They say that the bigger they are, the harder they fall. And while I did get a chance to experience that a little first hand, it did feel like a pretty stupid quote. Even more so when my feet left the ground a little and parts of my body jiggled in response against my will.

In front of me lay the body of a creature almost triple my height, humanoid, but with blue skin. Thankfully the most critical part was covered in a simple animal pelt with two of its limbs stretched behind the waist and tied together.

Unfortunately it only covered the front, as I regretfully discovered after it fell over face first.

At least it was tasty. Not my top five, but tasty enough and did its job to mostly distract me until its body disappeared.

"Scarlet, what's a biclops?"

"Well, bi means two, and clops means eye, so it means 'two-eyed'."

"So what does monocular mean?"

"...'One-eyed'."

"So it was a 'one-eyed, two eyes'?"

"...Yea."

"But it only had one eye."

"Yea..."

While quite a bit bigger than all the cyclops that littered the floor, the dungeon boss was for some reason called a 'monocular biclops' despite only being a big cyclops. It would have been easy to accept if it was some sort of cyclops chieftain or king, but it was called something completely different as if it was its own unrelated species.

It reminded me of that one boss back home. It was a bear in a ruins floor that was filled with strangely shaped monsters that looked like they were multiple types of animals stitched together. It was the only floor of its kind and there were more than one monster that I gave me goosebumps just by looking at them.

They were tasty though at least.

But the boss caught me off guard. It was so ordinary looking that it felt like it was transplanted from a completely different floor. It simply looked like an ordinary grizzly bear, but almost twice as big.

Fighting it wasn't special in any way. It fought just as how one would expect a bear to fight, just bigger. It wasn't too hard to get behind then sink my teeth into its neck.

What was notable though, was that its blood reminded me of the taste of smoked salmon. It was an incredibly odd sensation. It didn't taste anything like what an animal was like, and more like some of the amphibious creatures I had consumed in previous floors.

I couldn't help but feel like maybe that boss had actually followed the same theme as the rest of the floor, but it just wasn't obvious until I had started to suck out its blood. It dropped a massive salmon steak as well when it disappeared.

Definitely one of the more memorable monsters back home. I mentally made a note to go back and check its name when we went home.

Perhaps this 'monocular biclops' was of a similar type of monster as that weird bear.

Either way, it was a pretty underwhelming end to this little adventure.

We travelled from Linsington, met and formed a familiar contract with Claret, passed through a few minor villages, resurrected Alicia, partially, reached Knossos, entered its dungeon, fought, subdued, and turned familiar an assassin sent by supposed gods, and killed a cyclops that seemed to pretend to have two eyes or something.

When the boss disappeared, it left its weapon behind, a wide bladed sword longer than I was tall.

<It's called the iron slab. It's made from steel, and has an enchantment to increase it's power by increasing its momentum.>

It was called iron but made from steel. Well, at least it wasn't entirely wrong. That said, it increased power by enhancing its momentum? Didn't that just mean that it increased its mass? Or at the very least something that effectively did the same thing.

Just for fun, I lifted up the weapon that looked more like a long metal plate with a handle than a sword. Surprisingly, I had to strain my arm a little, but it produced the surreal effect of a small woman lifting a piece of metal bigger than she was.

Even more surreal was once you realized that this particular woman was not only lifting something so huge and heavy, but was also defying basic physics and geometry by completely ignoring the principal of leverage. As long as I actively fought against the weight of the sword, I was able to swing it without it throwing me around instead.

While it was a bit amusing, I couldn't see myself actually using such a thing, so it simply went into my bag without any fanfare.

We passed though the final doorway, and after a short tunnel, we ended up at another large double door.

<What is this?>

"It looks like the final room to the dungeon."

"I thought that the boss room would be the end."

"No master. Remember every dungeon we cleared had a room like this after the final boss?"

"How could I? But anyways, I guess there isn't anything dangerous regarding this room then?"

"None of the final rooms we reached ever were."

"I see. But I guess it won't hurt to be at least a little careful."

