'Wait, wait, just from that?'
Though Daivi was a bit unrealistic here, he still thought that his mother was too weak. Just from the question, she had started crying with muffling sounds filling Daivi's ears. Maybe it was because he was still young, but his ears were extra good.
'Come on, be strong in front of your child.'
"Your father... he was a very strong man who fought hard to protect the town." She spoke with sniffles interrupting here and there.
"Wow, protecting the town, is my dad a hero?"
Daivi made sure to tread carefully, he wasn't sure if this was something a child of his age should be knowing, but he doubted his mother would notice anything.
Sniff sniff
"Yes, he was a hero... Your father was a strong Sutori that loved his town very much." She said the last part with a bit of sadness in her voice, which Daivi spotted right away. It would seem that his father was really passionate about being a soldier and ignored his wife more. 'Sutori, huh? Is that a special name for those magic users? I have to act with enthusiasm .' Since he had started the play, he naturally had to see it through to the end.
"Wow, what's a Sutori mama?"
"A Sutori is a strong person who protects the town. Your father was a strong sutori too."
Daivi immediately caught the lie in the sentence. He wasn't an actual kid, so that fake smile and fake enthusiasm that was used to fool kids wouldn't work on him at all!
'Is this countering enthusiasm with enthusiasm? Strong my ass! Heh..'
He couldn't push anymore than he had, if not he feared his mother might catch on to something. Of course, this could have just been his own paranoia, but it was better to be careful and regretful in his opinion.
Some months go by and Daivi finally meet a relative of his, it was his grandmother. She was from his father's side which meant this was his father's mother. From what he could tell, she seemed to sympathise with his mother very well, she probably knew the kind of son she had. 'Such an unfilial son of his mother too!' Daivi simply knew her as grandma.
His grandmother took him out one day to buy stock for dinner. Though it was still afternoon, he figured she was a punctual type. Daivi got a lot of chances to leave the house whenever his mother was going anywhere, after all, they were the only people that lived in the house. She also didn't seem to do any sort of work, or maybe she handled some nightshifts that he didn't know of, he had seen her leaving the house late once.
As they walked the street, Daivi cooked up a plan he had been wanting to enact for some time now with his mother. Though today, he had found a new victim, his grandmother.
While she went from stall to stall in the market purchasing certain things, Daivi spotted one store up ahead he was sure they would pass on the way. This particular store had been on his raider for a long time, and today he would attack.
As they got closer, Daivi tugged on his grandmother's garment that she had over her clothes.
"What is it?"
Getting her attention, he pointed towards the stall that sold books. She brushed it off saying it wasn't something tasty, but he persisted and soon got her to stop there.
She immediately picked some children story books that featured bright paintings on the front and big writings. Being sure that he need not be indoctrinated into things for the toddlers, he stared her attention towards other books, two in particular that he had his eyes on.
"That's too complex, here, take this one." The grandmother ushered a kids book on history to him, but he pushed it off.
"This little devil, your mother has spoiled you too much! I'll beat your ass red if you misbehave, even in public!" No doubt, his grandmother wasn't as docile as his mother. Somehow, he still preferred her to his mother sometimes.
In the end, the store owner begged his grandmother to just take the books and even gave her a discount, saying that Daivi might be a genius kid.
"This runt, a genius? The only thing his good for is destruction of good furniture and spoiling good garden. Heh, Valera really is too weak to his antics."
She took the books in the end with one of the children history ones.
'What genius? You just want to sell those dust covered books. After all, those books had been there for months and no one had bought them.' He thought.
After they got home, Daivi took the books from his grandmother and rushed into his room straight without skipping a beat. She just sighed before heading into the kitchen with the other goods. Though she was like this, Daivi was sure she had love in her, after all she was the one to tell him about how the world really was. If his mother said be good to everyone! His grandmother would say give em hell! Or advice him not to be an easy target. Even though a child wouldn't understand those complex topics yet, Daivi was not a normal child. To Daivi, this was a better representation of the world, it was more realistic.
Getting to his room, Daivi kept all the three books on the floor while he sat with his back to the side of his bed. Evening had come, and since his bedroom window was facing the west, the beams from the sun shone into his room, giving it a goldish-orange light.
'First off... Let's just read through this trash, it shouldn't be entirely useless.' He almost threw the children's book away, but he realised he was a child himself at the moment, and it wouldn't hurt to know these stuff.
