I'm not sure why, but someone at the library gave me a bunch of books.

  It was a really strange experience.

  I took them back to my makeshift camp.

  Had they been given to me my first day, or even my first week in this world, I would fear rain coming to destroy them, but as far as I can tell, it simply doesn't rain in the dungeon's world.

  This raises all sorts of questions, and yet is far from the oddest phenomenon I've discovered.

  Since I've determined to focus on avoiding too much attention, and therefore have decided to hunt only during hours a kid like me would be seen hanging around the dungeon, I've managed to earn about three shards a day.

  My weekly income is about 40 or so of those bigger coins. Of course, some of that is from collecting bottles instead of hunting.

  Having learned my numbers, I found out the shopkeeper was actually erring in my favor. Fortunately, I found some cheap writing supplies and kept track of all my purchases, so I was able to correct it.

  For some reason, he didn't look too happy about it, but I had insisted.

  Anyway, the bigger coins are worth 25 each. I'm not sure what, since I've only ever seen big coins and small coins, which are worth 5 each. I guess there was an even smaller denomination that got pulled from circulation.

  That means I earned 1000 a week.

  The majority of that goes into food and supplies.

  About 500 a week for flour, 250 for extra nutrients, and another 150 or so for other stuff, that leaves me to save about 100 a week.

  That's not a lot.

  To augment this, I collected abandoned things other people abandoned. I kept a few bottles for myself to clean and use, along with a few other things people threw out.

  Since I only really spent about half my day hunting or walking around town, I spent the other half exploring the forest, carving things out of wood, making clay pottery, and studying the books I'd been given.

  But 100 a week isn't much. Even a pot or pan would take months to procure, at that rate.

  While I was immortal, and therefore I seriously could spend years slowly saving up for things if I wished, there was some natural risk there. People would eventually start to notice me.

  I wasn't self-sufficient, after all.

  But improvement was slow, to say the least.

  ***

  Over time, I managed to make a proper map of the whole area.

  There were mountains to the north and south, about a two hour and four hour walk respectively from the portal. Both had a variety of caves that I could explore, although doing so was risky.

  After all, if I got trapped, the world's resurrection might not actually save me.

  It took me quite a few weeks to scrounge up the supplies to explore to the east and west.

  Eight hours of walking to the east, there was what looked like an endless desert. Of course, its actual size was a mystery, because as soon as one stepped out of the forest and unto the dry earth, the local wildlife turned violent. Snakes, vultures, and more mobbed me, though they stopped at the forest's borders, waiting on the other side and following my every movement.

  I spent the next day or so wandering long said border, gathering all sorts of creatures' attention as I went, but saw nothing but desert to the east, and mountains to the north and south.

  The forest likewise ended about eight hours of walking to the west, but to a vast and open plains instead, which I was also forbidden to explore.

  I died the first time I made the attempt to.

  Vicious birds flew at me, and within moments, I was covered in them and pecked to death.

  A week later, I confirmed that, like with the eastern desert, the birds refused to enter the forest, and that there was nothing but plains as far as could be reached from the forest going west.

  The forest as a whole seemed about two hundred square miles in area, although it wasn't exactly a perfect square.

  Though it hadn't rained the entire time since I arrived, I still wanted to find a cave to live in, if only to avoid attention, so after exploring the whole forest to get an overall picture, I began focusing on the northern and southern mountainous regions.

  The northern caves were pretty ideal. They weren't too deep, and there were plenty of ones that were hidden from ordinary view. Eventually, I found one with a nearby stream, and took all my stuff there.

  It meant a two hour walk everyday from the portal, but I could skip the walk there simply by, well... dying.

  Though, for now, the cave was more like my storehouse than my actual home. After all, I hadn't saved up enough for proper bedding, so I had to sleep where the ground was a bit softer.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  ***

  Although each dungeon had one or more guilds in charge of their management, stable dungeons often changed hands over time. These were those dungeons which showed no signs of closing, either because there was no means to or because humanity found their continued existence useful.

  Each country had their own policy, of course.

  Other countries considered dungeons a government matter, handled by either the military or the local police. Some were more capitalist, allowing private entities to outright own dungeons.

  But in this country, guilds were in charge of their management, issued through government channels. It was a compromise between those two extremes.

  Beginner dungeons were naturally worth a lot, generally speaking.

  Though a low rated one like the Lost was worth more to the state than to the guild running it, so the current guild in management relied on government subsidies and other deals to run it.

  They didn't handle it themselves. They reaped the benefits, and paid lower ranking guilds to manage the day-to-day affairs. Those subcontracts generally switched in and out over time, going to the cheapest bid.

  Well, the cheapest that wouldn't embarrass them, anyway.

  As a result, babysitting the would-be adventurers that came in everyday was pretty much just a day job for those who could easily handle the dungeon's forest-bound wildlife, but either couldn't or didn't want to earn their keep against more deadly dungeons.

  Occasionally, these sort of people were simply level headed.

  Right now, though, the current guild officials were more laid back. They'd do their job, but as far as they were concerned, there wasn't any real danger.

  So when people reported the strange outsider kid dying over and over again, they shrugged it off.

  "It can't be healthy for the kid's wellbeing!"

