' I see... So that is what actually happened...'
Hidden completely from view beside the plush leather sofa, standing right by the heavy oak doors, was Fainyx.
Or rather, it was the perfect golem Fain that Fainyx had quietly left stationed inside the dining hall under the cover of his invisible magic.
He had only kept the golem there out of pure curiosity, wanting to know what his father and his newly arrived aunt and uncle were going to discuss after the children were dismissed.
But to think that their intense, emotionally charged conversation would be entirely about him...
When his fearsome father completely broke down, shedding real tears and violently blaming himself for the empty, silent way Fainyx had turned out, he couldn't help but feel incredibly complicated inside.
Actually, he really didn't know what to think in this type of situation, as he was an adult soul reincarnated into a child's body, and seeing the cold Duke wallow in such deep, historical regret left him feeling utterly detached yet strangely conflicted.
'For now. I think it was best to just let it go...'
Fainyx let out a quiet sigh inside his mind, pulling his consciousness entirely away from the dining hall.
His real physical body was safely back inside his own bedroom in the west wing.
His two older brothers had already been sent back to their respective quarters and were heavily buried in their evening studies.
"Ugh... I don't want to study!"
"You have to Young Master. Now now~ let's go back to your study~"
Liam had been dragged off by his theory tutor, while Adam went straight back to his physical training routines, leaving Fainyx completely by himself.
He severed the mental connection to his magic, completely disintegrating the clone Fain from the dining room as the construct dissolved back into raw mana particles.
Left in the quiet of his room, Fainyx sat down and began carefully examining the core mana resting deep inside his body.
For years now, his internal mana pool had been expanding at such an explosive rate that he honestly did not know when it would ever stop growing.
What worried him the most was the direct correlation to one of his ability, whenever his personal mana expanded in the real world, the entire dimension of the Aetherium expanded right along with it, and he couldn't help but feel a lingering sense of anxiety about the sheer scale of his power.
He thought deeply about how normal people would react if they ever saw him casting high-tier spells without drawing a single magic circle.
' I had already mastered casting the advanced gravity magic that the butler Weinhart used three years ago, performing it effortlessly without a single chant or glowing circle now. '
He desperately needed to find a safe way to ensure people would not notice his non-circle magic as he grew up.
When he eventually turned fifteen, there would be a mandatory examination at the academy where the high mages would test exactly how many circles a student could form and what elemental attribute suited them best.
He had exactly nine years left before he would be to attend that academy, and he was determined to find a reliable way to mask his true power before that day arrived.
' Perhaps I could ask my two masters, Yong and Ruth, for some advice on masking techniques the exact moment they returned to the estate.'
He would definitely make a note to ask them.
After several long minutes of intense thinking, Fainyx let out a small yawn, stretching his small arms as he stood up from his armchair.
He had already changed into his soft cotton pajamas for the night as he walked over to his large bed, thoroughly exhausted after being picked up and aggressively cuddled by the energetic twin duo earlier, and crawled under the covers.
He closed his eyes and immediately drifted off into a deep sleep.
***
Fainyx remained asleep in the dark room, his tiny chest rising and falling in steady, rhythmic breaths.
Then, completely out of nowhere, the heavy glass window that was supposed to be securely closed and locked gave a sudden, violent shudder.
*Kachack!
The lock clicked open with an eerie smoothness and a dark, black-clothed figure slipped silently through the opening, quietly dropping onto the carpeted floor before being followed by two more identical, cloaked figures.
"Is this small kid our actual target, Boss?"
one of the cloaked figures whispered into the dark, his voice low and raspy as he pointed a gloved finger at the bed.
"Yes, so hold your tongue and be quiet now," the leader whispered back sharply, his eyes scanning the luxurious room.
"We need to kidnap this kid as quickly as possible before the guards rotate."
"Poor little kid, keke," the third thief chuckled quietly under his breath, a sinister grin hidden beneath his mask.
"To think a frail, sick child would fetch such an incredibly high price on the black market, kekeke. What exactly are we supposed to do with him after we get him out, Boss? Based on the details in the paper, they said we need to kidnap the kid and make a ransom to the Nocte family, right? But kill him early to get them no leads?"
"Yes, that is the plan," the leader confirmed, taking a step closer toward the mattress.
"But we absolutely cannot kill him yet. We need to keep him safe for now while we smuggle him out of the territory."
***
'... Why the hell do these idiots keep whispering right next to my bed like nobody can hear them? Are they completely brain-dead?'