With that said I slowly crept up, paying close attention to the floor, walls, and the doors themselves. There weren't any signs of traps anywhere. There wasn't even a hint of mana other than the normal ambient haze that permeated the entire dungeon which was difficult to even notice despite my high [Mana Perception] skill if I didn't focus on it.

After slowly checking the door just in case, I pushed against them. Like every entrance in these dungeons, the large silver bodied door effortless gave way without a single creak.

What appeared in front of me forced me to squint a little.

The room beyond was brightly lit as if it was outside despite being still in an enclosed cave. Or rather, it simply felt that way due to how so much of the room glittered and shined.

In contrast to the rock walled hallway that lead up to this room, the walls were made of white marble with silver and gold reliefs decorating the corners and intersections. Above, hanging from the tall arcing ceiling, was a massive chandelier made of silver struts and covered in large clear glass jewels cut like gemstones. The light source contained within refracted in a chaotic mess resulting in the entire thing glittering painfully.

The ground was made of a darker stone, a mixture of grey and olive green in a marbled pattern. Directly in front of me was a red carpet with the edges decorated with some sort of gold thread. The carpet guided my eyes to a raised platform. Right in the centre of that was a stereotypical gold and silver treasure chest from any assortment of games. Behind it all was another fountain, but this one was made of marble and decorated with engravings all throughout its body with silver and gold inlays.

There didn't seem to be any traps here either, but unlike the previous room, this one was thoroughly suffused in mana. It was beyond my capabilities at this moment to find any sort of magical traps, so I simply gave up. Claret had practically given me her guarantee that this room was safe, and with how she was simply hanging off of my shoulders like usual without a hint of tension, even she felt that there was no chance that I could come to harm here.

Taking a deep breath, I made my across the soft carpet and stepped up onto the platform. The treasure chest was even bigger looking when I was standing right in front of it. In fact, it was more than big enough for me to hide inside of if I wanted to. Claret could have probably fit inside as well despite her added height. Maybe even Alicia could have squeezed inside together with me with her small body if she still had it.

Slowly making my way around the huge chest, I did one final check for anything less than acceptable before I put my hands on the lid of the waist high container. Claret leaned in, excitement I haven't seen from her aside from when she was talking about Scarlet. Alicia was probably just as excited, but it was difficult to tell for sure as my heart was beating hard inside my chest with anticipation.

While I couldn't imagine what sort of thing I could find in such a chest that I could properly appreciate (aside from maybe some nice clothes), the thought didn't do anything to dampen the atmosphere.

With a light push, the lid hinged back silently and revealed the secrets it was hiding.

The insides of the chest glittered under the light just as much as the chandelier did. The bottom of the chest was filled with layers of silver and gold coins, but they weren't the ones that I had used up until then. They were larger and had different imprints than what I had only started to get used to. The shape as well. These were perfectly circular aside from patterned notches along the edge. The quality of the shape was leagues above the more misshapen coins that was in circulation above ground. In fact, they reminded me of the occasional time I got my hands on newly minted coins back home. Not only were they so flawlessly formed, but glittered without a hint of dirt or tarnish.

Laying on top of the pile of coins were several items that exuded mana. There was a large crossbow, a small shield, a T-slotted full-faced helmet, a bright pink hand-bag, and a jewelled stick as long as my forearm.

As I examined each of them, Alicia gave me an explanation to each.

<Ummm, so the first one's a flaming drake crossbow. It says that it's made from a drake enchants all bolts fired from it with fire.>

This might've been the most advanced thing I had found in this world, once you disregarded any arguments about how advanced anything that had to do with magic was. Otherwise it seemed like a simple staple and not particularly remarkable.

<The second is a counter-blast heater shield. It's made from steel, and apparently when it's struck, it'll cause a small explosion.>

Quite simple in concept, but pretty powerful, depending on how strong the effect was. While there were plenty of potential detriments, overall it seemed like something that would be handy...if I was the sort to stand my ground and block hits rather than just avoiding getting hit in the first place.

<The third is a silver helm of clear mind. It's made of silver, and seems like it gives the wearer increased resistance against sleep, confusion and paralysis.>

This time it was a more plain item, but depending on how strong of a resistance it gave, and depending on the situation, it could have been one of the more powerful items amongst the ones there.

