floating.

I looked through the window and saw the river below, raging forward, while we crossed the space between the banks, suspended solely by the magic of an eighteen-year-old girl. The power she radiated was undeniable, she was carrying the weight of the entire convoy, defying gravity and time.

“This is… unbelievable…” I murmured. Engineering was logical, magic was sublime.

On the other side of the river, the magic gradually faded. The wheels touched the ground with a soft jolt. The horses neighed, nervous, but not panicked.

I stepped out of the carriage the moment it stopped and ran to Brianna.

“That was incredible!” I said, still breathless. Her exhaustion was visible, but so was her victory.

“Th-thank you…” she tried to answer, but her voice failed, almost a whisper.

I saw her body sway. In slow motion, like a puppet with its strings cut, she collapsed sideways.

I caught her before she hit the ground.

“Brianna!” I called, feeling her light weight in my arms. She was cold and limp. “Are you alright? Hey!”

She tried to open her eyes, murmured something unintelligible about “wind” and “too heavy,” and went unconscious.

“Captain!” I shouted. “She fainted!”

Arthur approached quickly, dismounting in one swift motion. He touched her shoulder, evaluating.

“She used too much magic at once,” he said, serious, but without the sharp tone from before. “I told her to carry one carriage at a time, but her recklessness exceeds her power. It should not have required enough effort to make her faint. Reckless girl…”

I looked at her face, peaceful now, asleep, her cheeks still flushed from the effort, and I could not help but smile in admiration.

Brianna, you really are incredible.

“Please take her back to the carriage, Hero Arven,” Arthur ordered, his voice slightly softer as he used my title. “She needs rest.”

I nodded.

“Leave it to me.”

I carried Brianna back to the carriage carefully and laid her on the cushioned bench, placing her staff beside her like a stuffed animal. I pulled my hood back over my face and sat in my seat, letting the carriage’s motion take over, watching her chest rise and fall.

When I looked through the curtain slit, I saw Lurbec and the villagers already discussing measurements, pointing at trunks, organizing men. The broken bridge still stood there, but for the first time, it looked like a problem in transition, not a sentence.

The carriage resumed its path.

The bridge did not exist yet.

But the village left behind would soon have a new one, stronger, longer-lasting, the bridge that would last a thousand years.

I leaned back against the seat, exhausted, but with a strange feeling of satisfaction in my chest.

Perhaps I had not slain monsters or wielded a legendary sword. But that day, I helped an entire village avoid losing weeks, and lives, every year. The engineering of my world had met the magic of this one, and the result was hope.

For the first time since arriving in this world, I felt that I had done the work of a hero. Even if I was the Torch Hero… and of a bridge that did not yet exist, but now existed in the minds and hands of those villagers. My Lux Minima had illuminated a solution.