Van was pleased with the lineup they'd found.

  Although it seemed like the two girls were doing well enough on their own for now, living without adults for long could warp their understanding of the world, never mind all the potential hardship that could follow.

  He was a bit less worried about Kid, since she did interact with adults, and showed an awful lot of emotional maturity for her age.

  Perhaps it was forged from hardship, but he got the sense that she would grow up into a capable adult all on her own... or whatever equivalent that might be, if she was right about being incapable of aging.

  Of course, he had an objective basis for that belief.

  Her mental strength was beyond his Skill's capacity to measure.

  The bigger worry for her wasn't her being able to withstand hardship mentally, but that her excessive resilience mixed with such a lifestyle might make her numb to actual problems.

  It wasn't a hypothetical concern.

  She already viewed a situation where she lives two hours from civilization in a cave as acceptable. Even someone who preferred camping would probably still prefer a shorter trip.

  It was clear to him that she didn't even register such difficulty.

  But even someone like Kid could develop a warped personality simply living all by herself.

  If she wanted to be a hermit all her life, it wasn't really his place to judge her. Letting a child paint herself into such a corner was arguably still a form of neglect, but it was hard to stop her if that's truly what she wanted.

  The new girl, Lilac, was an even bigger concern though.

  Living as a slave had almost certainly left permanent scars, and the girl didn't have Kid's unknowable source of resolve to simply power through them.

  Nor, he thought, was it likely that Kid could raise such a child on her own. Perhaps that endless source of motivation would let her handle the girl's physical needs, but her psychological needs were a far more difficult matter.

  Even he had no idea where you'd even start, so it was easy for him to readily assume it'd take a professional.

  Therefore, he was very pleased to have her general consent to find such a person who could help Lilac.

  That was his priority.

  To this end, he found three excellent choices.

  One was a bit of a trap for Kid, a subtle way they could prove her wisdom as a child ruler of a dungeon, but even if she walked into it, it wouldn't actually go badly for her.

  It wasn't that kind of trap.

  If she went with that particular choice, it would just be her admitting she lacked such wisdom by asking others to impart it upon her. It wasn't even a bad choice.

  Many people involved in this little project hoped that she would go for it. Van secretly hoped she wouldn't, but he wasn't opposed to the possibility, he just found himself rooting for her.

  But she'd still be well taken care of by any of the three.

  A fourth choice pushed itself into the selection process, which was concerning.

  Someone without flaw.

  Someone whose abundant strengths overcame any logical challenge he could think of raising, especially considering the basis for this whole plan was that it was ultimately Kid's decision.

  The most he could do was ensure this person remained forthright during the selection process...

  ***

  Van sent me a message about caretakers.

  I'd sort of agreed to one for Lilac if he found any, and apparently he found four possibilities.

  If they were all bad choices, I'd reject them all, and told him so.

  He responded that I could even pick multiple, if I wanted. I didn't think that I did want to, though.

  Even one seemed too many, considering I couldn't afford to hire anyone on my own.

  Anyway, he wanted them to come to my home, that way they had a proper understanding of what their job would truly entail.

  I wasn't happy about more people knowing where it was, but practically speaking, if someone published a map that led there, I wouldn't be able to stop them, so I hesitantly accepted.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  I think by imperial law, I technically could demand people to take maps like that down, but it was still practically impossible.

  Walking two hours just to get rejected seemed pretty rough even to me, but he was right about the practical value. If they showed up tired or late from hiking, or even simply showed any distaste for my home, those would be an easy point against them.

  And it meant I didn't have to walk all the way to the portal again.

  He said they'd get there the next day around noon.

  I absently wondered if that time had some cultural value to the Empire, or if Van just didn't realize I had a clock and had just figured it was an easy time for me to understand.

  But even primitive sundials were easy to make, and automated watches seemed to be quite accurate and abundantly cheap in Terra, never mind that the phone he'd given me himself also told the current time.

  'Oh well.'

  Van arrived the next day at noon with four women.

  Of course, I noticed various things about each, but to avoid needlessly complicating their descriptions, I'll hold off on that for now.

  "Hey, kiddo," he greeted me.

  And with very little fanfare, it was soon time to interview them.

  ***

  Alici was a relatively recent college graduate. The day job that got her through school was being a park ranger, and she took more ecological classes than she strictly needed to, all so she could study nature.

  Her degree was in child psychology, with a minor in ecological studies.

  Even she wasn't entirely sure how she could combine the two. Though she had vague dreams of helping run a summer camp, she actually just loved both topics.

