Meeting an Old Friend

Apparently, now I'm a wanted person all over this region, pretty expected to be honest, though I'm wondering where that stupid king got the money to even put a price on my head. 100 thousand coins seems a bit low for a crime like that though.

I fly to my old friend's house on the outskirts of a city called Bornes, she was my old classmate in school before the war. She moved to another country while the government gambled my soul to win a dumb war that gained us nothing.

I press her doorbell, and then shortly a tall maybe handsome guy shows up, "how can I help you?" he said.

"Is Anne home?"

He looks inside and then answers, "She is busy right now in her lab, and who are you?"

"I'm the one who should be asking who are you?"

"I'm her husband."

I didn't expect that a little bit. I thought she would be a virgin forever like me, turns out I'm wrong.

I try to sneak through and shout "Anne! Why you didn't tell me that you have a husband?! What kind of love potion did you use to get someone like this?!" before he throws me out. "No need to be that rough big guy." As I point my wand to his neck.

"I'm sorry! forgive me!" he sweats buckets just from me doing that, I thought he was a much tougher guy than that.

"Hey, stop! I swear down me nans grave, you never change innit?" She looks a bit annoyed with my antics.

"I just didn't expect someone like you would get laid you know. How did you guys meet anyway? You never go outside."

"It's a long story, just come in."

"Now you're making me real curious."

We went inside, Anne's husband went straight to the back of the house while I and Anne are in the living room.

I am sitting on this insanely comfortable chair, I feel like I'm sitting on a ball of cotton. My butt now can rest from sitting on a broom for hours.

"I'll get you a cup of tea." She said before going to the kitchen.

This place looks so comfy and pretty, I guess being a scientist must pay a lot then, or maybe it's just cheap around here. Well, the military also paid me a lot and I still get paid now actually, even though I already left, I left most of them at home for my family to use.

I wonder if there is a portable house or a magic that somehow can store a house inside a pocket like that, that would be very useful.

Anne is back with the tea and sits in front of me.

"Is there a way to bring a house anywhere?" I ask her.

"Where is that coming from?" My question baffles her for some reason.

"I want to sleep somewhere safer in my adventure."

"There is none."

"That sucks."

"What brings you here? It's rare that you come to visit."

"I'm going to the north, so I'm visiting while at it."

"I hope you stay for a while because I can use your help right now." She smirks at me.

"I have bad feelings about this."

"No, no it's nothing dangerous, I just want you to test something for me."

She looks incredibly suspicious.

"Come on mate, it's just something attached to your back that can make you fly."

"No, why me anyway? I can fly."

She's staring at the ceiling, brewing something right now, "follow me." she says.

She walks to the back, and I follow her from behind, and we go upstairs, where do we go? and also, this house is so huge.

We arrive at the front of a room with this huge wooden door and a big sign saying "Do not enter" She opens the door and we're inside, I can see books everywhere in my sight, I don't think even the military have a library this big.

"You can have any book you want from this library."

"All of them?"

"No, just one you nob head."

"Well, whatever, I'm in."

So after I decided that it was worth it to risk my life for probably a rare book in her library, we went to an open field to test the flying backpack thing, God please save me.

"Here it is, my magnum opus, The Airpack!" She says while holding a backpack that has holes under it for some reason defeating the whole reason for a backpack, there is a little translucent pocket on the bottom middle of the backpack and there are also cloths on the side hanging. She's pointing at the translucent pocket, "This pocket, is for storing the mana stone-" Then she points to the holes down under, "to power this force machine basically."

"Aren't there more stuff behind the scenes? also, that hole makes the backpack unusable as a backpack no?"

"All the mechanisms to convert the mana into force pushing downwards are at the back where your back touches the backpack, and the bottom of the backpack. It's all sealed off from the storage compartments and insulated as much as possible so it's still sort of comfortable and doesn't burn the insides."

"How do I control it?"

She turns the backpack around and points to the harness in the middle that has two buttons on it, "the left one is the force toggle and the on the right is this flap toggle that can act as a wing." Then she points at the backpack straps that have a string and a handle attached to each. "This handle, you can pull them to control the angle of the wing so you can control it just like a bird."

"This not going to kill me right?"

"No no, it's all good." She smiles, I don't think everything is good.