For some reason, Curiosity felt like the more information she uncovered about the little spirit, the more bewildered and fused she got over time. It was as if she was staring into a floating cloud of tradi.

  When Curiosity first found Baby, she was in ay dark cavern, fussing over a smattering of scattered gemstones. Judging by their infused mana, she had most likely been attempting to cast some kind of spell, not that it appeared like she knew what she was doing.

  She must be self-taught…

  Finding this se humorous and slightly pitiful, Curiosity let out an internal giggle. Ied, she examihe other party using her spiritual perception.

  The little spirit’s mana was exceptionally pure.

  Quite young. She must have spawned only retly…

  Based on the avaible evidehis was the most reasonable clusion.

  Only a short time ter, the little spirit would quickly master speech. Moreover, she was fluent!

  This pletely caught Curiosity off guard. It was not because she had given her wrong or even inplete information, but simply because when it es to unicatioween spirits, knowledge is a requirement for both transmission and uanding.

  In theory, the spirit nguage works by turning meaning into words, and then using that to vey an idea directed. In practice, however, if an idea is too plicated, not well uood, or poorly articuted, then the listener will only receive a vague impression. That is to say, in order for smooth unication, a certain level of uanding is required from both the speaker as well as the listener.

  As a knowledgeable and experienced spirit, how could Curiosity not be aware of this? Needless to say, she absolutely was!

  Simply put, while it was true that she was the one who had provided Chara with meaningful instru, she had intended for the baby to fail. In her predi, whetle spirit iably failed, she would have no choice but to rely on the most knowledgeable Her for additional instru.

  That said, she didn’t have any iion of teag Chara how to speak. After all, students were much easier to trol when they couldn’t talk back. And this was doubly so when they couldn’t move either.

  But in that case, if Baby learning how to speak was trary to Curiosity’s goals, then why did she take a risk and provide the little spirit with instrus?

  Simply put, it was because she he little spirit to tinue direg curiosity at herself. This was for two reasons. Firstly, to prolong the effect of her mesmerization, enablio tinue issuing orders. And sedly, to gaitle spirit’s admiration, making it easier for her to retain Chara’s curiosity, even iure.

  Of course, this was not how things pyed out. Chara quickly figured out how to speak, and she did it without even a morsel of her input.

  Curiosity was surprised, fused, frustrated, and scared.

  What happened?

  Acc to her observations and even some of her own experiences, newly spawned spirits are almost entirely bnk stes. Aside from some basistincts, newly spawned spirits have almost no knowledge and no uanding. Loathed as she is to admit, she too was once a sad and pitiful knowledgeless spirit.

  But her humiliating past aside, uhe premise that Baby had just spawned, and newly spawned spirits had no knowledge, thetle baby should not have been capable of uanding the curiosity spirits expnation.

  So why was that not the case?

  This tradi ended up making the greater spirit so frustrated that she ended up hastily the little spirit not to speak: a bad decision. What was Curiosity thinking? Not only did this not garner her any admiration; it made her hated instead!

  As it turned out, she might have used up all of her good fortune when she found the little spirit and decided to take her in, because after that, there wasn’t a single decision she made that hadn’t backfired. From learning how to speak, to running away, to resisting the effects of her ritual, not only had Curiosity tinuously lost both potential teag materials and leverage, but she had nothing to show for it.

  In the end, she ended up being so busy chasing after the little spirit that she never figured out why everythi wrong. Fortunately, she pleted her ritual with only some minor mishaps. The little spirit’s reign of terror and rebelliousness had finally e to an end… or so she thought.

  As she would soon find out, the little spirit was very high maintenance, ae being a supposedly newly spawned spirit, she came with many factory defects.

  ***

  While passing under an arch created by two brang pilrs, two spirits and a procession of tumbling diamonds made their way further into the crystal cavern.

  Uo sit still, Chara looked at everything around her full of curiosity and i. It was only now that she wasn’t being forced to run for her life did she have time to fully appreciate just how unreal everything around her looked.

  Everywhere around her, she was surrounded by a maze of translut pilrs as far as the eye could see. This was already highly unusual in and of itself, but she was willing to overlook it and vince herself that it was simply because she was in a crystal cavern or something.

  It was very beautiful, and if such a pce existed oh, then she would surely o visit it. But the more she took in her surroundings, the more she began to feel rather uled.

  From the ceiling, jutted out many enormous crystalline ns. They stretched from ceiling to flradually narrowing, and then splig into many smaller pilrs. These brang pilrs would then split into even smaller pilrs, which would split into even tinier pilrs. This would repeat again and again until they burrowed into the cavern fliving birth to the translut maze of crystalline ns, and knocked over stagmites she was traversing now.

  Umm… Is it just me, or does this pce feel like it’s upside down or something… It looks almost like an upside-down forest…

  From her current a appeared as though gigantioliths of crystal were being supported by gradually thinning and more delicate structures. This created an eerie sense of unreliability like it could all e crashing down at any sed.

  This pce won’t colpse, right? No, no. That definitely won’t happen. Allegedly, crystals take up to thousands of years to form. If this pce was at risk of colpsing… then surely, it didn’t have to wait for tens of millennia, so it could fall only once I decided to visit, right? …right?

  Chara’s swirling was getting increasingly uneasy as a result of her troubling thoughts.

  Notig this ge, Curiosity couldn’t help but bubble in curiosity. Obeying her instincts, she tried to infer what was making Baby nervous by assessing her curiosity. However, rather than finding answers, all she found was more questions.

  ……Why is Little Spirit afraid of cave-ins?

  Uo hide her fusion, her swirling grew messy, with uable rippling throughout her form. This was exceedingly strange!

  For one, Curiosity found it unbelievable that such a young and inexperienced spirit would have the fht to anticipate su event.

  In truth, she kind of uand how the little spirit might e to this clusion. From their current viewpoint, it seemed like giant monoliths were being held up by increasingly thinner and more delicate crystal structs. It’s just that… this observation was pletely incorrect. This is because it was not the crystal monoliths that were being held up, but the intricate work of crystals that was hanging down. However, without any way of knowing this, it was almost iable that the younger spirit would e to the wrong clusion. That said, if this hadn’t been the case, then the clusion that Chara had e to might have been correct.

  This was all well and good, but… how did she figure this out?

  All at once, she was reminded of all the other tradictory evidend unsolved mysteries she entered when she first met Chara, and she couldn’t help but bubble in curiosity.

  If she didn’t solve this mystery, then she was not a curiosity spirit!

  maury