My bad feeling came true.

  Well, first of all, when I arrived the next day with my weapons in tow, Suon handed me another card similar to my ID card.

  It also had my name and picture on it. It really was just another ID card.

  "Haha, you're raring to go, huh? Good thing I got you this. Non-adventurers aren't really allowed to go around with weapons like that... well, it should be fine now."

  I wondered if pocket knives counted. I usually carried a couple of those, just in case.

  "So... they agreed that you're technically an S rank, but they don't want you going into the higher ranked dungeons with just Beginner, so... for now, you're an E rank, and once you log a hundred hours, they'll do another review. Oh, but... if you rely on Beginner too much, that'll probably get reported against you."

  'What's the point of requiring adventurers to have Skills if they don't want me using mine?'

  Not that I planned to anyway.

  Since it brought me back to the Lost, it'd be a huge waste.

  The nearest E rank dungeon was a mile away, which wasn't too bad, but doing it over and over again would probably get pretty inefficient.

  "Whatever... if I need it, then I probably can't handle higher ranks anyway."

  "Yeah, well... I'm glad you understand their reasoning. Huh. You're a pretty smart kid, you know."

  I declined to comment.

  Maybe I ought to have.

  I was now sitting in Suon's car.

  "Don't you have to watch the Lost?"

  "Nope. Someone else is doing that today. My main job's being your liaison, you know."

  "Yeah, but..."

  "Don't worry, don't worry. This is part of my job. I'm supposed to help assess you, and all that. Look, if you didn't come with me, then I'd drive there and spend half an hour waiting for you, so you're really saving me time this way."

  I couldn't really argue, but I noticed he was awfully quick lately when it came to justifying his actions.

  Like he was going to do whatever he wanted anyway, and just come up with a way to make it sound like it didn't benefit me.

  'He's got cause and effect backwards, hasn't he...'

  ***

  The E rank dungeon was similar to the Lost, in that both had a large fence set up around them.

  However, while the Lost was open to anyone, the entry to this place was more restricted.

  We had to show our adventuring permits just to get close enough to the portal to get information from it.

  Once we did, as I looked at it, alien knowledge entered my mind, telling me that it was a portal to the Red Forest, an E rank dungeon.

  It sure was uncanny to just know it had a particular rank.

  "So, Kid... have you looked into this dungeon?"

  I nodded.

  "Alright. I went here too, a few years back, when I was an E rank like you, so I'm pretty used to it. If you have any questions, just let me know."

  "Okay."

  And so, we entered.

  I had wondered if entering would move my checkpoint for Beginner, but it didn't. If I died in here, I'd end up back in the Lost again.

  ***

  Supposedly, the Red Forest was a dungeon on par with the Lost.

  It was actually a natural graduation for new adventurers once they got their first Skill to come here, since they were so similar.

  So much of one that people who did so were a bit looked down on for sticking to their comfort zones instead of trying to grow and improve.

  If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

  However, I didn't care about that.

  I just wanted to make more money.

  There were a few major differences though.

  First of all, living up to the dungeon's name, it was in a forest of red. The leaves, shrubs, and sparse grass were all bright red. Even the earth had a distinct red color that made me think it might make for decent clay.

  Well, there was only one way to find out that last part, but I didn't want to gather any with Suon watching me.

  "It sure is a whole new world in here, huh? ... Hey, Kid, what's up? Why do you look so disappointed?"

  "Huh? It's nothing."

  "Is it really nothing? You can tell me, you know. You don't have to, but you can."

  "I wanted to try making clay."

  "Clay?"

  "From the soil here."

  He started laughing, so I glared at him.

  Surprisingly, that shut him up.

  "Sorry, haha... that was just, y'know... the most you thing I've heard you say so far. It's no problem at all. Just don't take more than you can carry, that's all."

  'How would I?'

  Oh.

  It was probably just to keep people from mining dungeons on an industrial scale without the right permits.

  "Got it, I guess."

  "Got something to carry it in?"

  "More or less."

  Bags in this world were cheap.

  Or perhaps I should say they were cheap in Terra, since I was now in a different world named the Red Forest

  I dug out a sizable sample with what limited tools I'd brought, wrapped it in two bags, and shoved it in my backpack.

  I could feel Suon staring at me, but he didn't say anything.

  "Alright... uh... good to go?"

  I nodded.

  ***

  The other difference between the forests is that the animals here were more aggressive, but a bit less dangerous.

