Dalus sighed as he watched the small girl run off into the streets barefoot, clad in only, as far as he could tell, that strange robe of hers.

  She probably thought she might avoid notice by running, but he could scarcely think of a more conspicuous child.

  "Think she'll be okay?" He asked Gregg, the man who was currently working the portal kiosk.

  He got a shrug in response. "Should be fine. Might be more dangerous if she were older, the mafia keeps crime on a tight leash, and they'd torture any guy that'd go near a kid."

  "I meant... there's clearly something up with her."

  "Well, yeah. If you ask me, she seems like ideal adventurer material. I swear, everyone who gets a Skill's at least a little odd. She'll get hers in no time."

  "Hah. The weirder you are, the better Skills you get?"

  "Pretty much. Tell me I'm wrong."

  It was hard to argue with that, though.

  ***

  I stepped on a rock pretty soon after running away, but I didn't want that guy to worry or chase me, so I kept running until I was out of sight.

  Fortunately, it hurt a bunch, but it didn't even break skin.

  You'd think that growing up in a place where going barefoot is normal would give my feet some resilience, but I guess reincarnating doesn't exactly recreate my body how it was back then.

  Instead, I'm always reborn anew.

  That guy's translation magic had been very useful. Although it forced my brain to understand his words, I could still hear what he actually said too. I could probably learn his language in no time with a tutor using magic like that.

  However, I had no way to pay someone to do such a thing.

  It was one thing to take advantage of an opportunity I had no control over, since he used it without even asking me.

  Of course, some people will do such things expecting repayment, but I lacked a sufficient understanding of this world's cultures to avoid them anyway, so there wasn't much I could do about that.

  But I'd prefer to avoid accumulating debts on purpose.

  ***

  Wandering the streets earned me more than a few stares, likely courtesy of my odd apparel.

  I'd have to blend in better soon.

  But although this world was unlike my own in many ways, it was very typically urban all the same, so while I stuck out, it wasn't hard for me to get used to things.

  Thankfully, nobody stopped to 'help' me here like they did in that forest.

  But I was getting pretty hungry.

  By watching people, I was able to confirm that people used coins and paper currency to buy goods. There was no haggling, and I didn't see any obvious signs of ad hoc employment, not that it'd be easy to tell since I couldn't understand what people said.

  But by pure chance, I discovered a way people made money.

  In one of the many stores, I witnessed a man going inside to hand over a bag full of bottles, and receive a few coins for it.

  With this lucrative business in mind, I began scouring the urban landscape for both discarded bottles and abandoned bags to carry them in. I had seen a couple of each while walking, and rushed back to collect them before wandering in search of more.

  I also found a public fountain as I searched, in what seemed like a park area.

  It was an advanced fountain, the sort with plumbing and a control switch common in more advanced societies, but it was still a source of free drinking water, so I cautiously drank my fill, before continuing on my search for more bottles.

  Once I collected a bunch, I carried them back to the store, and turned them in.

  The shopkeeper said things to me which I didn't understand, but fortunately, I got paid.

  It's possible I was underpaid, but there'd be nothing I could do if so.

  The coins made no particular sense to me. They were obviously metal coins, likely a cheap but standardized alloy, but even size wasn't a guaranteed indicator of their respective values. Perhaps the coins even said their individual worth, if I could only read them.

  There was food in the store, but I hoped for the cheapest form of nourishment, while most of what I saw there was individually packaged, and therefore likely inefficient.

  However, I didn't leave in search of a different store.

  After all, it's possible there wasn't one for miles. Even if it was close, since I didn't know where to find it, I'd have to search perimeters. Even if it were two miles away, I might have to search four square miles to find it. If it were four miles away, it might take searching sixteen square miles.

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  It was the sort of thing that added up ruthlessly fast.

  So, the most efficient choice was to be sure what I sought wasn't in this store first.

  And, perhaps... try to understand the language a bit better.

  ***

  In eras like these, usually the rise of cheap technology permits even small shops to install automated defenses.

  The most common: recording devices. Well, aside from alarms, of course.

  And so... it's likely video footage of me sniffing thick, mostly-sealed paper bags was stored in some database, assuming it wasn't witnessed by a security officer or even curious onlookers with access to the footage.

  Given I wouldn't know even if I was told, I just accepted the potential embarrassment.

  After all, I'd found flour.

  Could I afford it? I wasn't sure.

  But I'd witnessed people buy things. I knew the general script to follow. Thankfully, it didn't require me to say a word to the shopkeeper.

  So I put the bag of flour on the counter, along with all my money.

  He looked a bit annoyed at first, but after looking everything over, he seemed to hesitantly take the coins, putting the bag in... another, cheaper bag, before handing it to me.

  Perhaps I'd successfully haggled the price down?

  I just hoped this wasn't some weird charity. After all, he still took my money. All of my money!

  But either way, I had flour.

  And so, I started walking back toward the so-called dungeon portal.

  ***

  I was definitely watched as I entered the park, and then the portal within it.

