It was a reasonable question.
A diligent enough kid my age could probably learn how to take care of a garden, and even do rudimentary research in the process.
If taught how, they could even make bricks or cast metal.
Cooking and sewing were very common skills for a girl to have in some cultures, even if it was rarer in technologically enlightened eras.
However, even adults would struggle to be competent at all of these things.
Beyond that, I'd shown no signs of ever having chemistry equipment in this world, yet I simply ordered a bunch and started using it.
Although it wasn't impossible for such a child prodigy to exist, even prodigies usually had to learn from someone or something, whereas I just lived on my own.
I answered honestly though. There wasn't much point in lying, although it wasn't like I told her the whole truth either.
"I used my phone to learn some things, but mostly, I don't remember."
The truth was that I couldn't remember most of my past lives.
I had some vague memories of my first life in Atlantis, and a few disjointed memories from across my past lives that were too disconnected to be pieced together.
But none of my memories really explained where I learned all this from.
There were odd gaps.
I remember being taught by my family how to defend myself with a sword. At least, I have memories of once being able to remember such things.
What my family looked like and how they sounded... are things I no longer know.
But I don't think I was particularly good at it back then. I think I made a lot of mistakes.
I helped take care of the family garden too, but that was just simple chores, like what Lilac does now.
"You don't remember?" Savi asked, echoing my answer and pulling me out of my moment of reminiscence.
"I don't. I can't remember much before I woke up in the forest."
It was true. Proportionately speaking, at least.
"Interesting... wait... don't tell me..."
"Huh?"
"Did you... call yourself Kid... just because that's what everyone called you?"
"Well... yeah."
She sounded incredulous as she asked, but even I knew it made for an unusual name, but I hadn't really put much effort into it, since I'd expected to disappear before it caught on.
At the very least, I hadn't dreamed that it might ever be psychically conveyed to anyone who so much as looked my way.
So, when she looked at me with an expression somewhere between awe and despair, I sort of understood where she was coming from.
"Well," she finally spoke up again after a long pause. "Maybe you could have it changed?"
But even if I actually wanted to do that, I wasn't sure if it would actually be possible. It wasn't as though the strange force announcing my identity had ever actually asked me what name to give people.
I decided to try and research how it worked.
After all, while there weren't many sentient dungeon bosses willing to talk about the various mysteries surrounding their role, non-bosses were also victims of these strange psychic announcements.
Not at a mere glance like I and other dungeon bosses were, but gaining a Skill in a dungeon usually declared it to the whole dungeon.
It was a rare occurrence from an individual's perspective.
Only about 4 to 5% of the imperial population ever got any Skills at all, and even most of those that did could count the number of times they'd acquired or advanced a Skill on one hand.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
But since the Empire had a population in the hundreds of millions, this meant that the number of people with Skills was still in the lower tens of millions.
Surely someone should have figured out how someone's name was chosen.
Then again... despite being so reliant upon Skills, Terrans sure didn't know much about their origins.
'I guess if I don't find anything, I could ask Zaitenmodi,' I mused.
Though I didn't really want to accumulate more debts toward that guy...
***
"How does this work?"
"You simply press a finger on whichever icon you wish to access. It works by skin conductivity."
"Fascinating. This is the technology they produce with our exports?"
"It is indeed, your imperial majesty."
The demon king of Naraka inspected a Terran-style phone at his desk, while his personal attendant patiently explained every feature to him.
To say he was out of touch wasn't exactly accurate. The emperor did his best to keep up with the times.
However, departed as he was from mortal concerns, it was a perpetual challenge.
He could blink, merely rest his eyes for a bit, and the whole of society would have moved on from the trends he once knew.
As a result, his palace was in a perpetually anachronistic, almost dreamlike state when compared to the rest of the world, like a living museum.
Nevertheless, it was still a functional palace that served its emperor's whims, whatever they may be.
Naraka did not rely on Terran technology.
