My choice was risky, but ultimately unavoidable.

  If I was going to continue living in the Lost, I eventually needed to figure out what happens to Terrans who live there.

  Lilac couldn't exactly fulfill that role, since she was a native of a supposedly extinct population. Perhaps there were other natives that hadn't been affected by Kazzim's final spell, even if so, they also couldn't.

  Rather, they required separate study. Lilac was still very mysterious.

  There were a lot of Terrans. Their total population was in the low billions.

  Unless I could cut the portal off after becoming self-sufficient, I couldn't ignore that many people. That was assuming self-sufficiency itself was even possible.

  Of course, that wasn't the only factor. After all, if it was a bad decision, I could have just put it off instead.

   Van asked in a message.

   I replied.

  

  

  Naturally, I chose Savi.

  I couldn't wholly trust whatever magic Van claimed to use to verify that everything she said was true, but if it was unreliable, then anyone he brought could be dangerous.

  But anyone can already become dangerous simply by changing their mind, so that sort of thing didn't really matter anyway.

  What I learned about her didn't exactly require his magic anyway, except that it slightly reduced the chances she was blatantly yet skillfully lying.

  She seemed to simply want to learn.

  Having a shared motivation meant I could work with her.

  I'd preferred not to, since she was precisely the kind of person who could become the most dangerous to me. However, if she was willing to work with me, it was still better than if she wasn't.

  After all, if I fail to disappear from human civilization and become forgotten, it's a safe bet to assume people exactly like her will eventually come to study me without asking.

  Moreover, she can both help raise Lilac and help me become self-sufficient.

  The possibility she might someday teach others how to live in the Lost felt irrelevant next to the inevitability of other Terrans learning how to on their own.

  More important than all of that, though, is the fact that Lilac would benefit from an adult.

  Though I wasn't exactly a child, I've also never been an adult. Perhaps there'd been past lives where I'd successfully pretended to be one, but my body was incapable of maturing naturally.

  Alici would have been a fine caretaker if all Lilac needed was someone to raise her, but she was utterly alone aside from me. Someone whose relationship was inherently temporary wouldn't solve that.

  As someone who naturally avoided people, Savi's offer to become a citizen of the Lost only made me feel uncomfortable.

  However, I was looking for someone for Lilac's sake, not my own.

  With that in mind, someone willing to join her was just better than someone who'd watch over her only as a job.

  Of course, I did have to ask her why she was willing to move from an empire of hundreds of millions of people to live in a cave with only two. It was hard to imagine that ordinary people who lived in technologically enlightened societies would simply give up the comforts of their daily life.

  But apparently, that's just occasionally what imperial citizens do.

  After all, it wasn't like there was a government or anything in the Lost.

  From the Empire's perspective, it was more like I'd inherited the dungeon as private property.

  There were nuanced distinctions between that and being a full citizen, for example, Savi would be giving up her right to vote in imperial elections, but she might as well still be an imperial citizen despite formally renouncing it.

  Ah, but I didn't approve of her becoming a citizen right away.

  I just agreed to let her live with us for a month or two first.

  Then I'd decide whether she should stay or not.

  She was a complete stranger, after all.

  ***

  Van didn't exactly agree with Kid's choice, but he couldn't come up with an objection either.

  Although he did manage to get Kid to grill her over her motivations a bit before the interviews were concluded, it still felt surreal.

  'Do dungeon bosses just gather people?'

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  If Savi ended up formally migrating to the Lost dungeon, the Azure Dragons would help with the legalities, but Savi had claimed to have enough to cover an attorney, so their role was mostly that of a bureaucratic formality as the Empire's invested representation for the Lost.

  Yet after paying a stipend to the other candidates just for going all the way to Kid's home, another issue had surfaced.

  "Someone published a picture of Kid? Was it foreigners?"

  The Empire had pretty strict controls on photography. They were careful not to overly stifle free expression, but consent was an important factor. Unlike some other countries, merely being in a public space didn't override that factor.

  Candid photography without consent was expected to blur identities, usually faces.

  It would be very difficult to prove that the public had a need to know what she looked like, never mind that said need outweighed her own right to privacy.

  The only easy exceptions were political candidates, criminals, and public officials while on duty, something deemed ironic by plenty of citizens.

  Even celebrities had an expectation of privacy. So did dungeon bosses.

  However, photography was one thing, but art was another.

  "Not foreigners, but it's a drawing, not a photograph."

  "A drawing?"

  "Yes. It appeared a couple years ago, but nobody noticed it until very recently."

  It was difficult to go after a drawing, especially a stylized one, because the artist could claim that it's not really the subject.

  Even if they used the subject as a model, they could say it was just inspiration.

  The law wasn't clear cut. It protected both the artist's right to draw and the subject's right to privacy.

  In other words, as long as the artist wasn't overly malicious, from that funny legal perspective that tried to objectify intent by presuming the reasonable expected outcomes, then the artist was generally fine.

  Except, of course, since it was a legal question, most artists could simply be bullied into giving up. Lawyers weren't cheap.

  "Should we take it down?"

  And since the Azure Dragons were particularly powerful, they could even cite a third factor that normally never came into the equation.

