The people in the settlement also fell asleep. There are no guards at night other than animals they raised for transport and hunting. As they haven't faced any threat in their life for a long time. So they all slept quietly without knowing a terrifying creature was currently residing with them on the island.
A month passed, after settling down on this island. John roamed around the island and the water surrounding the island. But didn't find anything anything noteworthy nothing other than normal. Few people from the settlement found that little change happened here and there on the water pathways of the island. But didn't find John as he left the island or out of the island most of the time.
He also found no one in the settlement was stronger. They are all weaker than medium-sized animals with some of them having the ability to breathe in water, but they still live on the land for some reason, which he didn't know why. They all seem to have a fixed lifestyle like hunting, socializing, and spending time with their family.
It looked like a perfect utopia, the mutated people seemed to marry another person who was also mutated. The people with and without any mutation seem to live together. No discrimination seems to exist between mutated and not mutated peoples.
Even though most people seemed to have strong bodies and overall abilities stronger than compared to normal humans from a previous life according to John. He didn't find anyone with disabilities in the settlement within the population of thousands of people. John didn't know if it was normal or not. So he dismissed the thought.
Finally, after a month, John concluded that there was no one strong enough to make him feel anything, even if they attacked as a group. Even though they have all the basic technologies. Their technological development seemed to be in its infancy with basic agriculture and, weapon systems consisting of bow & arrow and spear.
There are no groundbreaking technological inventions nor are there any weird biological technologies that he expected from what he had seen in the world. The people in the settlement seemed to have no contact with the outside world. As they live on what they gained from the mountains. The spices they have are less and they also have technology to extract salt from the sea.
After knowing almost everything about them. John is currently on the last step of how can he contact & converse with them. John thought extensively about a solution. Days passed as he looked at the people in the settlement and in the forest for any inspiration.
One day in the morning when the sun had just risen, as usual, John looked at the people in the settlement with a dazed expression in a camouflaged state. Suddenly his eyes locked on a normal kid with a long tail, which seemed currently locked onto the small black-colour four-legged creature with sharp canine teeth.
The boy looked at the creature and said to the creature as he fed a handful of meat to the creature "If you obey me, you will get meat like this every day. Do you understand?"
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The creature seemed to understand him as it nodded and barked in its language. The boy showed a happy expression on his face. He fed the remaining meat and began to command and control the creature to the best of his ability.
As he trained the creature, a group of kids came near him, and one of the strong kids with dark-colored fish scales and gills looked at the kid with a tail and said with an envious expression "I also want to have an ability like you have. How good will it be, if I can control the bird and fly into the sky?"
Hearing this, most of the kids without tails looked envious. The kid with a tail replied to the boy with a smile "You can breathe underwater with your gills. With this ability, you can catch as many fish as possible. If you don't want your ability? Why don't you say that to your father."
The kid with gills replied hastily while looking around "Who said I don't like my ability? I like my ability very much."
Seeing his antics others started to laugh at him. As the kid with gills is very much afraid his father will beat him. If he heard he's ashamed of his ability. Seeing that his friends laughing at him he got frustrated and said angrily "You bastards, stop laughing. Otherwise, I'll beat you all."
The kids also stopped laughing loudly, but couldn't control their laughter. So, they all began to run around while laughing, with the kid with black scales chasing behind them. Without knowing all of their actions are under the surveillance of the giant snake that got a solution to his quest on how to converse or understand them.
The adults also looked at the kids playing in the fields with smiles as they continued their day. The elders from the settlement also looked at this scene on their daily rounds around the settlement to see if there was any mismanagement under their administration. The elders are all over ninety years old age-wise. But they still had the energy to roam around without anyone's help.
One of the elders with a long tail and large eagle hovering above his head said with worry "The number of people with tails is getting lesser and lesser with an already lesser population of them and some of the newborns seemed not to inherit their parent abilities. So the hunting team and people who patrol and manage the settlement are getting less and less. If we let it go on like this. The people with tails will be gone within a few generations and our people will not be able to leave this island if there's any disaster."
An elder with gills on both sides of his head replied to the elder with a long tail "Samuel, you are worrying too much. We have lived here for more than a hundred years but have not seen any danger other than giant animals killing our fishers in the sea. So, your worry is unnecessary."
A third elder with white hair without any noticeable mutations in the body said in a solemn tone "Even if what Samuel said is a bit over the line. There's no denying the fact that the population of the people with tails is less than ten percent of the people with gills. We need more people with tails. So, I propose to hold a ceremony to increase the number of people with tails. What do you guys all think?"
Hearing this elder's proposal, other elders all showed contemplating looks on their faces. No one is young anymore to decide in the heat of the moment. Let alone a decision that is gonna consume a rare finite resource.
After thinking and raising various questions among themselves. The twenty elders decided to hold a ceremony to increase the number of tailed members in the population. They have to convince the population of the settlement to this decision, as they are the main contributors to this ceremony.
John looked at all of this and couldn't understand what they were saying, as what he was hearing from their speeches was a bunch of mumblings. John is much more focused on the tail behind the kid and the elder and mainly on their ability to command and understand other animals.