<The fourth is a snow hare magic bag. Its capacity is two cubic meters, and is made from the hide of a snow hare.>

While two cubic meters was nothing compared to what I had in my own magic bag, this one was tiny in comparison. It really looked like some dainty woman's hand bag only good for holding a wallet and some small items.

(What's even the point of a handbag anyways? They're always so small.)

<The next one is a wand of displacement. This wand casts the spell displacement onto anything that it's swung at. The spell swaps the target and the user's location.>

"That sounds really powerful."

"Depending on the situation, but usually it isn't. The spell is pretty limited by the size and distance of the target, and if used on a living creature it can be resisted if they have high enough anima. On top of that, if the target is too big, the spell will either only swap a portion of it with the user, or fizzle entirely if the object is too sturdy."

The dark spirit quickly dashed my expectations regarding the only item I had a real interest in.

"So it's not useful against enemies, and its application on inanimate objects is limited huh? How big of a target can it swap with?"

"Well, if you cast the spell normally, it depends on the user's [Dimensional Magic] skill as well as their intelligence, but a wand is generally only capable of using the spell at a low to medium skill ranking. I'm sure that once you get [Dimensional Magic] to rank three, you'd be able to do even more than the wand."

I couldn't help but feel like this entire treasure chest was a bust, despite how high the demand for the contents would've been for a normal person. The equipment wasn't really useful sounding to me, and I already had a magic bag. I couldn't really say I had any need for a big pile of money, not when it was so easy for me to get almost everything I wanted out in the wild, and everything out back home.

The only thing that was even remotely useful was the wand, but apparently it was too weak to be useful as long as I properly learned [Dimensional Magic] and raised its skill rank even a little.

Well, even if all that was true, I had no reason to just leave everything here. It was possible that I would find a use for at least some of it. Aside from selling them, most likely just the money though. At least that I could come up with some sort of use, even if it wasn't for myself.

"Oh yea, would there be a problem if I put a magic bag inside of another magic bag?"

As I was reaching for the items, the thought came to me. The recursive spacial bag problem was something that showed up a bunch in various stories and games, often as a joke or to explain certain mechanics. It was best to ask just in case.

"Don't do it! Magic bags are fragile when it comes to effects that bend space, so if you put strongly warped space inside of another one, it could cause both to collapse and cause collateral damage as the space warped back to normal!"

Claret pulled back on my neck as if she was trying to stop me from trying just that. I was a little annoyed at the implication that I would try such a thing. At the very least, I didn't want to risk losing my bunny plush shaped magic bag. I quite depended on it and was my favourite of all my possessions.

"Don't worry, I won't. Could you hold on to it while I put everything else into my bag?"

"Oh, alright Master."

With that, she let go of me and held on to the bag in both hands once I handed it off to her. The rest of the contents of the treasure chest went into my bag.

Once that was all done, there was one last thing I wanted to try.

"Gimme a sec before we go."

"Yes Master."

<Alright.>

Once I had their confirmation, I kicked the empty chest, shattering the front board. But against my expectations, the decorated plate quickly turned into particles of light and disappeared before it could even hit the ground.

A little disappointed, I tried scratching some of the gold ornamentation on the walls, only for them to flake off and disappear as light particles as well. It seemed like there wasn't anything that was possible to take from the room beyond the contents of the chest. Even if there was, I didn't feel like putting in any more effort into finding out.

With nothing else to do, we headed towards the especially fancy fountain in the back of the room. It was practically broadcasting that it was the way back.

<Scarlet, can you hear me?>

A voice I wasn't particularly keen to hearing ever again rang through my head.

Claret tensed up on her usual position on my back, but opted not to say anything.

<I can hear you.>

I needed to remind myself that I needed to stay as cordial as I could with her. At the worst it would delay if not entirely prevent her from turning on me in the future. At best, there was the possibility that she would be of help someday, though I wanted to avoid such an incident where I needed such help. Both in terms of not wanting to rely on such an uncertain factor, as well as the desire not to actually be in such danger that I needed to rely on her.

