When Villin woke up in the morning, he felt a bit better than the day before. He looked around the room and it was only now that he realized where he was. He was in Silver’s house, where he had stayed nearly two years ago.

He got up and stretched; it felt extremely weird being here. Everything was so light, the lack of pressure on his body made him feel weightless, a very uncomfortable feeling.

Still, he cleared his mind and looked at the door that led to the main area of the house. Villin wanted to get up and walk there but at the same time, he didn’t dare to. He had no idea what was behind the door or where anyone was. He subconsciously tried to use transfiguration to try and feel the house he was in but he hadn’t built any pathways here so he could only feel the area shortly around him.

‘Come on Villin, this place is safe, I can just go out without a problem.

Even though he told himself this, it took a long while for Villin to walk toward the door. Then, when he put his hand on the door handle, he once more hesitated. It was only a full ten minutes later that he mustered up the strength to open the door.

When the door swung open and the main living area was revealed to him, Villin felt extremely weird. He recognized the couch where Silver would occasionally sit and the table where he had practiced his enchanting when he first got here. He even recognized most of the objects around since he had practiced on them.

It was then that he felt something on his cheek. On full alert, he quickly jumped back, looking around for enemies. After nobody got into his line of sight after multiple seconds, Villin touched his cheek.

It was water, he had apparently let out a tear.

Confused, Villin walked back into the main room. He wasn’t sure what to do now. Usually, he would think about his escape plan, maybe work on the ward or enchanted disks. But now, there was nothing for him to do.

He just stood there, without purpose, trying to find something he could do.

After standing like that for ten minutes, he went back into his room and closed the door, he didn’t feel like going out further and would rather train in an enclosed space for a while.

Back into his room, Villin immediately began doing push-ups. After a bit, he realized they weren’t doing anything to him. The method of training was simply too easy, he didn’t start sweating at all.

After noticing this, Villin got into a lotus position and focused on the ground beneath him.

He began forming a crease deep in the ground, a path for his magic power to go. Perhaps, he would feel more comfortable going out if he knew who was out there.

For two hours, he worked on this. His magic power got further and further. He had moved through the living area and had just gotten to the study when he noticed someone.

There was something sitting in the study, human-sized.

When Villin sensed them, he could feel they had also locked onto him. They got up and began walking through the living area and then toward Villin’s room.

A knocking sound came from the door. Without hesitation, Villin got up and moved towards the door, his arms stretched out against the wood, as if he was expecting holes to form for the handcuffs to be put on his hands.

“Villin? Are you okay?”

It took a bit for Villin to realize what he was doing. He paused for a moment before opening the door, it felt easier this time.

Silver was standing on the other side, worried.

“I put some clothes on the chair next to your bed, did you see them?” she asked upon seeing the boy was still naked.

Villin didn’t respond for a bit, then he looked behind him, and indeed, there were clothes lying there.

“I hadn’t,” he replied simply.

“I see. Did you sleep well?” Silver asked, trying to get Villin to engage in a basic conversation with her.

“Yeah, sleep was good,” he replied simply once more, he had no idea what else to say.

Seeing he still wasn’t responding properly, Silver decided to give it one more try, “I noticed your magical power was moving underground and it seemed to be locked onto me, how did you do that?”

This time, Villin didn’t feel too weird replying. He often talked to Elinoire about this even if she didn’t usually respond, he had always been trying to improve his methods while preparing to escape, “Well, it uses transfiguration. I noticed that when you send magic power into the ground, other than simply transfigurating it, you also get an idea of the immediate surroundings. When preparing to escape I thought it would be great if I would be able to sense the location of the guards in the facility so I began making pathways-”

Like this, he began speaking to SIlver. He went on and on, not used to having the other party capable of responding. Before he realized it, he was already in the main room of the house, sitting on the sofa while explaining some magical theories to Silver.

At some point along the way, she began responding more as well, slowly but surely it actually began resembling a proper conversation.

“I see Villin, that does seem very smart. Now, I don’t know much about transfiguration but couldn’t you have taken over the statues yourself?”

“No. I mean, I did try it at first, but I simply couldn’t figure out what was different with those statues that made them capable of reacting when someone tried to escape! I spent weeks trying to figure it out but couldn’t find a thing. I do have some guesses though. It seems likely it uses certain special spells to imprint specific orders into the stone itself. This might have been achieved by using certain enchantments but even after so much time I couldn’t find any, even if they would be hidden there should’ve been at least something I would be able to sense after so long, but alas, nothing.”

Silver smiled as she saw Villin so engaged, after all this time, she decided to try to get him to take the next step, “Say Villin, why don’t you go ahead and put on some clothes? We don’t want you getting sick now do we?”

When she asked that, she immediately noticed a change in Villin’s demeanor. He got a bit more distant to her at that moment as he seemed to recall his location properly. But before she could blame herself for asking too early, he responded, “Okay, I’ll put them on.”

He seemed somewhat hesitant but still made his way back to his room and picked up his clothes.

When he put on his shirt, the lack of exposure freaked him out a little, but he still got it on properly. The pants were pretty loose so he didn’t have much of a problem with it either. He did leave the socks and shoes behind though. Being able to sense his surroundings easily and touch the ground directly gave him comfort, he had no intention of giving that up.

Still, Silver was happy with the progress. Yet, then came the next difficulty, something she never expected would be a challenge.

A couple of hours had passed since Villin had put on clothes and Silver occasionally came over to have a short conversation with him, still giving him time for himself as well.

The most positive thing was that Villin also spent some time in the living room by himself, he wasn’t so fearful of the freedom anymore.

A bit later, Silver started preparing food. Two plates were filled with chicken, rice, and curry sauce.

When Silver told Villin it was time to eat, he came with her readily, but when he saw the plates he paused.

One thing Silver hadn’t realized yet was that Villin hadn’t eaten real food in nearly a year. All he ate were pills, no meat or vegetables.

When Silver asked what was wrong and heard he generally only ate pills, she felt surprised. She didn’t push Villin, she simply sat down and began eating from her own plate, under his gaze.

When she was almost finished, Villin went to sit across from her. Silver could see he was sweating. Something that should be so simply became so difficult for the boy. Even just to eat, he had to overcome a serious mental hurdle.

Still, he was strong. With s bit of encouragement from the Kitsune that shared his mind, he grabbed a fork, and with shaking hands, he got some rice on it.

When he moved it towards his mouth, most of the rice fell off but there were still some grains that made it into his mouth.