"So, what'd you find out?"

  Van asked Dr. Kilm while they waited for the girls to finish in the bath.

  Ordinarily, someone would probably make sure the two outsiders were okay alone in there, but he figured Kid would be fine, and told the doctor as such.

  "Hmm... well, Lilac has some serious signs of abuse. Taking care of her won't be easy. Physically, she should recover, but I'm not sure about her mental health."

  "Yeah. She seemed skittish, and I can't blame her. Do you think they're both from the same dungeon?"

  "I'd have to run further tests, but... it seems like they're from the same dungeon, but not the same species."

  "Huh... well, that seemed obvious at a glance, I guess. I've never heard of multiple human-type species from the same dungeon though."

  The doctor nodded.

  "It's unusual, but it could also be a phenomenon of Kid having become a dungeon boss. She's the first dungeon boss I've ever gotten to study. Information on them is incredibly scarce from a medical perspective."

  "I see. Well, there are two options. We can either keep them together, in which case she'll likely move in with Kid at her dungeon... assuming she's up for that option... or we can try to put Lilac in foster care."

  "Just Lilac? Why not Kid too?"

  "It might be possible, but we'd be forcing it. It could cause all sorts of problems if we did that."

  "Well... neither option is particularly good, unless you find a caretaker willing to move in with them. Expecting a child to raise another child isn't healthy, and separating Lilac from the only other person she can communicate with... that's arguably even worse."

  "It'd be hard finding them a caretaker."

  "Would it be? Aren't the Azure Dragons famously wealthy?"

  Van waved his hand in a gesture as if to say that wasn't the problem.

  "We could hire a whole staff and let them live like a pair of fairytale princesses. The problem is that we'd be risking running afoul of non-interference laws."

  "Non-interference laws?"

  Van nodded. "Yes. Since exceptions in the law would let us put Lilac in foster care, if we decided not to, that'd be the same as saying we trust her to grow up healthily in the dungeon. Of course, social workers will go and check if we're right, but at that point, if we sent someone to raise her, we'd be interfering with her natural culture."

  "That sounds ridiculous..."

  The adventurer shrugged. "It's a delicate situation."

  "Okay, what about just sending, what you said... some staff to help out, someone who won't interfere in their culture, or whatever?"

  "It's not impossible. Really, the trouble is that Kid needs to approve of it. She basically defines what that culture is."

  "She's just, well... a kid, though."

  "Oh, right. She mentioned that she doesn't age. Scan tells me she's ten, but... what have you got?"

  "You mentioned that. Well... there's no immediate test I can run, but I took a few samples, so I should have answers in a few weeks. If she's telling the truth, it's not a Skill, it'd just be part of her natural biology. Her only Skill is Beginner."

  "I thought as much. Well, keep me posted. I think, unfortunately, we'll be handling this however Kid wants us to, but I'll try to get her to consider a caretaker for Lilac."

  "Just for Lilac?"

  "She's an extremely self-reliant child who refuses help."

  ***

  I took a bath with Lilac, since I was pretty dirty too, and it was hard to pass up warm water.

  "(Your name is Lilac now,)" I told her at some point.

  She just said, "(O-okay...)"

  This child was obviously raised in slavery, and had long been conditioned to accept or do whatever she's told.

  Ideally, a technologically enlightened world like Terra would be able to raise her well enough despite that, but since she had no common culture, it'd be quite difficult for them to do so.

  Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

  "(Would you rather live with me, or in a comfortable place like this? I live in a cave where you have to fetch water by hand, and I don't have good food like Van gave you earlier.)"

  I did try asking what she wanted, but...

  "(Wh-wherever I need to...)"

  She had no opinion.

  Going by the scars on her small back, it had been thoroughly whipped out of her.

  After that, I gave her my current clothes to wear, including my jacket, undershirt, pants, and even my sneakers. Although she was probably accustomed to going barefoot, I was the one who could heal any injury just by going home.

  I just wore my old robe, which happened to be in my backpack, and bagged up her dirty old robe using the bags I'd stowed in there to carry earth from the Red Forest.

  When we went downstairs, Van stared blankly.

  "Did you two swap outfits? Is that what her robe looks like cleaned up?"

  "No, this one's mine."

  How could he even mistake them? Hers was all tattered, whereas mine had been in the past, but was sewn back up. Mine also didn't have a hood.

  "Okay, girls, you have some choices to make. It's also an option to just stay in a hotel or a hospice, or even here for a night or two."

  "I want to go back home," I said, not liking any of those side options he just mentioned.

  "Well... yes, but... so, Lilac can either stay with you, or go into foster care. The thing is, both options suck, but... if she stays with you, you can hire a caretaker."

  "I can't afford a caretaker..."