<Oh good. I was worried it wouldn't work properly.>

<Is there a reason why you're calling me, or did you just want to test the connection out?>

<Ah, well, kinda both, really. The thing is, I've been having some trouble with this magic thing.>

It wasn't really much of a surprise that she would. I was lucky and used some of the magic theory from various movies and games to come up with some plausible theories as to how to make the magic work. One of them even did in the end. But for her, if she didn't have a background where she got familiar with such fantasy elements as well, it wouldn't have been much of a surprise that she would have trouble making the proper mental connections as to how to do it.

<I see. Well, once you get the theory down, it's not hard since you already have the skills...>

The sight of Claret's displeasure caught my eye, and while it didn't really have to do with her, I did get another idea.

<I'll come to you and help you out. Are you still on the same floor as before?>

<Ah, I am! I'll be waiting!>

"Master, are you sure about helping that bitch get stronger?"

As I took my steps towards the fountain, the expected person finally voiced her complaint.

"I am, though it'll only make her a little stronger, and in the long run, it'll probably make her even less of a threat."

"Isn't it just better to avoid all dealings with her instead? I don't see how helping her out will make things better."

"It will by eroding her will to fight. The more favour I earn with her, the more unwilling she would be to harm me in the future."

<Personally, I think you've eroded her will to fight you to virtually nothing though.>

Unexpectedly, Alicia seemed to have been leaning towards Claret's view rather than my own.

"That's right! There's no need to waste your time with such a bitch Master!"

"There's the saying that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of a cure. Something of this level is nothing compared to the long term benefits. Taking a few extra steps isn't a problem. You yourself are centuries old right Claret? Isn't taking a little while out of a day virtually nothing for a being that lives so long? The same goes for you Alicia. A little bit of work early on will mean that we won't have to do a lot more later on."

The dark spirit stiffened up a little as she thought, but relaxed after a few moments.

"I understand Master."

<Same. If you're going to say that much then I don't have anything to add.>

Thankfully the two were convinced with that much. I wasn't sure what I would do if they stood their ground. I had already made the promise with Sarah, so I really needed to keep it or risk souring her impression of me.

I turned my attention towards Sarah. My connection with her allowed me to sense where she was. The familiar contract was telling me she was somewhere above, but it was a little screwy, like her location wasn't consistent or her presence was unstable. It was probably a side effect of the nature of dungeons. Dungeons really were mysterious things. It would be nice if I could learn more about them someday in the future, but aside from consulting an expert or finding a book on the subject, I had no idea how to pursue such a thing.

Retrieving the little magic bag from Claret, I made my way to the fountain.

 

"That was fast!"

When I appeared in the fountain room where Sarah and I parted ways at, the tall woman jumped a little in surprise. As a result of her sudden movement though, the bowl she was holding had also moved in an unexpected direction, ejecting its contents straight into her face and chest.

While her chest was properly protected by a curved metal plate, her face had no such protection and suffered the entire consequences of her actions.

"Ahhh! My schteev!"

It took me a moment to recognize what it was she was eating. It was my half-baked borscht. Or the remains of it, from what I could tell. The pot beside her was obviously empty, as it was sitting on its side.

I couldn't even see any traces of the soup at a glance. I didn't want to believe it, but it was hard to offhandedly deny the possibility that she had cleaned the pot. Possibly with her tongue if her reaction to my soup before was any indication.

Or rather, she had already finished it? I was pretty sure it hadn't been much more than a day since we had parted, yet it was gone already? That pot should've been big enough for two or three more meals of it.

"Stop moving for a sec."

The woman was wiping her face with her hands and licking them like a cat, and the sight of it was just a bit unnerving.

To make myself feel a bit better, I swirled warm water all around her body, removing all traces of dirt and the ruined soup off of her before chucking the remains through the nearby passage and into the dungeon proper. Immediately following that, I evaporated all the remaining surface moisture and mentally gave myself a pat on the back while the woman stood there in shock and a bad case of messy hair.

"There. Much bett…"

"Ahhh! The last of my schteev!"

There was a distinct lack of appreciation in front of me.

(Or rather, she's upset that I removed the last vestments of her soup?)

