Fifty-seven...fifty-eight…fifty-nine…sixty!

“Abeni. Hey…how are you doing?” Came the female ẹda’s voice from the bedroom door. But Abeni didn’t stop her swings as she gripped tighter on the kitchen knife she was training with. The one used for chopping vegetables and meat. In fact, she barely even registered it.

A week had passed since she landed her first-ever job, a week and a half since she arrived back at the village. And in that time, she learned a lot about how adult life worked. The adult life she had been severely, and frustratingly shielded from. Not that she didn’t understand why.

It was stressful.

The day after getting a job, Abeni went to work, struggling with selling tools but not with keeping her mouth shut. Well...mostly shut because as the day passed, Yousef just kept prying and prying for information about her, her family and her home until she eventually let some things slip to placate the man.

But not much!

Sixty-one...sixty-two…sixty-three…sixty-four!

Abeni simply described her home, spoke about her stone hut with wooden doors and chairs, and he told her she was privileged since most homes were smaller huts made of mud. Only those who made enough money or were strong enough to work closely to serve the chief got stone huts. As someone who lived in a mud hut and paid similar taxes as she would have to soon, he found it hard to store his tools since he had less space.

Abeni did feel a bit privileged then.

“It’s not fair!” Yousef complained before going on a whole tirade against the travelling merchants who traded food and materials from the overworld. And the wanderers who visited their village on a weekly basis for shelter from the ẹda like the ones they saw be dragged out by the guard, or worse, a junior manipulator. Both of which annoyed him despite the fact that they all spoke Derin. Abeni had to covertly focus all of her attention on him when he spoke to Arab customers so that she could learn handy bits and pieces of Arabic. But he could understand it all.

“Why?” Abeni recalled asking.

“Because they get to visit the village as they like without having to pay what I pay,” he whined. Clearly just…jealous, if anything.

Sixty-five...sixty-six…sixty-seven…sixty-eight!

But in an underworld where her parents were killed by a fantastical being and a village that would probably throw her out at any moment just for the company she kept, knowing more about the inequalities in trading, rent and taxes was not important. It wasn’t helpful. Not when she didn’t feel safe here.

Not when Abeni still knew next to nothing about the hunts because the tanned merchant, despite his promises, hadn’t told her much of anything last weekend. Instead, pestering her about the equipment left in her home to the point that neither of them were willing to give the other eniyan what they wanted by the end of her second shift on Sunday.

That’s why after two whole days of being badgered about it all, Abeni went home that night with a mission. Deciding that it was prime time she looked for the supposed equipment, stash or whatever it was. Just so that she could at least bargain with him for more relevant information if need be. However, an hour was not enough time to find anything…which she guessed she should’ve expected.

Sixty-nine...seventy…seventy-one…seventy-two!

If the village chief, an established merchant with a table stall and Uncle Ibrahim kept asking her. Needed Abeni, a newly orphaned girl with no known abilities to give them what it was her parents left behind, then it couldn’t be so easy to find.

Perhaps, all she had to do was look harder, in the bins, under the bed, it’d be somewhere, she reassured herself.

But...after turning her stone hut inside out with no results, Abeni became impatient, much to the female ẹda’s confusion.

“Ugh! Where is it?” She had groaned. Empty-handed and hungry. Forgetting to eat and pondering what to do. Because just sitting at home for the next five days until work came back up again didn’t suit her. But any more searching would drive her mad.

Seventy-three...seventy-four…seventy-five…seventy-six!

So, after slowly chewing on the handful of imported unseasoned cashew nuts she bought on her way home because she could afford to treat herself and wanted to savour it. After sitting deep in thought on the front room-kitchen chair where the female ẹda watched her with silent curiosity.

After taking a deserved break, Abeni settled on an alternative approach to the upcoming week. Until she could get the information out of Yousef or anyone else about the hunters and the lives her parents lived, she would use the only weapon she could find, not exactly a short sword but a kitchen knife, and spend her time learning to protect herself should the bargaining plan go wrong.

So that Abeni could, at the very least, rely on herself no matter what happened.

Because, frankly, the longer she stayed here, the more she worried.

Seventy-seven...seventy-eight…seventy-nine…eighty!

Abeni had been way too close to powerless on her birthday. And when the chief intimidated her the days after…when Uncle Ibrahim punched her as punishment…when Martin pushed her away. She had been grieving, too unstable. Only fixated on strengthening her mind and relying on her mind manipulation ability if times got rough.

But even if she found what they were all looking for, that treasure of sorts that her parents supposedly left behind. What could she do to protect herself from unknown threats or even the people of Aajiz’s greed if she couldn’t even swing a simple knife like they could? That’s right, nothing.

Eighty-one...eighty-two…eighty-three…eighty-four!

Abeni didn’t have any noticeable talents for fighting. She knew that apart from her decent stamina, she was small and weak compared to the adults that towered over her. She was even a bit insecure about it...Even so, she tested herself the following day.

Unlike the female ẹda, Abeni didn’t feel particularly skilled at fighting close range. Mid-range targets were not any easier to swing at and she didn’t think working from afar like Iya would work either.

So, instead of pondering it all and wasting her time making surely inexperienced, misinformed conclusions about herself…she just swung.

Eighty-five...eighty-six…eighty-seven…eighty-eight!

100 swings up and down, 100 slashes side to side, 100 thrusts forward and back, 100 slices diagonally, an hour-long jog around the village and some more fun exercises that she may or may not have…made up. But who could blame her? It wasn’t like she had a teacher. Abeni had come to realise that living here was all about who you know and she didn’t know anyone here to help.

So, she’d do it until she couldn’t. And then do it some more.

Flash forward to that Friday, Abeni had been doing this every day for the past five days in her bedroom, as well as having an occasional look for her parents’ stash until the day before she needed to go in to work. And it seemed that the female ẹda, who had been completely silent about her sudden change in behaviour, was finally verbalising her apprehensions.

[Current Total Beings In ‘Abeni’s Army’ – 1]