The midnight sky was deep and clear, and the heavy silence of the Duke's estate was broken only by the soft rustling of the wind against the thick glass of the bedroom window.
Fainyx was sitting up in his large bed, surrounded by the usual mountain of soft pillows, when the invisible latch of the window clicked open and his two overpowered instructors slipped into the room from the shadows.
But tonight, the atmosphere between the two of them was incredibly tense, and Ruth's golden eyes were flashing with a particular and dangerous kind of anger that seemed to make the air in the room grow hot.
"You had absolutely no right to corner him like that during the day," Ruth growled, his deep voice kept to a careful whisper so as not to wake the guards outside the door. "He is still a child, and you should not bother him by asking that type of question about his voice. He will speak when he is ready."
Yong simply leaned against the heavy wooden wardrobe and crossed his arms, letting out a soft and entirely unrepentant laugh. "Why are you getting so protective over this?" Yong joked, his black eyes dancing with a playful amusement.
"I guess you like Fainyx a lot more than you let on, huh? But too bad for you, he is my disciple, not yours, and I can do anything I want to him to ensure he grows up properly."
Ruth glared at the black-haired master with a look that could have melted stone, and he let out a long, heavy sigh that sounded like a rumbling volcano.
He ignored Yong completely and walked over to the edge of the bed, reaching down with a surprising and incredible gentleness to pick Fainyx up.
Ruth carried him easily, adjusting the blankets so Fainyx would not catch a chill in the cool night air.
Fainyx rested comfortably against Ruth's arm, his perfectly neutral expression hiding the quiet warmth he felt in his chest.
Three years had gone by since they had first started these midnight lessons, and over that time, Fainyx had noticed that Ruth seemed to genuinely like him, not just as his friend's disciple or a medical patient, but rather he treated him with the careful and protective devotion of a parent caring for his own child.
Ruth had not only been treating his illness, but he had also been secretly teaching Fainyx the ancient and complex ways of magic. And he didn't just teach him basic human spells, for the past two years, Ruth had actively been teaching Fainyx actual Dragon Magic.
Fainyx remembered a quiet night two years ago when he had been sitting in this exact room, practicing a complex mana flow, and he had looked up at the dragon and written a question in his notebook.
[ Why do you teach me Dragon Magic? I am a human. Is it not dangerous? ]
Ruth had looked at the notebook, and then he had looked at Fainyx with his sharp, ancient golden eyes. "Humans, for starters, are inherently weaker than dragons," Ruth had explained, his voice carrying the heavy weight of absolute fact.
"When someone attempts to teach a human Dragon Magic, they usually explode because their fragile bodies and thin mana pathways are simply not very compatible with a dragon's dense and violent mana. It tears them apart from the inside out."
Fainyx had blinked slowly at the word 'explode', but Ruth had reached out and placed a large, warm hand on his small head.
"But you are different," Ruth had said, looking at him with a particular kind of quiet pride. "Your core is a bottomless abyss, and your body is uniquely special. It adapts to the heavy mana without breaking. So, you should be entirely grateful that I, Rutherhio Alexander Eixthr, am giving you my full permission to use this magic anytime you wish."
"Pfft! Your name is really funny Ruth, that's why I always call you Ruth ahahaha!"
"Hey! What about your name huh!? who calls themselves Yong Hae shi"
"Hey my mother gave me that name you old dragon"
The memory was warm, but it was suddenly and loudly interrupted by Yong, who burst into a fit of sudden, echoing laughter that he barely managed to muffle behind his hand.
"Oh, please!" Yong laughed loudly, pointing a finger at the ancient dragon. "Do not let him fool you with all that grand, majestic nonsense! The real reason he doesn't mind teaching you is because most dragons are a fiercely prideful race who absolutely never want to be taught by other beings, including their own kind!"
Yong clutched his stomach, laughing even harder as Ruth's face began to darken with a furious and embarrassed flush.
"And the absolute truth is," Yong continued, wiping a tear from his eye, "he doesn't even have any relationship at all! He has been completely single and alone for a thousand years now, and that's why he's so terribly lonely! He teaches you and treats you so well because he practically sees you as one of his own kid!"
"Shut your mouth! you insolent human!" Ruth roared in a hushed but furious whisper.
Ruth's hand snapped out, and without chanting or drawing a circle, he threw three condensed, blazing fireballs directly at Yong's face.
