6 Years later, 17th January, 5:00PM—
In the demi-human village, there are approximately 25 houses that was built to accommodate families, when the village was first established almost 30 years ago, every houses was free to take for anyone that may accidentally stumble upon the village, with the only rules being that they must treat the others the same way they want to be treated.
Unlike humans who have created a government system and official currencies, other species including demihumans mostly kept the traditional way of bartering and giving back to mother nature, unless they are affiliated or are planning to visit a human settlement, they usually won't bother to use any form of currencies.
And now, after some time had passed, the village also grew significantly, every houses has been occupied with one exception incase of a guest from the outside staying for the night, many childrens have been born and lived their life in this small society.
Despite most of the houses in the village looking similar to each other, there are two buildings that have its own shape and size compared to the other buildings, and that building is the village chief house and the hunting storage house.
The former building has an obvious use, but the latter is a different story, the hunting storage house is used as a base for the hunting squad consisting of the most skilled demihumans in the village, before they went on a hunt, the hunting squad often devise their plan for the day in the building, the building itself has a large warehouse with many spare equipments being stored inside, it also has a training room where a couple of training dummies made out of wood reside.
Syla's father who was being part of this group, also had to come to this building everyday each morning, the reason as to why his equipment was never repaired or seem to be new again after a few months was because he always replaced them with the new one in the warehouse, as for the old ones that are broken, they get sent to a blacksmith at the nearest human settlement from the village to get repaired.
That's how they worked for the past decade, hunting, butchering, selling a portion of it while giving the rest to everyone else, save money, repairing, and repeat.
.
.
At Syla's house—
In the afternoon, Syla was at her room alone, sitting on a chair with a desk infront of her and closing her eyes, she was absorbing mana around her.
And after 8 years of doing the same thing everyday, Syla was now able to summon multiple fireballs from both of her hands, not only that, she can also use different magic elements, though after many tries and experiments, the only other elements she could use other than fire was water.
"Mhm– That's for today." She said as she opened her eyes.
Syla then stand up from the chair and walked towards the door behind her, her long white hairs swayed as she moved along with her tail. As she gradually grows older, Syla's figure also began to develop, her breasts had grown a little bit and her beauty was seen as unmatched by other kids in the village, although there are times where people are uncomfortable with her crimson eyes, Syla paid no mind to them.
Despite growing up to be a beauty, Syla was also given a problem along the way, because the more she grew up, the more people noticed that her intelligence was out of the ordinary.
In the first place, hiding the fact that she was a genius compared to other kids will only works temporarily, as other people began to look closer and piece their evidence correctly, they would eventually notice the unusual behavior that separates Syla with the others.
'Everyone in the village have already thought that i was a genius, but they weren't sure yet, it'll be only a matter of time before they found out, despite them needing 8 years to notice, once they have figured it out, the effect will be exponential.' Syla thought as she opened the wooden door.
'I guess that's a given, since for the past 6 years, i've gotten a bit careless, from being able to do complex math despite never publicly taught, accidentally saying things that shouldn't be known by someone at my age, and the fact that i never once cried– They seriously thought there was something wrong with me because i never cried.'
When Syla walked into the living room, she was greeted by her mother, her face was still beautiful even after all those years, her appearance are eerily similar to Syla in many ways.
"Do you need something?" Her mother asked.
Before Syla could answer, she heard a knocking on the front door.
Knock knock.
When she opened the door, her dad was waiting with a smile.
"Oh Syla, good timing, i was about to call you." Her dad said as soon as he saw Syla opening the door.
"Hm? What's wrong?" She replied, confused with why her dad looked for her.
"Follow me!" He said, turning his body and walked out of the house.
"Ah! Wait! you don't want to change your clothes first!?" Syla said while jogging to her father, she followed him on the street as they walked.
"Make sure you come back for dinner!!" Her mother shouted from inside the house, she then disappeared and closed the door.
As Syla kept following her dad's footstep, she got curious and asked.
"Where are we going?"
"To somewhere fun." Her dad said without anymore context, even when asked about where that fun place was, he kept quiet and didn't even bother to look directly at Syla.
After a few minutes of walking, they arrived at the front door of a large building.
"Isn't this.." Syla hesitantly said, she looked at the building's shape and the banner that was nailed on the roof. "The hunting storage?"
"Yes." Her dad replied with a smirk. "Let's go inside, don't bother with those who are watching."
Syla turned her head back and noticed a few people watching her, they seem to be curious as to what she was doing with her father at the hunting storage building, but as her father said, Syla shouldn't be worried about them, she followed her father shortly after and went inside.
'I'll just let things happen.' She thought.
Inside the building, she saw a huge table in the middle of the room, each side has a door and behind the table was a stair that leads to the second floor.
"Woah.. So this what's inside." Syla said, amazed with the interiors that are incredibly well decorated.
"Oh? Hargal!" One of Syla's dad friend waved at the two of them, there was a total of 6 other people in building, 8 including Syla and her dad.
"You actually brough her here huh, way to go man." Another person spoke from the other side of the massive table.
Then, her dad approached his friends slowly, Syla could only follow as she didn't recognize most of them yet, she only saw them on the street and never actually interacted with them before.
"Syla, say hi to everyone, you know their name right?" Her dad said, urging Syla to greet everyone in the room.
"Hello— Uhh, uncle Jroe, uncle Tared, uncle Drego, uncle Falko, uncle Tusk... And uncle— Uhh.." Syla said their names one by onex except for the last person. she seems to have forgotten his name.
"Uncle Raywen! That hurts to see you forgot your dad's leader, ha!" The last uncle said his name while hitting chest with his hand.
"Ah yes.. Uncle Raywen, sorry! i forgot your name.." Syla apologized.
Everyone in the room laughed at the same time, they were happy to hear Syla remembered their name.
"You actually remember us!" Falko said.
"I heard you're quite shy, i guess that's true!" Drego added.
"Do you want to train with us?" Jroe asked, "It can be a great experience!"
As they were laughing, Syla looked at her dad and he also looked at her, he was smiling.
"You see, uhh– how do i say this.. I thought that you might be bored training at home, so– I asked Raywen if you can use the training room in here, and he said yes." Her dad said while scratching the back of his head.
"That's right!" Raywen immediately responded to her dad before pointing his finger at Syla. "I heard a lot about you Syla, your dad told me that you're good with combat, and that you've been practicing swordmanship, i admire your bravery to walk in the path of the swords, as it is not an easy one— Don't worry, i already promised to your father that i won't tell anyone about your abilities, we all promised. So you can be honest to us, after all, we've been comrades since the dawn of times! Hahahaha!"
'Huh?..' Syla was confused with the situation infront of her, she didn't expect her dad to tell everything about her to his friends. 'I guess it was already out–.'
"Okay.. If that's the case then— Nice to meet you all, i hope you can treat me well." Syla bowed down to her dad's friends, along with them, her training had significantly increased in difficulty, and it seems like her future will only be filled with hardships.