He was still unsure how this world would receive a genius. There were so many variables. From his average home status of him being from a supposedly weak clan, he could rise into a child sponsored by the government. There was that, or he would be at the centre of politics or used as some type of prototype, the possibilities towered, and not all were good. It was better that when interacting with people, he could display a level of knowledge relative to his age.
He opened the book and read through it quickly. The book gave a simple history about the town he was in. According to the book, The Province of Atis, which was the name of the town, was a special hidden place under the Land of Fire which was the greatest land.
'It was founded by this and that person and their clans, and was the first of such hidden lands to be established after the great warring era. Hmm... So it used to be just some village of superhumans with powers who loved fighting before they made some kind of deal with the lord of this land huh? They were probably causing natural phenomenon to happen everywhere they fought and destroying lands of normal folk.' The book didn't state all that exclusively, but it wasn't hard to guess.
'Are the superhuman magic users just a military tool for the nation? That just sucks, bleh.'
Even with that knowledge, Daivi was not discouraged and still wanted to see if there was a way he too could become one of them. Of course, that led him to the next book before him.
[The Way of a Sutori]
He was curious as to what he would find in it, as the title was a bit confusing. After reading a few pages, Daivi was completely astonished. This single book had bestowed upon him the most valuable information he had gotten since he arrived him this foreign world, and he had only read a few pages. Looking at the book and seeing that it had some volume, he was excited to see all what it contained in it.
'These guys aren't just pushovers after all! Was my father really a strong sutori?'
Daivi was a bit excited and forget a crucial part of his memory. Recalling how he learnt that his father was a 'strong sutori', he abandoned the thought and continued reading. From the book, it seemed that these sutori were not just some charged up soldiers that were dogs of the nation, no, they were completely independent of the kingdom and could only be commissioned by the nation to do jobs. They were more like mercenaries that still had to be respected by the nation and its government.
There were special towns within every nation that had these sutori living in them, and these towns housed the different clans these sutori belonged.
'It would seem that only those from these clans could become sutori? Hahaha, I'm extremely lucky then.' From what he knew, he was from such a clan and his father was a sutori, so that should be something. 'Unless... I've never seen my mother do anything that would classify her as a sutori...'
It would be hard for people with such abilities to live life completely without using their superior advantage even once, and his mother had never done any such amazing feat that was not normal.
'If my mother turns out to be just some civilian, then doesn't that reduce my chances of being strong, or even... Of having the potential to become one at all?'
Daivi was really put in some distress with that thought. If that happened, then he was doomed. He could imagine that people this strong would also have different mentalities. Not only that, not being powerful in any world meant a hard life, and if this world was as primitive as he thought, death. Of course, he could live a normal life and not worry about all this, but that would be even worse than not trying!
'Just in case, I sure hope we are in peace times. Since the nation can't freely mobilize the sutori, we should be fine, I guess.'
Daivi went on to read the book more, and the more he read, the wider his knowledge expanded. When he got to a point, he was disturbed a bit as dinner time had reached and he had to come out. His grandmother had called already, so he rushed down. He didn't want to get beaten that night. The beatings weren't anything serious, but it still stung a bit even though his grandmother only used her finger. 'Could it be!...'
During dinner, Daivi took his chance. "Grandma, are you a sutori?!" He asked with a wide smile plastered on his face. These were antiques of course, to give the childish charm.
"How did you even learn that? Wait, this runt really a genius?" She was a bit surprised. But then she remembered she had also gotten him a children's book that had such inside. "Forget it."
Valera chuckled as she saw their interaction. "Your grandmother used to be a very powerful sutori! Strong and beautiful!" The grandmother seemed pleased with this as she couldn't stop the smirk from coming on her face.
'I can't tell if it's true or not.'
"Little Kazi, maybe when you grow older you'll become a strong sutori too." The grandmother stopped immediately as though she had said something wrong, then she turned to Valera.
'She's shaking just from that? Wow, and she's not even in place to have PTSD but it affects her this much.' Daivi thought.
Valera was against the idea of Daivi becoming a sutori, since her husband died as one. Regardless though, Daivi was still determined to become one. His mother's antiques and mental health would not be a wall in his path to ultimate power.
'Unless of course I see it's useless, then I'll place the wall myself.' Daivi had already created some plans for the future, and was prepared just in case life decided to do him 'a second time isn't a lucky one'.
When he was done with dinner, he headed back into his room and continued reading with a lamp. He decided to read the other book just to see what it was. After reading a bit, he discovered that it also spoke about sutori amongst other things. He kept it aside as it didn't seem to be important compared to the one before.