  I couldn't understand anyone in this world without magic though, and nobody actually tried to stop me, so I just walked as if I belonged, and ignored everything around me.

  Curiously, you can sneak into most places more easily by being visible but inconspicuous than you can by trying to remain out of sight. If you don't try to hide, people assume you don't need to.

  Once I returned to the Lost, I made my way back to my makeshift camp.

  The place with my clay bowls nearby a stream.

  Fortunately, it was untouched since I'd left to explore.

  And there, I carefully used my newfound flour to make some bread.

  It was a slow process. Gather firewood, start a fire, purify some water, mix the water with flour, knead the dough, and finally, bake on a relatively clean rock or in a clay bowl.

  There was no guarantee my bottle scavenging business would keep me fed. The few I found could have taken months to gather. Nevertheless, at least for the moment, I finally had some food.

  ***

  The convenience store owner watched as a small outsider girl wandered all over his store.

  She had turned in some old bottles. That wasn't too odd in itself, as it was a way for poor children to earn some pocket change while serving the community, but he still felt a bit bad seeing it.

  After all, there was a beginner dungeon within walking distance from his store.

  Of course, children that young would probably have trouble hunting even in such a beginner dungeon, but they could still help out older would-be adventurers.

  Then again, the local dungeon might be the biggest in the country in terms of space, leading to a whole if mostly unexplored world, but since it had a low rate of Skill development, it was also one of the less popular.

  Being able to accept any number of people at once and having a low rate of success... these factors caused it to attract less scrupulous types, who in turn lowered the rate of success by gradually pushing out the more promising beginners.

  It wasn't dangerous or anything. Well, there were occasional stories of bullying and harassment, but since everyone going in wanted to be an adventurer, no matter how unscrupulous they got, there'd still be plenty of people who'd stand up to that sort of thing.

  Though, parents were advised not to let their children go in unattended, but that still happened too.

  After all, a public dungeon that accepted everyone was sometimes the only thing they could afford to help their kids have a good future.

  A Skill could be life changing.

  This small girl was almost certainly here for the dungeon, yet she'd collected bottles instead.

  He suspected a reason why.

  'She must have just arrived.'

  It was obvious that the girl was an outsider, but wearing outsider clothes too. Either her family was very insular, which made it unlikely they'd even let her go to a strange dungeon unless they were from a world that used beginner dungeons too... or they only just arrived, and were still adapting to the local culture.

  She could also be a run-away, but he didn't think so. She was too confident and curious. There wasn't any particular fear or anxiety, outside a quiet refusal to interact more than was necessary.

  He watched her carefully inspect every single item in the store.

  He had no fear she would take anything, because as far as he could tell, she didn't even have pockets to carry the coins she'd earned.

  Her strange investigations, as if unable or unwilling to rely on whatever was written on each item's packaging, confirmed his suspicions.

  It was unfortunate, since he could probably give a kid like her some useful advice, but he supposed she didn't have any particular reason to trust him in the first place.

  Finally, he watched her smelling the various baking goods he had in the small section of the store devoted to home goods.

  'Ah. They're labeled, but to her, it must just seem like strange bags with catchy pictures.'

  He had never been in her shoes, or lack thereof as he eventually noticed with a bit of concern, but thanks to being near a public dungeon, he did see more outsiders than most people ever would.

  Being near a rather cheap and unpopular dungeon, he saw the side of them that the government and media usually didn't dwell on.

  So while it was a funny sight, he understood her intentions immediately.

  But even he was surprised to see how overjoyed she was upon finding a particular bag.

  'Had she found sugar? Is she going to skip the snacks, and just eat a whole bag of sugar?'

  He would stop her, if he could.

  And he could.

  A two pound bag of sugar, since his store only sold one size, was priced at 295. Though this was cheap enough most children with pocket money could seriously just buy a bag, she was still carrying those coins he gave her for the bottles in her hand.

  Meaning, he'd given her all her pocket change for the day.

  She'd turned in 8 bottles and earned 120.

  So she couldn't afford it.

  It'll be sad to let her down, but he doubted it was healthy, even for a red-eyed outsider like her, to eat a whole bag of sugar. If she'd come to pick it up for her parents, they'd have certainly sent her with some cash.

  Or if they didn't even know they had to do that, it'd be a learning experience, at least.

  'Ah, here she comes... I'll have to turn her down... huh?'

  But what she put down on the counter wasn't sugar.

  It was in a white bag, but it was a bag of flour. The girl was overjoyed at having found flour.

  Given she'd so carefully picked it out, he had to assume she knew exactly what it was.

  'She's still short... flour's 145 for two pounds...'

  But he was unable to deny her.

  Perhaps if he were just a hired clerk, he'd have to weigh the slight risk to his job against giving her an unspoken bargain. It could be an issue, since she might assume she got the price right, and keep coming in to buy it for cheap.

  But he could afford to help the girl.

  Not just the one time, but even if she needed this flour to survive, he could give her that small bargain every day, until she grew up enough to no longer need his help.

  So he did.