  Of course, the fact it involved an outsider who was also a dungeon boss meant that third factor was already present even if they didn't stress it.

  The needs of the Empire were always carefully balanced against the rights of its people, but that added legal weight could easily shift a case against the expected outcome.

  Or, in short, an artist's right to draw did not overcome imperial diplomacy.

  Artists who didn't like foreign sovereigns were encouraged to make fun of imperial officials who did... and discouraged from offending the actual target of their ire.

  "We should... probably ask Kid."

  ***

  The dungeon's official population might eventually rise from 2 to 3.

  Although if I included Savi before she became a citizen, I might also have to include all the other regular visitors, which might place it in the hundreds or low thousands.

  For now though, it seemed that it would take a few weeks before Savi would actually be able to move in.

  In the meantime, I decided to go visit the Goblin Mines again, since they'd been cleared out.

  Apparently, there weren't any other slaves or hostages. It seemed that the hobgoblins transporting Lilac were probably just passing through.

  Since it was probably just goblins there now, I brought my bronze sword, a sling and some ammo, and a couple pocket knives. I kept my crossbows back at home.

  I wasn't sure how common goblins were, or even how to track them down.

  There was some information I could find using my phone, so I wasn't going in totally blind, but it didn't replace actual experience.

  By the way, in doing so, I learned that while goblins have near-human intelligence, it's closer to an animal than a human. They have a capacity for linguistics, but they develop tribal calls rather than true languages.

  Their intelligence grows as they evolve, so orcs and ogres sometimes develop crude writing systems, but goblins don't even produce art in any sense.

  Given all outsiders show human-like features and behavior, it's speculated that they all share a common ancestor, and since goblins are natural dungeon hoppers, some suspect they're the ones who spread that common ancestor across the various dungeons.

  Others speculate goblins and humans both had a common ancestor, and that they simply evolved in different directions.

  However, goblins have been humanity's enemy throughout Terra's history, so they have virtually no protection.

  Hunting them is generally seen as a good thing.

  I briefly wondered what would have become of me had I reincarnated near goblin territory rather than near human territory, but presuming the Terrans were right about them, these were only unpleasant thoughts.

  Although, since they are more bestial than humans, it's possible I would have mastered them eventually.

  But since I didn't have any interest in becoming a slave to find out, I entered the Goblin Mines with the goal of learning how to hunt them.

  ***

  As usual, the mines were mostly dark, dimly lit by strange torches that didn't go out no matter what I did to them.

  Well, I could briefly extinguish one, but it lit back up almost immediately afterward on its own.

  However, I was entirely unable to take the torch.

  With my curiosity satisfied, at least for the time being, I advanced toward the exit.

  Being there alone was tense.

  My Beginner skill protected me from death, but goblins were more likely to enslave their victims than kill them, as long as said victims were smaller and less threatening looking than the goblins in question.

  In other words, goblins only enslaved children, hobgoblins enslaved smaller adults, and orcs and ogres enslaved any human that couldn't beat them in a fight.

  They also enslaved members of their own species.

  Since I was a kid, they were more likely to try to disarm me than kill me.

  It was pretty unlikely they'd succeed, but it wasn't impossible, especially if they caught me by surprise.

  So I was very careful not to be caught by surprise.

  I did ultimately encounter a trio of goblins, all talking to one another as they walked.

  As I listened and waited for an opening, I tried to figure out the nature of their language, but it was difficult to tell if the Terrans were right about it.

  They did reuse a lot of the same sounds, but that didn't guarantee it was simple.

  One eventually wandered a bit from the rest.

  However, we were in a mining tunnel, whether a real one or a contrived mimicry of one. Unless it strayed my way, I couldn't just sneak up to it.

  It walked down a branch, and thus further from where I crouched in hiding.

  The other two chatted long enough that I was about to force an encounter, when suddenly, the third called out, and that convinced a second one to grumpily trudge along after it.

  Once enough distance was made, I used my sling to strike the last remaining goblin in the head, and it fell over.

  It sounded like I'd cracked its skull.

  After confirming its death, I dragged it out of sight.

  I'd come prepared with gloves, and had even gotten some new clothes, so that I didn't have to worry as much about cleaning up. Still, I held off on carving out the mana crystal.

  There were still two to go.

  The other two unfortunately returned together, calling out in apparent confusion when they realized they couldn't find the one I'd killed.

  They showed no signs of separating, and it only seemed like they'd get more alert over time, so I decided not to let them have any more time.

  A second slung stone killed a second goblin.

  However, the third now knew where I was, and charged at me with... a big rock.

  I drew my bronze sword and quickly sliced its gut open as it got close, moving out of the way from its attempt to throw the rock at me. I'd cut it short of a proper throw, but I still didn't want it to hit me or roll on my foot.

  Then, since it was still weakly moving about, I sliced through its neck next.

  That finished it off.

  Confirming the two kills, I then got to the messy work of carving out their mana cores, as well as burning their bodies.

  My gloves weren't fancy adventurer gloves, which had self-cleaning properties, but just ordinary gloves fit for general labor, so I'd have a lot of cleaning to do once I got back home.

  But before then, I had the rest of a two hour hike through the mines to finish.