As soon as the curiosity spirit finished its performance and the illusory water droplets faded, Chara had so many questions that she didn’t even know where to begin.

Curiosity essence? What the hell is “essence”?

Also, why was she dancing?

Wait, why am I thinking of her as a “she”?

Did I just assign an amorphous cloud of mana a gender simply because it looked like she was dancing?

Tsk tsk tsk. Chara, how can you still be assuming the gender of other clouds in the year of our Lord… Uh…

Still, calling her “it” seems kinda rude, and calling her they slash them seems like too much effort…

Oh well. Miss Curiosity, from today onwards, you are officially a girl~…

Congratulations…

It was in such a way, that an unknown curiosity essence spirit had been arbitrarily assigned a gender without her knowledge.

Hold on, if Curiosity is a spirit, then doesn’t that mean I’m a spirit too?

What kind of spirit am I?

Feeling slightly more curious about her last question, Chara quickly focused on herself full of both nervousness and anticipation.

[Spirit]

Spirit… Why is it only spirit?

Although she wasn’t sure what she was expecting, she still ended up feeling slightly disappointed.

In the meantime, the curiosity spirit seemed perfectly content to watch Chara swirl around in confusion and surprise, like an animal who had just seen its reflection for the first time. Once she finally managed to quell her rising number of questions, she looked up at the other spirit in apparent confusion.

Seemingly noticing her gaze, the curiosity spirit explained extremely succinctly, “Exploring.”

Uu— uwaaa!

Seeing the little spirit nearly roll over backwards from just listening to her voice, the curiosity spirit nearly burst out into a fit of giggles. How cute~. This little one must have spawned only recently…

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Seemingly, she wasn’t stealthy enough because not before long, the smaller spirit was gazing up at her while looking very aggrieved. Unable to hold back her emotions, this time she really did burst into a fit of childish giggles.

Having had her fill of the silly baby, Curiosity began to inspect her surroundings. She agilely swept her gaze from one place to another, thoroughly combing through the entire cavern, leaving no stone unturned.

In the process, the water element mana making up her body ceased its unconscious swirling, changing to a more controlled rhythm. Appearing to have confirmed something, the curiosity spirit narrowed her perception towards several particular areas. Without any forewarning, dozens of delicate mana tendrils splashed out from the whirlpool of curiosity and weaved into the surroundings.

Suddenly, Chara could feel as the number of diamonds in her intuition quickly reduced. Before she could even realize what was going on, a mana tendril had already flown right past her and landed on the diamond she was floating over. Startled, she witnessed as the tendril of mana was suffused into the precious stone. A small amount of mana shimmered inside the gem before she could no longer feel the presence of this one either.

Wha— What the heck is she doing?!

Once all the diamonds had been infused with her mana, the curiosity spirit elevated slightly before issuing a command in childish, yet mesmerizing voice.

“Gather up.”

Suddenly, as if the numerous diamonds had been kicked awake, they tumbled across the cavern floor and gathered into a large pile in front of the greater spirit. Once all the remaining stragglers were present, she moved on with her next command.

“Form a line.”

Without any signs of protest, the pile of precious stones swiftly separated from their pile and formed into a single file line. The curiosity spirit inspected her handiwork. Not at all satisfied, she added a modifier to her previous order.

“No! Arrange in order by size.”

The pile of precious stones quickly broke formation and reordered themselves from largest to smallest. Finally pleased with the result, the curiosity spirit moved on to the last command on her itinerary.

“Follow me~!”

With one last edict, the line of clumsy diamonds tumbled neatly and lined up before their queen. Finished with her preparations, the curiosity spirit turned her attention back onto the younger spirit and puffed up her mana in apparent gloating.

In accordance with expectation, the little spirit was looking around in puzzlement and shock. If Chara was still a human, her jaw would have already fallen off and hit the floor from how wide it was open.

What the heck?! When will I be able to do that too? Wait… I already did something like that earlier. But it was so much more quick and efficient when she did it… Am I doing something wrong?

Once Chara finally came back to reality, she got startled and quickly scanned her surroundings to see if she had missed out on anything important. Upon realizing that the curiosity spirit was floating right in front of her and had been watching her the entire time, Chara felt very self-conscious and blushed in embarrassment, causing some of her iridescent mana to briefly change color and disappear.

After a short peel of bell-like giggles, the curiosity spirit floated a bit closer, making her feel very nervous. Then, in a much softer voice, the greater spirit issued her a gentle reminder.

“You too.”

The curiosity spirit floated away while humming in amusement. Before she knew what she was doing, Chara had already moved to the front of the sequence and was following the other spirit’s lead as she moved deeper into the cavern.

Eh…

Where they were going, and why she had to follow, that is something only the curiosity spirit knew as of yet.