Chapter 2: Victor’s Days of Silence

  Victor rarely spoke.

  There was no one to speak to.

  The village he’d been sent to was at the border of Eodias, near dense jungles and infested ruins. The people were kind in a distant way—curious about the “summoned one,” but hesitant to approach. His B-Rank made him unremarkable in their eyes.

  He trained. Morning to night, he trained. Swinging the broken sword until his arms ached. Drawing earth from the ground to form shapes. Trying to harden stones into walls or form them into blades. But his magic lacked sharpness. Precision. Power.

  A week passed. Then two.

  He read old books in the village library. He learned the language, slowly. Studied maps. History. Anything to make sense of the world he was thrown into.

  And each night, as he stared at the cracked ceiling above his bed, he wondered—

  Why me?

  He had never been special. Just another student blending into the crowd. His scores were average. His voice was rarely heard.

  Was that why the world threw him here?

  He thought about the others—his classmates, the ones who had laughed when his rank was revealed. They were probably surrounded by luxury now, pampered and praised.

  Victor gritted his teeth.

  The silence in his room echoed his thoughts. Loud. Unforgiving.

  He didn’t want luxury.

  He wanted to prove them wrong.

  So he trained harder.

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  When the village guards took note of his persistence, one of them—an old warrior named Harren—offered him advice. Just advice, not training. But it helped.

  “Your magic ain’t weak, kid,” Harren said once, after watching Victor fail to raise an earth wall. “You’re just not listening to it.”

  “Listening?” Victor had asked, confused.

  “Magic is like a beast. You don’t shout orders—you whisper to it. Show it your intent. Then it listens.”

  Victor kept those words close.

  He began meditating each morning, feeling the earth beneath him. Listening. Whispering.

  And one day—it answered.

  The ground pulsed faintly, and a stone pillar rose smoothly from the soil. Not jagged. Not unstable. Clean. Controlled.

  He fell to his knees and laughed for the first time in weeks.

  He had felt it. The connection.

  Word of his persistence reached the local lord. A man named Baron Ilford, who ruled Eodias’s border territories. The baron requested to meet him.

  Victor stood nervously in the stone hall, bowing awkwardly.

  “You’ve been working hard,” Ilford said, examining him. “You’re probably the only one sent here,How do you feel?”

  “Nothing special,” Victor replied honestly. “I seek… worth.”

  Ilford raised a brow, intrigued. “Few speak so boldly. Very well. I’ll have my steward arrange for you a meeting with the king.But before that you have to show your worth.You’ll join our scouts. Learn by doing.”

  Victor bowed again, this time deeper. “Thank you.”

  For the first time since arriving in this world, someone had seen potential in him.

  The scout training was grueling. Climbing cliffs. Traversing jungle paths. Ambush drills. Tracking monsters.

  Victor was slower than the others. Weaker. But he didn’t complain.

  He listened. Observed. Endured.

  Every scar became a reminder. Every failure, a lesson.

  And slowly, he improved.

  A month passed. Then another.

  He could now raise stone shields in an instant. Form spears from the ground. He learned to shape the earth subtly—traps, barriers, supports.

  He wasn’t flashy. But he was reliable.

  The scout leader, a stern woman named Captain Rysa, took note.

  “You’re not strong yet,” she told him during one training night. “But you’re steady. That’s rare. Don’t lose that.”

  He noded. “I won’t.”

  His name began spreading in whispers through the border ranks. Not as a prodigy. But as someone who never gave up.

  And in a world drowning in despair, that meant something.

  One quiet evening, Victor sat on a hill overlooking the jungle.

  The wind rustled through the grass. The sky burned with the colors of dusk.

  He closed his eyes.

  “I don’t care if I’m not a hero,” he whispered to the wind. “I’ll make my own path.”

  And somewhere, far from the borders, in the heart of the Empire, another figure was watching. A shadow in the academy. A ghost among nobles.

  The storm was building.

  And Victor’s silent days… were almost over.