  "No, no," Van said, raising his hands. "You'd be hiring one, so you'd make all the decisions as an employer, but the guild would cover the expenses."

  Were they trying to get a girl we'd just freed into debt?

  "I don't think that makes sense. You can't just pay someone to be a good parent."

  "I... guess that's true, but... more like a nanny or a housekeeper."

  "If you can find someone willing to live in a cave, then sure. She can stay with me for now. I can manage."

  It'd slow all my current research and work down, but I was already only working a few days a week. It was possible.

  ***

  Van had succeeded.

  Of course, Kid had some tough criteria. Not many non-adventurers would want to take care of a couple outsider kids living in an actual cave, and most adventurers wouldn't want to become a nanny.

  But there were nearly two hundred million people in the Empire. He was confident he'd find someone that'd pass both the guild's requirements and Kid's own.

  It was important Kid had some criteria of her own, too.

  ***

  

  Hero194: Woah.

  Hero194: RedOwl didn't comment on it.

  RedOwl: Comment on what? I'm at home.

  Hero194: Oh.

  OutsiderFan71: Did something happen?

  Hero194: Kid adopted an outsider girl, or something.

  Hero194: She was talking about something with the guild officer, and then she just took the girl off in the wilderness.

  Popcorn5: Kid's become Kidnapper!

  OutsiderFan71: Wait, another outsider girl?

  Hero194: Yeah! She was dressed like Kid, and Kid was wearing a white culty robe instead.

  ***

  Somehow, Lilac had become an honorary Azure Dragon too.

  I made sure Van knew the girl couldn't help with adventurer work.

  Even if she got a Skill, expecting her to risk her life would be cruel.

  But surprisingly, she was pretty helpful.

  She helped out with menial chores without me even asking. Although she didn't understand everything, she picked things up pretty quickly.

  Of course, an extra mouth to feed meant I needed more food, and thus more money.

  'Oh yeah. We never turned in the mana cores.'

  I asked Van about it with my phone, and he said I could just turn it in at their kiosk.

  That wasn't how things usually worked. Usually, each dungeon gathered mana shards from their respective dungeon specifically, but Azure Dragons managed things a bit more loosely, so I figured they just didn't care as much.

  "(I'll be back in a few hours. Stay here. If something happens...)"

  I showed her how to use the phone. She was a smart kid, so even though she looked like she'd never seen one before in her life, she seemed to get the picture.

  Then I went toward the portal.

  ***

  I stared at the money I'd been given for just two hobgoblin mana cores.

  Each one was worth a 10,000 note.

  Of course, I was going to give Van one of them, since he did half the work, but my current income was 500 per mana crystal in the Red Forest. I usually got about four a day.

  So I'd just earned five days of pay for defeating a single hobgoblin, one that hadn't even fought back.

  Of course, it wasn't life changing money per se, but since I'd taken on an extra mouth to feed, it seemed I would need to try harder to become a higher rank adventurer.

  After that, I went to immediately spend it all.

  I got some clothes and shoes for Lilac to wear, as well as some bedding and other things.

  If I had a proper sword, I could probably handle the Goblin Mines on a regular basis. Goblins wouldn't be worth 10,000 each, but surely they were more than 500.

  So once I got back, I sent Van a message on the phone.

  

  He spent a little while typing a response, the indicator saying that he was occasionally vanishing before reappearing, as if he wasn't sure how to respond... although, I wasn't sure what actually made it behave that way.

  Maybe he was just typing very slowly.

  

  'Huh, that's all he said?'

  ***

  After a couple of days, Van asked me to bring Lilac to the portal.

  "Here's your half," I tried giving him the 10,000 when I got there.

  "Huh? Oh, keep it. Spend it on Lilac, it's her share."

  'But she didn't do anything.'

  However, as far as I could tell, despite allegedly originating from the Lost somehow, Lilac was an ordinary child. It was natural for adults to spend money on children, so I accepted it on her behalf.

  I'd ask her how she wanted me to spend it, but she still showed no real sign of having a will of her own.

  "We're going to go get her ID. We're looking for caretakers, but it's a bit more challenging than we expected, so you'll have to give us a few weeks. If it's too much work, we can send Suon to help. Just let us know."

  The thought of a B rank adventurer, who must make way more than 10,000 per B rank mana crystal, coming to help out seemed awfully expensive.

  I shook my head frantically to that idea.

  The process for getting Lilac's ID was pretty similar to when I got mine.

  We visited a small bureaucratic office, waited a while, Van filled out a bunch of paperwork, they took a picture of Lilac, and she got an ID that marked her a resident of the Lost.

  Even though the dungeon's native population ought to be extinct, it had just officially grown from 1 to 2.