  "It's fine. The dungeon's effect has been explained to them. Despite people's concerns, it's remarkably safe."

  "But what if they think the real world's like this too? They might be learning bad habits!"

  "You worry too much. They're probably just trying to develop a skill for durability."

  "Is that how it works?"

  "Well, nobody knows for sure, but basically."

  And so, people gradually accepted the strange kid who spent everyday dying in the beginner's dungeon. Not just once or twice, but dozens of times each day, almost like gruesome clockwork.

  But even that had its limits.

  ***

  "Why me?" Dalus asked, grumpily.

  It wasn't that he didn't want to. He was grumpy because it sounded like they'd put this whole thing off until his next shift at the dungeon.

  He only went there a few times a month. Surely there was someone more active who could do it instead.

  "You're the only one who's talked to her. We don't want to scare her."

  "Yeah, right."

  But he ultimately agreed.

  And so, he waited for the girl to show up. She did sometimes take breaks, according to the dungeon's regulars, but otherwise, she had a fairly regular hunting time.

  Once he confirmed her arrival, preemptively making sure all the idiots training that day knew what his agenda was, he used another translation scroll and approached the strange girl.

  "Hey again."

  He'd heard the girl fearlessly walked into death on a daily basis, and yet... his arrival immediately made her look nervous.

  'Well... even some top adventurers can be anti-social like that,' he reasoned with a mental shrug.

  "How much do those cost?" The girl asked.

  It took him a moment to realize what she was asking about. Yeah, he'd just used the scroll, but what kind of kid just asks that right away?

  'Her family must be really poor... or maybe she's from one of those honorable tribes?'

  "Don't worry about it, kid... or are you hoping to buy one?"

  ***

  It was that man again. The one who had that magic that let me understand everything he said.

  Supposedly, I could just buy that magic too. I was instantly intrigued, because it'd be by far the fastest way to learn the local language.

  Though, it seemed he used two of them for my sake so far, so I felt an uncomfortable debt starting to grow.

  I nodded.

  "Hmm... they're about twenty thousand each. Probably a bit high for a kid like you, but if you really want one, I could get you one."

  I felt the blood drain from my face.

  'Twenty... twenty thousand?!'

  It wasn't as though I was in a rush, but that was two hundred days worth of savings. I'd have to work for a year and a half just to repay this man.

  I didn't think I could do it, especially if he kept using them without even asking me... although, it's not like he could actually ask me without one.

  I sighed.

  "What's up? Wait, don't tell me that's what you've been saving money for..."

  It wasn't. I hadn't even seen one outside the times he used them, so I shook my head. "No..."

  "Huh... then what's got you down, kid?"

  "Money..."

  He laughed without restraint for a moment, before trying to cover it up with an awkward cough.

  "I see... are you being fed right, kid? You look kinda skinny."

  Although my nutritional intake was less than ideal, even after establishing a regular source of income, it wasn't like it'd cause me any long term effects.

  So I nodded.

  "I'm just skinny," I answered truthfully enough. As far as I was aware, my body struggled to develop significant muscle, but on the other hand, I could be pretty fit without it.

  "I see... look, they're telling me you hunt pretty hard here. Wanna explain what's up with that?"

  'Ah.'

  I'd made an effort to not deviate too much, but I realized how flawed those efforts really were when asked so directly about my habits.

  Of course I'd be noticed if I behaved so differently from everyone else.

  Still, my actions had been perfectly rational to me, but part of that was only because I knew that another life awaited me even if I did die for real. That wasn't something I could easily explain. It would ultimately seem like I was a kid with a death wish.

  'Although, I guess dying for good really wouldn't be so bad anyway.'

  But it's not like that was my goal. I knew that was impossible anyway.

  Lying wasn't something I was particularly good at though, especially in such enlightened eras as the one this world was in, where things could be recorded and reviewed decades later with precision.

  So I told a couple truths.

  "I'm trying to earn a skill and save up money."

  "You and everyone else for the first one, but... save up money?"

  "Yeah. I can't afford good weapons, so I'm using the resurrection system instead."

  I watched, nervously, as he worked out what I'd just said.

  "You're... so because the dungeon repairs your body but not your weapons... you're intentionally dying to save money...?"

  I winced when he said it out loud. "It's not like I have a choice..."

  "Oh yeah? What weapon would you use, if you did have a choice?"

  Upgrading my weapons had been a constant concern, but I'd always been cautious about it, using sharpened and hardened sticks like spears, with the occasional knife for more precise work.

  Although I was particularly good with swords, at least the kind weighted near the hand that minimized a need for arm strength, like rapiers and foils... those wouldn't be practically effective against large beasts.

  Likewise, a proper spear would be a serious upgrade to my primitive works, but I had no way of maintaining one.

  A bow, an ordinary one anyway, wasn't to my advantage, because I lacked arm strength. Sure, I could hit the target, but it wouldn't kill them. Well, it'd be handy for squirrels, but a slingshot would be better and more efficient for those...

  But there was a bow that allowed its user to build more strength than they had into a single lethal shot.

  "Um... for small animals, a slingshot... for larger animals, a crossbow."

  "You can't afford a slingshot... no, even a crossbow... look, how about we get you those, if you promise to die less for everyone?"

  "Huh?"