Yong laughed in pure delight and danced out of the way, his black coat sweeping through the air as he smoothly dodged the magical flames, completely enjoying the chaos he had just caused.
Fainyx watched the ancient dragon aggressively chasing the history master around the bedroom, throwing quiet but incredibly dangerous spells at his head, and he thought to himself that it was a miracle the mansion hadn't burned down yet.
He sat safely on the edge of the bed and watched them clearly having fun on their own, and his mind began to drift.
He began thinking about what Ruth had said two years ago. Why exactly was his frail body so perfectly compatible with Dragon Magic when other humans would simply explode?
He thought about his bottomless mana core and his chantless casting, and he concluded that it must simply be one of the special abilities he had received when he reincarnated into this world, a quiet perk from the universe to make up for his terrible physical illness.
But as he watched the firelight flicker across the dark room, his thoughts inevitably drifted back to the question Yong had asked him in the library earlier that afternoon.
*Why do you refuse to speak?*
Fainyx let out a quiet, internal sigh, and his crystalline violet eyes grew incredibly dark and distant. He had given Yong an excuse about words being too heavy to carry, but the absolute truth was something he had buried so deep inside his own mind that he rarely ever allowed himself to look at it.
He began thinking about why he really needed to hide his voice, and the memories of his old world... the cold, unforgiving Earth, came rushing back like a dark and suffocating tide.
He remembered when he was a very young child in his past life, sitting in the sterile and lonely halls of the orphanage.
He had been so incredibly hopeful when he was finally adopted by a woman and a man who looked at him with warm smiles. At first, they were a kind couple. They bought him decent clothes and gave him a warm bed, and for a short, beautiful time, he had actually tried to begin opening up to his so-called new parents, believing that he finally had a real family.
But the warmth was an illusion, and the illusion shattered entirely too fast.
He remembered the night the yelling started.
He had been standing in the hallway, clutching a small toy, when the sudden and terrifying sound of breaking glass echoed from the kitchen.
"YOU BITCH!"
The man's voice was a violent, drunken roar that shook the thin walls of the house.
*Smack!*
"Kyaaa!"
The sound of flesh hitting flesh was followed by the sharp, agonizing scream of the woman he had started to call his mother. Fainyx had frozen in absolute terror, his small heart hammering against his ribs as he realized that his new parents now completely hated each other, or rather, his so-called father had stripped away his kind mask to reveal the abusive and violent monster hiding underneath.
After only a month of being placed in that home, the house became a living nightmare. The mother was weak and broken, unable to defend herself against the drunken rage of her husband. She would come into Fainyx's room late at night with bruises blooming across her face, crying softly and apologizing to him, whispering over and over again that she was so sorry and that she shouldn't have ever taken him from the orphanage and brought him into this hell.
And then, exactly one year later, the mother could not take the pain anymore. She killed herself, leaving the young boy entirely alone in the house with the monster.
The man did not care about his wife's death at all. He didn't shed a single tear, he just kept drinking cheap alcohol and spiraling deeper into his own rage.
The house slowly turned into a rotting, filthy prison. The air constantly smelled of stale beer and heavy cigarette smoke, the floors were littered with empty bottles and crushed cans, and the boy was now the sole, undisputed target of the guardian's abuse.
Whenever Fainyx tried to ask for food, he was beaten. Whenever he cried because of the pain, he was beaten harder. The man absolutely hated the sound of the boy's voice, and he made sure to punish him severely every single time he made a sound or went near him.
Fainyx learned very quickly that his voice was not a tool for communication, it was a trigger for violence. So, instead of talking, he simply stopped. He shut his mouth tight and swallowed all of his pain, his hunger, and his fear, and he did not speak a single word for many, many years.
He endured the silent agony until he was finally old enough and fast enough to escape that rotting house and run away into the cold streets, leaving the drunken monster behind forever. But even after he was free, even after he grew older and eventually died playing that impossible hardcore game, the deep and terrifying trauma of his childhood had permanently scarred his soul.
He had learned that opening his mouth only brought pain, attention, and suffering. And so, even now, in a new magical world with a family that loved him and overpowered instructors who treated him like a son, he kept his lips tightly sealed. He never used his voice at all, because the silence was the only armor he had ever truly trusted.