The surreal image of a grown woman wearing sparkling clean white armour on her hands and knees hanging her head in depression was on display in front of me. The only thing that would've made this even more awkward was if I had gone through with the thought of using one of my scented soaps.

(Then again, maybe if I had one that was mint scented, it could've made things better?)

"*Sigh* Will you get up if I make another pot of that?"

"You'll do that?"

As if the previous depression didn't happen, Sarah lifted her head and looked at me with glittering eyes. Or rather, the traces of her despair was still clear as day with those wet cheeks and snot dripping from her nose.

(Did such a thing really get her that depressed?)

"Yea, so get yourself cleaned up at least."

(Ah…)

With a quick nod, the disappointing armoured woman got up and wiped her face with the inside of her armoured glove, spreading that mucus onto the clothes I had just cleaned.

Fortunately she quickly made her way to the fountain to clean herself up. Before she could transfer her fluids to the clean water though, I quickly lifted up a bunch of the fountain's water so I could use it to cook more borscht, or whatever it was that she called it.

I pulled out a bigger pot than before. The biggest one I had.

Considering how things had gone, there was a good chance that Sarah would start to bug me in the future when she runs out, so it would be better to simply make more to delay that inevitability for as long as I could.

I quickly got to work cooking up the food, using up most of what little of the fresh vegetables I had left. There was still plenty of certain herbs and spices, along with fruit and meat. The latter one mostly because I managed to get some in this dungeon, but this place really didn't get me much meat or other foodstuff in general.

It was unfortunate, but I needed to find a different place to stockpile in case I wanted to make food for someone before we go back home. Maybe it was time to buy some in the city? I had gotten my hands on quite a bit of loot so it wasn't like I was hurting on riches.

(Or rather, I was probably quite rich if you only considered my assets. Pure cash wise, unless if I could use those strange coins as is, I'd probably be considered a little poor.)

Well, it wasn't like I was concerned with being rich or anything. As long as I found a way to give Alicia a new body, I didn't mind spending the rest of my days secluded in the dungeon back home.

To the side, Sarah had finally returned while I was stirring the pot as it simmered. She had taken off her upper armour, wearing only a simple grey short sleeved tunic above her hips. All the armour was laying on the lip of the fountain behind her. Considering how wet it looked, it seemed she had the sense to at least wash the surface before placing her clean, if a bit wet, equipment down.

For the first time, I was stuck staring at her. To be exact, a bit below her collar bone. Sarah was quite slender underneath all that armour she had been wearing, but there was a particular bit that I was concerned with: her chest. It was pretty modest. Not flat or something, but just...modest. Like they would only barely overflow in each of my small hands if I were to hold them.

Looking down, I was met with the familiar sight that blocked the view of my feet when I stood.

It was a strange thing, but I was feeling a bit envious of the only human in the room, and it wasn't because she could stand under the sun without experiencing severe pain. It wasn't like my bulbous add-ons were any sort of physical strain, but they were big enough that it was impossible to do much without taking them into consideration. They blocked my view of anything below, and the feeling of them moving made themselves known to me every time I moved my body. While the former wasn't much of an issue most of the time due to the fact that I was shorter than most people, it wasn't like there weren't occasions where it became a problem.

Tying my shoes in particular was annoying.

"*sigh* You can laugh you know. I know I'm tiny, and compared to you, I'm practically as flat as a board."

"Ah, no. If we could switch places regarding that, I wouldn't hesitate."

"You don't have to lie about it. Even before I died everyone was bigger than me!"

For some reason my words seemed to have no persuasive power over Sarah on this topic, and I was forced to move on while she stood there puffing her cheeks.

"In that case, how about we just move on and practice on using magic?"

"Sure."

There was a distinct lack of enthusiasm, but I doubted it was because she didn't want to learn magic.

"Well, how much do you know about magic?"

"Umm, like nothing? Nobody really told me anything about how to do things when I was sent here. Those guys told me a bit about where I was going and what I should do at first, but that was it. They really didn't have any instructions after levelling up in this dungeon beyond finding you and killing you."

"I see..."

