Chara levitated in the midst of a dark void, surrounded by a vast expanse of gleaming stars. The stars twinkled gently, casting a faint, inviting light that trasted sadly against the bess.

  For a long time, she simply floated there, lost in a trance. Eventually, a wisp of sciousness flitted across her mind, urgio focus on one of the stars.

  She did.

  Suddenly, she was no longer in the dark void but seated at a desk, in an office, in her home, oh. It was a memory.

  In a daze, she ied her desk, its surface strewn full of papers. Feeling curious, she slowly picked up the ter-most paper and began reading its tents.

  “Find the derivative of the fun f(x) = 3x2 + 5x – 7.”

  Chara’s lips started trembling violently as her eyes widened in terror.

  Nn—Noooooooooooooooooooo……!!

  ***

  The little spirit jolted awake as the se faded to darkness. Taking a moment to calm herself, she began to think.

  A dream… Did I… fall asleep…? I don’t remember going to sleep. Did I pass out? Also, where am I?

  Chara was a little fused, but she quickly suppressed her doubts.

  After taking a look around, the first thing she noticed was that both the ambient light element mana and the gentle lighting characteristic of the crystal cavern were pletely absent. fused, she tried to plead for help, only to realize that she couldn’t speak.

  The devil—! Why does she keep sealing my speech!

  Realizing that the curiosity spirit had used her evil sorcery to strip away her First Ame rights, Chara vigintly surveyed her surroundings.

  Despite the dimness making it hard to see clearly, there was still just enough light to faintly dis her surroundings. Unfortunately, this small amount of light was wasted due to the featureless nature of her area. There were no refles, no glints catg on any ers, and she couldn’t sense anything hy through her perceptioher.

  Uuuu…

  Beginning to feel a bit nervous, she impatiently sed her surroundings usihree-hundred-sixty-degree visiht away, she spotted an anomaly. Over to her left, faint light spilled through two horizontal slits, not uhose created by the gaps at the top and bottom of a doorway.

  A door…?

  Dumbfounded, Chara steeled her mind as she infted her perception past its usual resting volume. Once she overcame the fuzziness, what she discovered was so shog that her swirling became disorderly and messy.

  She was in ay, cube-shaped room!

  Well, after staring for a bit longer, she realized it was closer to a trapezoid, rather than a cube. Moreover, the wall with the entrand the one across from it had a slight curvature. However, in parison to the revetion that had shocked her the most, these were only small details.

  Chara looked towards the entrah slight trepidation. If the size of the walls and doorway were any indication, then wasn’t the room she was in absolutely gigantic? She had already expahe volume of her perception so much, a, it was only barely enough to perceive the entire room at once.

  Wha—Where the heck is this!? Am I in a resident fiants? Wasn’t I underground!?

  With her mind spinning, she floated over to the presumed door and molded her perception into the shape of a e. The moment she sensed outside, she could tell that the amount of light element mana was noticeably greater than ihe room.

  After taking a quient to firm that there were no demons waiting for her outside this doorway, she permeated halfway through its thiess before staying in pce.

  Without passing through to the other side, she envisioned part of her ethereal, cloud-like body extending out of the door, like the eyes of a snail. To her delight, when her illusory appendage peeked out of the door, light and vision started to flood her senses.

  Ah, it worked!

  It worked, but err… where is my vision ing from?

  Chara erplexed. The st time she checked, the faculty of sight required eyes, but it seemed she had somehow bypassed that y altogether. For that matter, she didn’t know how her sense of hearing worked either, leavi a loss for what to think.

  Feeling like the rabbit hole she had briefly peered into had transformed into an endless abyss, she quickly pulled her head back, refog oask at hand.

  Chara examined her surroundings, gng from side to side. The door she was in seemed to lead into a eg hallway. On the side with her door, was even more doors, and oher, was a sequence of arched pilrs supp a rge . This yout curved around in a circle, pleting a beautiful, ring-shaped building.

  At the ter of this building was a beautiful, open-air, internal garden, poputed with all kinds of delicate and well-maintained crystal flora. And peeking through the skyline, was the opy of the giant crystal tree she had seen previously.

  It was a cloister!

  Wow~! This pce is so beautiful~! Chara thought in admiration. However, after her mood settled down, and she regained her calm, she sighed.

  At this point, she could no longer keep denyiy. Between, her being a human-sized spirit and waking up in a giant’s residence, or her living up to the name “Little Spirit” and waking up in a normal-sized building… she thought the tter clusion seemed the most reasonable.

  But in that case, then who was this building designed for? Presumably, the one whht her here was Curiosity, a spirit. However, spirits, who were capable of permeating through solids, theoretically shouldn’t need doorways.

  heless, even assuming this was not the case, it didn’t ge the fact that the building was just pin huge. At her current size, Chara living here by herself would be like a mouse occupying aire mansion, and if it was Curiosity, then maybe a cat. It would work, but it would be extraordinarily inve.

  No matter how I look at it, isn’t this building obviously designed for humans?

  While the little spirit was lost ihoughts, the free-floatih and light mana slowly started to decrease, while the amount of water, ice, wind, and dark element mana started to increase, causing the surroundings to dim.

  It was Curiosity. She had just arrived to see if the little spirit was awake yet, only to find her clipped ihe door while waving around a tiny mana tendril.

  This… to say Curiosity was bewildered, would be an uatement.

  Throughout her adventures, she had entered many spirits with strange philosophies, often wielding even stranger powers. And although she might not agree with their methods, she could at least uand their purpose.

  heless… at this moment, she was pletely uo figure out the little spirit’s purpose. It was a plete mystery. Uain of Baby’s iions, Curiosity opted to observe quietly, while worriedly assessing her curiosity for anomalous suppositions.

  After about half a minute, Chara finally snapped out of her thoughts and noticed the dense, swirling cloud of curiosity floating right in front of her.

  Feeling her gaze, Curiosity observed as the little spirit’s illusory appeuro fa her dire. Feeling mischievous, she formed a simir mana tendril and the to pat the little spirit’s own.

  The little spirit’s attention shifted, fog on their iwined mana.

  What are you, a pervert?

  The pat was turned into a grapple and the little spirit was angrily flung into the tral garden.

  maury