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

When Curiosity first found Baby, she was in an empty 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 scene humorous and slightly pitiful, Curiosity let out an internal giggle. Interested, she examined the other party using her spiritual perception.

The little spirit’s mana was exceptionally pure.

Quite young. She must have spawned only recently…

Based on the available evidence, this was the most reasonable conclusion.

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

This completely caught Curiosity off guard. It was not because she had given her wrong or even incomplete information, but simply because when it comes to communication between spirits, knowledge is a requirement for both transmission and understanding.

In theory, the spirit language works by turning meaning into words, and then using that to convey an idea directed. In practice, however, if an idea is too complicated, not well understood, or poorly articulated, then the listener will only receive a vague impression. That is to say, in order for smooth communication, a certain level of understanding 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 instruction, she had intended for the baby to fail. In her prediction, when the little spirit inevitably failed, she would have no choice but to rely on the most knowledgeable Her for additional instruction.

That said, she didn’t have any intention of teaching Chara how to speak. After all, students were much easier to control 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 contrary to Curiosity’s goals, then why did she take a risk and provide the little spirit with instructions?

Simply put, it was because she needed the little spirit to continue directing curiosity at herself. This was for two reasons. Firstly, to prolong the effect of her mesmerization, enabling her to continue issuing orders. And secondly, to gain the little spirit’s admiration, making it easier for her to retain Chara’s curiosity, even in the future.

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

Curiosity was surprised, confused, frustrated, and scared.

What happened?

According to her observations and even some of her own experiences, newly spawned spirits are almost entirely blank slates. Aside from some basic instincts, newly spawned spirits have almost no knowledge and no understanding. Loathed as she is to admit, she too was once a sad and pitiful knowledgeless spirit.

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But her humiliating past aside, under the premise that Baby had just spawned, and newly spawned spirits had no knowledge, then the little baby should not have been capable of understanding the curiosity spirits explanation.

So why was that not the case?

This contradiction ended up making the greater spirit so frustrated that she ended up hastily ordering 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 continuously lost both potential teaching 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 everything went wrong. Fortunately, she completed her ritual with only some minor mishaps. The little spirit’s reign of terror and rebelliousness had finally come to an end… or so she thought.

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

***

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

Unable to sit still, Chara looked at everything around her full of curiosity and interest. 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 translucent pillars as far as the eye could see. This was already highly unusual in and of itself, but she was willing to overlook it and convince herself that it was simply because she was in a crystal cavern or something.

It was very beautiful, and if such a place existed on Earth, then she would surely need to visit it. But the more she took in her surroundings, the more she began to feel rather unsettled.

From the ceiling, jutted out many enormous crystalline columns. They stretched from ceiling to floor, gradually narrowing, and then splicing into many smaller pillars. These branching pillars would then split into even smaller pillars, which would split into even tinier pillars. This would repeat again and again until they burrowed into the cavern floor, giving birth to the translucent maze of crystalline columns, and knocked over stalagmites she was traversing now.

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

From her current angle, it appeared as though gigantic monoliths of crystal were being supported by gradually thinning and more delicate structures. This created an eerie sense of unreliability like it could all come crashing down at any second.

This place won’t collapse, right? No, no. That definitely won’t happen. Allegedly, crystals can take up to thousands of years to form. If this place was at risk of collapsing… 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.

Noticing this change, 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?

Unable to hide her confusion, her swirling grew messy, with unpredictable rippling occurring throughout her form. This was exceedingly strange!

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

In truth, she can kind of understand how the little spirit might come to this conclusion. From their current viewpoint, it seemed like giant monoliths were being held up by increasingly thinner and more delicate crystal constructs. It’s just that… this observation was completely incorrect. This is because it was not the crystal monoliths that were being held up, but the intricate network of crystals that was hanging down. However, without any way of knowing this, it was almost inevitable that the younger spirit would come to the wrong conclusion. That said, if this hadn’t been the case, then the conclusion that Chara had come 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 contradictory evidence and unsolved mysteries she encountered 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!