'To think that someone out there actually wants to kidnap and kill me just to make the family take some random ransom... are you absolutely kidding me right now?'
'And more importantly, how did these guys even find out the exact layout of the west wing and know which room I sleep in?'
Fainyx's mind was fully awake and thinking.
In reality, his consciousness was currently sitting safely inside the Aetherium, Lumi who always followed fainyx whenever he come is sleeping on a soft grass as it's back was facing the sky as he was just sunbathing, Fainyx was using the golem Fain back in the bedroom as a decoy to trick the intruders.
He had realized long before he ever went to bed that someone had breached the outer perimeter; his active mana senses had detected a suspicious presence lingering right outside his window hours ago.
' Three figures... clearly professionals who hid pretty well from ordinary knights, but unfortunately for them, they had picked a completely wrong target this time. '
He needed to get rid of them at all costs, and he absolutely could not let a single one of them escape the room alive.
But first, he needed to find out the identity of the person who had targeted him from the shadows.
' How was he going to put these guys to say the truth? '
Then an identical, mischievous thought suddenly formed in Fainyx's mind.
'Hehe~ this will be fun.'
***
"Now let us go and take this kid out now," the third cloaked figure muttered, shifting his weight.
"I am hungry and want to get this job over with."
He took a step forward to approach the sleeping boy, and the other two cloaked figures quickly followed close behind him.
But before their calloused hands could even touch the fabric of the blanket, the ambient light in the bedroom suddenly dimmed down to an unnatural degree.
A sudden, freezing cold air swept through the space, and the single candle that had been flickering softly on the desk instantly died out.
The entire bedroom was instantly plunged into a thick, pitch-black darkness, causing the three cloaked figures to panic for a brief second before they forced themselves to calm down.
"It is just the candle blown out," the leader whispered, his hand drawing a hidden dagger.
"We left the window open after all."
Reassured by his words, the leader turned back and stepped directly toward Fainyx's bed, reaching his hands out to grab the child.
"Huh?"
The leader froze, his mind going completely blank with confusion. The young boy who had been fast asleep under the covers just a second ago was suddenly gone, leaving the bed completely empty.
The other two cloaked figures were equally bewildered, instantly dropping to their knees to search the floorboards, looking frantically under the bed frame, and even checking inside the wooden cabinets.
"He is not here!" one of them whispered in a panicked tone.
"Not here either, Boss! What shall we do now?!"
"Is this an illusion?" the leader growled, his heart hammering against his ribs as his confusion quickly turned into absolute alertness.
" Everyone raise your weapons and stay close... We might have walk in a trap- !!"
But the moment he turned his head around to look at his men, he realized with a jolt of pure horror that absolutely no one was left in his sight.
The room was entirely empty.
'What's happening? Where's everyone? Is this an illusion? Did an Elite Circle Mage guard this place? Impossible... based on the reports, no guards have reached an elite circle here.'
'Firstly, I needed to esca—'
But before the leader could even finish the thought of fleeing through the window, a brilliant, sudden tear of white light materialized out of thin air right in front of his face, creating a powerful gravitational force that began sucking his entire body inside.
"Fu—"
*Poof!
Before the assassin could even finish his curse, his entire body disappeared into the spatial rift, leaving his heavy steel dagger to clatter loudly against the carpeted floor.
Resting right beside that fallen weapon were two other weapons belonging to his vanished men, a curved hunting knife, a smaller dagger, and a small glass bottle filled with a thick, viscous violet liquid.
The glass bottle rolled slowly across the floorboards until it came to a gentle stop right against a pair of small, bare feet.
A small, pale hand reached down and picked up the suspicious violet liquid, It's crystal violet eyes examining the bottle with careful, calculated movements before it let out a slow, heavy sigh.
"To think they even think about this kind of stuff..."
It's voice, though belonging to a tiny six-year-old child, carried a deep, profound sense of exhaustion that didn't match his age at all.
It calmly gathered the fallen weapons and the poison bottle, wrapping them neatly inside a fresh white towel before using a magic to completely conceal them with invisibility magic.
Once the items were perfectly hidden, it tucked the bundle away safely under the bed frame where no servant would ever find it.
Then it let out another stretch, walked back over to the bed, and laid it's small body down against the pillows, closing it's eyes to rest.
'My real body will deal with the intruders.'
Then it slowly closes it's eyes as it drifted off to sleep.