I didn't get a Skill.

  Well, of course it wouldn't be that simple, but Milio concluded that it was almost certainly impossible for me to ever get one related to swords.

  "If you've already reached the height of swordplay," Van explained, "Then you should have already earned several. The only exception is if you learned in a dungeon that can't develop Skills, like Terra. So I think spending any more time like this is just a waste."

  Though, that really was the case. I had learned in places that didn't have Skills.

  "To be honest," he continued, "You probably don't need a guard though. You're pretty much a C rank already, without any Skills. Maybe even a B rank."

  So spending a month training wasn't all bad.

  I didn't really learn anything new, but I think it helped Lilac a lot.

  She gradually started to get used to people more, and by the end, she was even willing to practice with them.

  She had a determined look on her face too. I wasn't sure what that was about, but it was good change from her usual timid expression, so I did my best to encourage it.

  It was a shame that I hadn't gotten a Skill, but then again, it seemed they were usually acquired or advanced through epiphanies.

  Sadly, even Zaitenmodi's meditation technique didn't help. After all, I didn't use mana while fighting. It did make me wonder if Narakans did use mana in their everyday lives, but I wasn't a Narakan, so if so, his technique would have pretty limited results for me.

  So I had a feeling I'd never be able to get one just by doing routine sparring.

  Sparring no longer held any real meaning to me.

  I'd had this same body for eons.

  The muscle memory I'd developed in it would never go stale, even if I ever wanted to forget.

  Now, my challenge was figuring out how to get Lilac to continue training.

  Even if I abandoned her in the care of the Azure Dragons, I'd still have to walk her there and back. That'd be four hours each day.

  No, it had been even worse than that.

  I could manage the two hour hike each way, but that was pretty much her limit. We always had to have a break before and after practicing, and those were the days where she mostly didn't get involved.

  When she did, I'd have to carry her on my back.

  Savi could help here and there, when she was already planning to go to Terra, but that was maybe every week or every other week at the most.

  'If only I could break down how Beginner works...'

  ***

  "Here's your updated adventurer's permit. Congratulations on reaching rank C, although I guess you should have been that rank from the start."

  Van handed me a new permit.

  "Don't I have to clear enough hours first...?"

  "Well, ordinarily, yeah. It's not a strict legal requirement though. Well, we have an advantage in that regard. The big five kind of set the standard anyway, so if we say someone's a C ranker, the bureaucrats usually copy down our reasons instead of trying to fight us on it."

  'So it's nepotism...'

  "Haha," Van laughed at me for some reason. "What's with the glum expression? Well, don't worry about it too much. It's just a rank adjustment. You'll need to work hard for your first actual promotion. Though I guess you're not too interested in being an adventurer anyway."

  "It's useful, but it's not my goal."

  "Huh, what is your goal then?"

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  I wasn't sure if I should tell him, but I did anyway.

  "Becoming self-sufficient. And then learning about this world."

  "Aren't you pretty self-sufficient already? Actually, you have no idea how many people who've never met you want to pull you outta this dungeon and put you in a school somewhere."

  That was frightening to hear about.

  Although I expected that to some degree, hearing that I'd been protected from it this whole time was... pretty uncomfortable.

  I wasn't ready to cut off Terra completely.

  Although...

  'If I abandon Savi and Lilac, I could just flee into the mountains...'

  "Geez, kiddo- er, Na?s, relax. They shut up just as soon as we point out how hypocritical they are. I mean, it'd be a bit rougher if you didn't bring on Savi, but I guess you chose well to pick the candidate even we couldn't complain about."

  "Savi?"

  "Yeah. To be honest, we didn't want to include her either, but we couldn't find a single fault with her."

  He shrugged.

  I asked him, "Why didn't you want to include her?"

  "She just gave us some pretty bad vibes. Not like, I don't think she's dangerous, but it's pretty obvious she signed up for selfish reasons."

  "Huh... you don't think the others did too?"

  "I don't think so. I guess if you get philosophical about it, everyone's reasons are selfish in the end, but I think the other three really did just want to help."