After care was severely lacking it seemed. It made me wonder if maybe there was a reason why they didn't give her proper support? Considering the ease in turning her, it wouldn't have been much of a surprise that they didn't have much hopes in the first place, but then sending her didn't make much sense unless if the pool of candidates were particularly terrible. But that didn't make much sense since they had access to the people who being reincarnated. Even if it was just a small portion of those that had died, statistically it was pretty improbable that there wouldn't have been at least one particularly good candidate.

I could've just been wrong with my basic assumptions and maybe that sort of person wasn't sent to the people who were after my life, or maybe people like that were actually incredibly rare once you took available worlds into consideration. I only really had Earth and a little bit of information of two other worlds as reference, so it wasn't an impossibility.

But at the same time, that wasn't really a smart gamble.

In the end, it was probably a good idea to get stronger to reduce the chances of being brought in by any future assassins. While returning home to grind levels and skills was probably the most reliable way, I was probably going to hold off on that for a little longer. I lacked basic things like proper equipment, and there was a chance I might discover something I hadn't even considered out here.

At the very least, I wanted to get another clue or two in regards to making a new body for Alicia before going back.

"In that case, do you know any magic theories from your old world?"

"Magic didn't exist in my world, so of course not."

"I didn't mean like that, but maybe you know any stories where magic exists?"

"Ah, I wasn't really into fantasy stuff. I was more into pre-modern military, especially the kind of stuff before warp drives were invented. Did you know that there was a time when a soldier actually had to walk to the battlefield?"

"...You know you're currently living in a world where that sort of thing is normal, right?"

"Oh, yea."

Some of the stuff she said made me really wonder just how advanced the place she came from was.

"Umm, anyways. Since you have the skills for it, magic is basically manipulating energy inherent in everyone's body to activate a phenomena. As long as you can imagine the phenomena clearly enough, it should be easy to do, at least at a scale your stats is capable of."

"So if I want to create a fire, I need to imagine the quantum fields exiting in just the right way to form the base particles for some fuel and an oxidizer, then further excite those to create a sustained reaction?"

"...how do you know such advanced fields?"

Seriously, considering the way she'd been acting until now, I thought she was just a moron.

"Huh? Quantum field theory was part of grade seven science class I think? Or what, was it not discovered in your world yet or something?"

Something about how smug she looked pissed me off, but I did my best to not let it show on my face.

"I wouldn't have known what you were talking about if it wasn't discovered, would I?"

"Oh yea, I guess so."

That said, I could only barely understand what she even meant. Quantum theory wasn't exactly something widely known on Earth, and I only barely grasped the basics. To be exact, it was only to the point that I could barely realize that she was even talking about that theory.

Or rather, what's she getting so impudent for such a moron?

"Anyways, the system covers those little details so you don't have to worry about it. Just move your mana and imagine a flame hovering in the palm of your hand, and if you do it all right, it'll just appear."

"That's pretty vague."

"Magic is a vague thing in the first place, since the system does everything else for you in the first place."

I hoped that she wouldn't make me repeat that point for a third time.

"I see. So I just move this mana thing, then excite the particles above my hand to form a sustained plasma?"

"...if it helps you to imagine it that way, then sure."

That was definitely a much more detailed way to create a flame, but I did want to try it out sometime. I generally wasn't a fan of fire magic, as it was basically just energy forced to do something a bit arbitrary, but if I changed my imaging in this way, it was possible I could improve or even find new uses of fire magic.

But I wasn't really that interested in it beyond idle curiosity. Rather than using plasma to get things done and risk doing quite a lot of collateral damage from the dispersed heat after impact, I'd rather use something more solid and reliable.

I went back to checking on the borscht while Sarah cupped her hands and started to concentrate.

Keeping an eye on Sarah, I observed as the sight of her aura wavered and extended slightly, before retracting to its normal form enveloping her body about half a centimetre thick. Letting out a breath, she gathered her concentration and tried it once again.

The next try the little wisp grew slightly longer, but only that.

It made me wonder if there was some sort of mental block that prevented her from using magic properly, but it was a pretty absurd notion, so I disregarded it entirely. That said, I was getting bored and there was nothing for me to do aside from keeping the contents of the pot spinning as I applied a slight amount of mana to it.