  A strange, green-furred antelope spotted us. It looked like it was made out of leaves. Anyway, it charged.

  It was fortunately quite stupid.

  I pointed my spear at it, bracing it against the ground behind me.

  Unlike my early sharpened sticks, this was a proper spear. Well, perhaps not a professionally made one for this era, since I had to hand carve it, but it was solid wood, not just a sturdy-seeming branch that might snap on me.

  Now, I still got trampled, because impaling itself didn't halt the antelope at all, but I covered my face and body as best as I could, and only got a bit bruised.

  The strange animal died.

  Its body gradually disappeared, though unlike the animals in the other forest, it seemed to break down more slowly, light flashing oddly during the brief process.

  Rather than a shard being left behind, a whole tiny crystal was.

  I got up to grab it.

  "Geez... is that seriously how you hunt? You could have gotten seriously hurt!"

  I shrugged.

  "It's not like I can die."

  "I guess not, but... you could still get hurt. Maybe getting you a permit was a mistake..."

  "I'll be fine."

  ***

  Having watched the small girl barely kill a single animal, Suon was quite worried for her.

  Well, it wasn't the difficulty involved, but the danger she'd put herself in.

  Adventurers learn to fight in ways that mitigated danger and practically guaranteed success. Outside major emergencies, it was virtually never worth taking risks.

  But this girl, while using her opponent's force against them was quite clever and made up for her physical shortcomings, she put her body and life on the line to do so.

  Of course, perhaps she was merely taking advantage of her Skill.

  Still, even if her Skill guaranteed her safety, it would trouble countless people watching her fight this way.

  'But...' He realized... 'What if this is just how she learned to fight?'

  Usually, would-bes who used the beginner dungeons' resurrection as a crutch got corrected or scared off before it became a habit that could get them or others killed...

  But this girl was born in such a dungeon.

  Death an alien concept to her.

  In a sense, it was frightful to think that, if she hadn't gotten her Skill, she could very easily have gotten herself killed in Terra without realizing the permanence.

  After all, she was basically a half-feral child. A homeless girl who raised herself, by Terran standards.

  Of course, he mustn't view her as homeless, since not only did she have a home, but hers was more extravagant than most people could dream of.

  The actual Lost was just a tiny patch of land within a vast world. While the day-night cycles coincided almost perfectly with Terra's, it was said that it was actually probably a bit larger than his own planet, based on astrological data captured within the dungeon.

  He'd done some research when he agreed to become the girl's deputy liaison.

  However... the point stood.

  This girl was a... he supposed the adjective form was simply Lost?

  'How depressing a title.'

  But she was a Lost girl, not a Terran girl.

  He could correct her fighting style, but that might just inhibit the growth of her singular Skill.

  It was hard to deny that Skill as her birthright. There could be strange repercussions, whatever he did.

  Force her to live as a Terran to avoid criticism and satisfy his own conscience, at the cost of robbing her of her own culture?

  History books say that behavior, so very human, was precisely why the Empire had grown to its current size.

  That is to say, not indulging in such forceful tactics was the reason imperialism had worked. Accepting and mixing with different cultures, and acknowledging their strengths.

  That was the imperial way.

  Not shallow self-satisfaction.

  He'd consult his guild later, but for now, he was convinced that he should help the girl master her skill.

  "So... perhaps you're right, but... we need to test the limits of your Skill before you rely on it too much. It might not heal you in the same way..."

  ***

  Suon was right, and I was glad he started to challenge my methods using analytical reasoning.

  I was a bit annoyed, because it made him a bit more endearing to me, and...

  I didn't want friends...

  But his line of questioning had us go through portals, first the Red Forest and then the Lost.

  Sadly, going through the Red Forest portal did not cure the scrapes I'd earned against the strange green beast we encountered within.

  But returning home to the Lost did.

  It didn't have any convenient powers like making me less hungry or thirsty, but it did recover my injuries just by going through.

  I wondered if the healing effect was attached to the dungeon or the portal, so I pricked my finger to find out. It healed as soon as I came back inside.

  It was an odd inversion to how it had worked in the past, where injuries were recovered upon leaving. I asked if that's still how they worked for other people, and he confirmed that I was the odd one here.

  Oh, and the mana crystal the odd antelope left behind?

  It was worth 500.

  Ten times as much as the deer I'd hunted in my home forest.

  Too bad I didn't get to hunt more that day.