  "Why would they just want to help?"

  "Well... it's like imperial instinct to help children when they need help."

  "But I'm not a child. I just look like one."

  "Huh, I mean... even Scan says you're only ten years old, you know. Maybe you've been ten years old for a long time, but that'd still make you a kid in a lot of people's eyes. I'm guessing you're not too happy about that, but that's just how it is."

  I thought it was pretty foolish to put appearances over reality, but it was hard for me to say he was wrong...

  ***

  Unfortunately, I didn't have to think too much about taking Lilac to the portal everyday anyway.

  The most the guild could manage after that first month was weekly training sessions.

  Since, after all, any hope of me gaining a Skill from it had been thoroughly dashed. Apparently, that was their primary goal.

  It was unfortunate, but also convenient, so I didn't even want to complain.

  Not that I would have anyway though. There was no way I could afford personal training from A ranked adventurers from the start.

  Since my objective was helping Lilac, they were fine with offering beginner lessons, but it would be handled by whatever volunteer was supervising that day.

  Of course, since it was preplanned, it wasn't like the volunteer in question would be caught by surprise.

  The price was that, occasionally, I'd help teach too.

  "It'll help make people stop treating you like a kid," Van had said.

  Though... they didn't have me actually supervise.

  'But what do I even teach them...?'

  It was one thing tutoring Lilac personally.

  At the very least, we had similar builds, so anything that worked well for me was likely to work for her too.

  But the would-be adventurers who frequented the Lost were much more varied.

  Not just in size and shape, but skill sets and goals too.

  The only Skill I had was totally unique to me, as far as anyone could tell, so I couldn't even give them meaningful advice for gaining Skills of their own.

  Not that anyone else could either, from what I could tell, but still.

  I really wasn't sure what I'd do when it was finally my turn.

  Although I'd have a few weeks to think about it, days seemed to go by in a blur.

  Nevertheless, as unwise as putting things off could be, I decided to do just that, at least until I saw another volunteer's lesson.

  It might give me some ideas, anyway.

  ***

  But in the mean time, I decided to try studying Beginner more closely.

  Since it seemed to replicate the same effects the dungeon had, I didn't limit my research to myself.

  I wasn't so callous to try and get another human subject to volunteer.

  I basically used those mana strips I'd used before to try and test the flow of mana around something when the beginner effect kicked in.

  This led to some interesting results.

  First of all, when I carried one while dying in the Lost, it became bleached as if exposed to a vast quantity of mana.

  The same did not happen when I died outside the Lost.

  Of course, I didn't want to alarm people by reappearing by the portal too often, so I didn't get to confirm how reproducible these outcomes were. It was possible that it was just a fluke.

  The strips weren't fireproof, so I couldn't use them to measure what kind of mana output was involved with burning Lost flora. That kind of testing would require specialized equipment.

  But I could confirm that the mana around a Lost tree was higher than it was around the ashes left behind after burning the wood from such a tree. That is, the ashes didn't show any mana above the Lost's ambient levels.

  It was difficult sneaking strips onto animals before killing them, but I managed to do it to a few animals.

  The deer just accepted it, letting me get both latent readings as well as death readings.

  Squirrels were, as usual, more difficult. They jumped at me to attack me each time, but I had knives on me to make short work of each one.

  Even though I wasn't trying to gather a lot of data at this point, it was still 'each time' because the first time I tried, the mana detection strip fell off when it attacked me.

  Even after a third try, I still didn't manage to get a good reading of how much mana squirrels gave off as a basic output, only the results after its death.

  But it was the same for them as it had been for me in the Lost.

  The strips were completely overwhelmed by their deaths.

  I assumed that was why my Beginner Skill didn't use up any of my mana when I used it in the Lost.

  Some kind of force seemed to be subsidizing most of the mana it would ordinarily use up. It was probably the same force that was applying the beginner effect to everyone and everything in the dungeon.

  Of course, Terran science is aware that dungeons have varying levels of mana.

  The reports that the Azure Dragons got for me even included some samples, using better equipment than I had access to.

  But they're not really aware of why or how.