Since the opportunity was there, I tried using [Scan] on Sarah to see if there was anything else unusual about her. She had come to this world through abnormal means, even compared to myself, so there was a chance that there was something different about her than normal people.

But of course, I hadn't really bothered scanning people much, so it wasn't likely for me to actually find anything to note.

<I guess aside from having that massive list of rank one skills, there's nothing really special about Sarah huh?>

<...actually maybe there is?>

Unexpectedly there was a surprising response to my idle complaint.

<Umm, Scarlet, did you know that there's skills people have that don't show up on your status screen?>

<I do. There's quite a lot that [Scan] can show that people don't even know exists, like the [Literacy] hidden skill.>

<Oh.>

<Umm, well, it's still amazing that you discovered all that so quickly!>

<...>

I could just picture Alicia looking at me with puffed cheeks, annoyed that I was treating her like a child, even though she precisely was just that.

<Well, anyways, was there something you noticed?>

<...There is. There's a few skills that she has that you or Claret don't, though you two also have a bunch of skills the other doesn't, so I don't know if there's something special about it. Since that person is human like I was, if I had my old body I might've been able to find out though.>

It really was annoying that we couldn't find a way to use [Scan] on Alicia, but it pretty much ended at annoying. I couldn't really see much use for actually doing such a thing at this point, and the only problem was actually targeting her with the skill. It was possible that I might come up with a solution in the future, but it wasn't quite a big deal at the moment.

<Well, there's no harm in showing me.>

<Okay, here they are.>

The clip-outs of a bunch of hidden skills appeared in my vision. For the most part they looked innocuous. It was hard to say if they were all ordinary hidden skills common to all humans, but it certainly felt like they were.

<This one I'm a bit concerned with though.>

Alicia showed me one final hidden skill. There was something distinctly different about this one, in that the name was weird. The skill was called [Active Report].

<Claret, have you heard of a skill called [Active Report]?>

<I haven't.>

<Alright. Thanks.>

It wasn't really a surprise. Hidden skills were likely to be hardly known in this world, if known at all by anyone but us. They formed the basis of a lot of ordinary things in this world, and since you couldn't see them without my [Scan] skill or my administrative access, it wouldn't have been a surprise that I was the first person on this world to have ever discovered them.

I found the hidden skill in Sarah's data and read through the skill code. But the further I read, the more a sinking feeling grew in the pit of my stomach.

In the end, I checked its code ID, then created up a blank dummy skill and swapped the two. When I tried to do the swap, there was an error and the system asked for a confirmation.

'Safeguards are in place for making alterations to active skills. Do you wish to forcibly deactivate the skill? Yes/No'

"YES!"

"Wah!"

To my side, Sarah jumped in surprise.

"Ah, no, sorry. I was thinking about something."

"...Okay."

"Master! Is something the matter?"

<You surprised me too Scarlet.>

<Ah, sorry you two. I just had a really bad feeling about that skill you found, so I was a bit forceful in deactivating it.>

Before continuing that conversation, I finished up with Sarah's food.

"Here, the soup's done."

"Yay!"

Interrupting her practice, Sarah rushed over to the pot, joyfully enjoying the scent of it as the steam rose.

"Here, this is a big pot, so it'll be annoying to carry. You can have this as well."

"What is it?"

I handed over the little handbag I had found earlier.

"It's a magic bag. You can fit up to two cubic meters inside of it."

"Wow! A spacial warping device in such a small space? You know last I heard it was only theoretical!"

"Is that so? Well, you can use it to carry your soup."

Such a thing was probably centuries away on Earth, and yet we were using such a miraculous Clarketech to carry lunch.

(Well, it's not like I was doing much better.)

Looking at Sarah's hidden skill again, I was able to confirm that it was properly overwritten. Unfortunately it was a limited skill, and I had no idea where the original copy was, if I hadn't just overwritten the only copy.

I was pretty nervous about the implication of that skill, and while it was possible that I had misunderstood the effect, just the thought that I might've been right left me worried.

<What did that skill do anyways?>

<If I'm right, it sent a live feed from Sarah's eyes and ears back to wherever the people that sent her.>