  So when there was a need to help children, potentially emotionally scarred children, who for seemingly contrived reasons were living out in the wilderness, she was unusually apt.

  Like the perfect expert coincidentally born of her own particular circumstances.

  Although, she was still just a graduate and not a true expert.

  She wasn't without any experience though. She had logged hundreds of hours of providing student therapy for her major, and doing field work for her minor.

  She'd been warned that her potential boss was in fact a dungeon boss with a somewhat stubborn and even capricious nature, but she found the hike through the dungeon's woods interesting enough to be worth the trip.

  'Besides, they're reimbursing everyone for their time.'

  Still, while a two hour hike was bearable to her, she couldn't imagine how the kids who supposedly lived at the end of it felt. Even if she enjoyed hiking, she couldn't say that she would still like it if she had to hike for two hours anytime she needed to go buy something.

  "Hey, kiddo," Van said as they arrived and two young girls came out from a cave.

  'They really do live in a cave...'

  The girls were obviously outsider children.

  One had red hair and red eyes, while the other had red eyes but an otherwise lavender hue.

  And looking at the first one, she understood implicitly that the girl was somehow also the boss of the very dungeon they were all currently in.

  Alici felt a sense of familiarity with the small dungeon boss though.

  While the lavender-tinted girl seemed to shy away, the red-haired girl gave a pretty strong impression of being tomboyish.

  The clothes she wore were boyish and practical. Her hair was tied back in a simple ponytail. Her expression...

  'Actually... it's a bit intimidating? Maybe it's because she's a boss...'

  Her expression gave the sense that she was looking right through Alici and the other candidates, sizing each one up without any particular emotion.

  Children could often be sullen, and she'd been thoroughly warned this child was particularly stubborn, but for the professional who dealt with many children over her still short career, there was something unchildlike about it.

  ***

  If Alici was at the start of her career, Jordi was more like a distinguished veteran.

  She was technically an adventurer, though she rarely operated as one.

  Rather, she was a tutor who helped train rich and promising children to become adventurers too.

  There was never a guarantee of getting someone a Skill, but her personal tutelage had raised more capable adventurers than not. Of course, quite a few had just acquired Skills without becoming adventurers.

  Since her methods were more extreme than simply teaching her wards knowledge they could learn from anyone, she could be likened to a nanny or guardian.

  One that felt more like a fantastical martial arts tutor, pushing the children she cared for through a well-calculated hell. Even those who didn't gain Skills often grew from the experience.

  'But if they consider this march an everyday thing, I probably don't need to worry about their discipline.'

  A two hour hike wasn't anything to Jordi, but even she was impressed that the kids she was being interviewed to teach would do such a thing entirely on their own.

  "Hey, kiddo," the man who'd led her this far said with some familiarity, as a pair of small outsider girls came out.

  'Well, maybe I do,' she mused as she noted the lavender-hued girl hiding shyly behind the other one.

  But the other one, the dungeon boss she'd been warned about...

  'How much willpower does this girl have...?'

  Scan wasn't working for some reason.

  ***

  Valenti was in stark contrast to the other women.

  She ironically also had a Skill. Alici was the only Skill-less person there.

  But Valenti was neither an adventurer nor overly fond of the outdoors.

  She loved gardens, of course. She had managed her own.

  She was here because, out of the various old noble houses of the Empire, nobles in name only in the current era of meritocracy and progressive liberty, her family was the only one able to convince the Azure Dragons to let her go.

  Whereas the other nobles had carefully crafted designs to gain even a tiny bit of political power by befriending a young dungeon boss, she simply had the earnest wish of spoiling her and properly teaching her what it meant to be a young lady.

  After all, although Valenti was just a rich girl who happened to have a family history of aristocratic ancestry, Kid was akin to actual royalty.

  Walking two hours was more than she was usually used to, but Valenti wasn't like most rich girls. She was unusually forthright and earnest.

  Getting to teach a true princess the royal grace she deserved was well worth any and all hardships along the way.

  'Or is she actually a young queen?'

  "Hey, kiddo," the adventurer who escorted them greeted the girl in question with a friendly and familiar tone.

  Although she was exhausted from walking, and ill looked forward to the return trip that awaited her, she was still in awe of actually meeting a living dungeon boss in person.

  Although, it was precisely as she feared.

  The small girl who hid behind Kid looked meek and terrified. Valenti wasn't sure what it'd take to heal that girl's heart, but she'd do anything within her power to make it happen.

  And Kid herself looked less like living royalty and more like a poor girl working a part time job, or something along those lines.

  'I have a lot of work to do... I wonder if I can't persuade them to come back home with me, or at least let me build them a proper house?'