It wasn't entirely by choice. There were equivalents to Terran phones that worked in its massive cities, but the world as a whole was far more hostile. It was impossible to set up infrastructure and expect it to last without defending it with physical force.
Even though no sentient Narakan would intentionally oppose the emperor's will, the plethora of natural disasters, either literal or in monster form, would quickly degrade even his designs if left unprotected.
"And this connects me to their communication systems?"
"Yes. There may be slight delays depending on the moment-to-moment status of the communication arrays from here to Terra, but ordinarily, it should simply be slow but consistent."
"Slow... but consistent?"
"It is automated, your imperial majesty, using spell sigils. However, weather conditions can interrupt the signal."
"I see... what if we replicated their systems in Naraka?"
"Ah..."
The attendant felt like his soul was starting to leave his body, while Zaitenmodi obliviously fiddled with the amusing device in his hands, exploring its menus with an almost childlike curiosity.
***
Thanks to my new microscope and other chemical testing equipment, I was able to slowly get an idea of how best to care for the various plants I was growing.
It was a big help with haoma in particular, along with aglaophotis and moly, but it even helped me understand how well the Terran flora did in the Lost, since it was a pretty different environment from most of Terra.
It was perpetually warm, but not quite tropical or outright summery. I didn't ever need winter clothes, but my light hoodie wasn't ever too warm either, especially at night.
Almost like a Spring that never ended.
Of course, I tried to show Lilac what I was doing, but as clever as she was, she lacked the foundational knowledge required to understand the why of it all.
Since Savi was technically her caretaker, I could just leave it all to her, but Savi only understood the beginnings of elementary level Lost, and Lilac only knew very basic imperial phrases.
They could now communicate with one another, and it was pretty cute to watch them interact, but it wasn't enough for scientific education.
Although I could just wait for them to bridge that gap, since Lilac was apparently an immortal too, it still felt like needlessly putting things off.
Since I was already being paid to teach, I decided to expand my role as a teacher, and taught Lilac basic math and science.
Well, I'd already been doing that from the start, but since I had time to spare now, I began doing it a bit more formally, with lectures, a curriculum, and even homework.
"Were you a teacher in your past life?" Savi asked me at some point.
'Well... yes. Probably many times.'
But I didn't think she was asking about that.
"What do you mean?"
"Just... it's a bit surreal watching a kid who lives in a cave give lectures."
"I based them on Terran lectures I found online."
"Oh. So kids really can raise themselves with phones these days... that's a bit scary..."
I wondered if, despite being a prodigious genius, Savi wasn't a bit out of touch with Terra's technology.
Of course, as someone who constantly had to adapt to new cultures, technologies, and even laws of physics with each new life, I probably had a bit of an edge. Most people struggle dealing with changes, particularly when it didn't directly affect them.
But it wasn't even like she was particularly old.
'Actually, isn't she the youngest one here?'
***
I suddenly got a message from Zaitenmodi.
Or perhaps it wasn't sudden after all, since it came a week after I received the seeds, but unless the plants were normally particularly fast at growing, it still felt a bit soon to ask about them.
'Maybe he just has nothing else to talk about?'
I sent him a picture.
He gave back an answer, but... didn't that describe most plants?
Then he followed it up, saying,
Since the Terran word for guide wasn't specific about whether the guide was just a document or a living person, I felt some concern that he might send the latter.
Although he'd once chastised me for just walking around freely despite supposedly being a diplomatic entity as a dungeon boss, he was hypocritically the sort of person to just do as he wished without much regard for what kind of trouble it caused others.
'Surely he won't, though... surely...'
But... that was strange...
His response came almost immediately this time.
It was slower than Suon's responses, but a bit faster than Van's.
'Does the Demon King of Naraka have nothing better to do than text a weird kid he met once?'
Just why was he interested in me in the first place?
Considering there were apparently Skills that allow people to see other people's capabilities at a glance, and it's been said even in Terra, where he's more of a myth than a man, that Demon King has stood alone for centuries at the very peak of what could be obtained by Skills...
It was a bit concerning.