Something distinctive. Where I find something distinctive...?

  Chara looked around usihree-hundred-sixty-degree vision, taking in tless details.

  The cloister’s evenly spaced pilrs, much like those of a roman pantheon… The numerous crystals embedded onto the cavern ceiling, twinklily like stars in the night sky… The multitude of delicate crystal flowers standing in sereillness, untouched by even the fai breeze… The giant crystal tree, standing majestically off in the distance…

  …This pce is filled with nothing but distinctive!

  Feeling like she may have beehinking, she gave herself a mental kno the head.

  Well, what’s done is done. In any case, the giant crystal tree seems like the most exg, so I want to go see that first!

  Quickly ing to a decision, she asded off the ground, climbing until she was at about the same eye level as her past life. Or at least she assumed so, based on the scale of her surroundings.

  As, after making her way across the expaernal garden, Chara faced her first great obstacle. That is, not knowing where to find the exit.

  Given the cloister’s ring-shaped yout, she sidered simply floating up and over it. Yet, as she drew closer to the garden’s boundary, the pilrs holding up the hallway’s appeared to rise endlessly, t over her like colossal skyscrapers.

  I… I think I will take the grou instead…

  Cowed, she sought an alternate means of escape.

  Well, I guess I could float through the building, but um… that kinda feels like trespassing… and I am not a burgr spirit… Inwardly mumbling, she sed her surroundings.

  Before long, she caught sight of a hallway leading further into the cloister. Finding this promising, she floated over to take a closer look. There, she found a pair of double doors, with two crystal mps set into the walls oher side.

  Bingo!

  Judging that this doorway ‘felt like a’, she permeated through it without hesitation.

  As she drifted outside, a glistening field of crystal flowers stretched before her, their translut petals glistening softly in the dim cavern light. Gentle hills rose and fell, marred only by the occasional stagmite thrusting out like jagged teeth. T stone pilrs rose from the earth to the glittering cavern ceiling, like grand ns holding up the night sky. Amidst this dreamlike sery, a humble, uneven cobblestoh meahrough the blossoms, guidioward a distant hill, where a giant crystal tree stood.

  Woooow~! Is all of this really underground?

  Struck by the cavern’s beauty, she took a moment to marvel at her surroundings.

  Once she was satisfied, she set off at once, following the designated pathway. As a spirit, free from the bounds of gravity, she could easily float directly toward her destination, but she chose not to. After all, someone had gohrough the effort to pave this cobblestone road, and it felt wrong to disregard it.

  As she floated dowh, a faint sound brushed against her senses. At first, it was so quiet that she wondered whether it had been her imagination. But as she tinued forward, the sound grew clearer. It leasing melody, eaote eg through the silent, eerie dark cave.

  ? ? ?~!

  Realizing that something was amiss, the little spirit came to a sudden halt, her thoughts spiraling as she jured up images of various sinister creatures. A siren who lures away its prey using its alluring voice, a haunted instrument whose performas its listeners into a deadly trance, an evil ghost who eats wandering spirits for dinner.

  Uuuhuhu…!

  Feeling frightened, she zoomed off the cobblestohway, seeking cover amidst the crystal foliage. For several tense moments, she remained so perfectly still, that she might be mistaken for ah spirit. Even so, she couldn’t help but listen.

  The notes were delicate, like a breath of wind over a calm meadow. A flute… Chara thought, though not quite like any flute she had ever heard before. It was ethereal, eaote rising and falling with a grace that belied the song’s simplicity.

  This music. I wonder where it’s ing from…

  The moment she formed this thought, it was as if it was immediately escated through all the yers of ma, suddenly finding itself atop the CEO’s desk. Realistically, she could ig… but then it would remain on her desk, occupyitention. And the only way to make it go away, was to satisfy her newly formed curiosity.

  The little spirit swirled anxiously. She really didn’t want to go. It was so dark and scary. With her luck, she would be eaten by a fierce beast, and this time be reborn as an ugly goblihe idea of turning back without unc the source of the music didn’t seem right.

  Uuu… just a quick peek…

  I will only see what it is before immediately going back…

  It will really only be the ti glimpse…

  Uuuhuhu…

  Uo resist her curiosity, Chara anxiously followed in the dire of the sound, ready to run away at a moment’s notiaturally, she didn’t return to the cobblestoh, instead weaving through the vegetation as if she were a sneaky wn gnome.

  As she floated closer, the music swelled in volume. The song’s tempo was fast and eic, lively and cheerful. Just listening to it made her want to run out and py.

  The crystal flowers, usually stiff and unmoving, swayed along lightly to the music’s rhythm. Their crystalline surfaces reflected speckles of light that danced around wildly, the cavern walls twinkling as if surrounded by numerous disco balls. The surroundings seemed to breathe, as though they could e alive at any moment.

  Most fasating of all was the behavior of the mana. It resonated in harmony with the music, rippling in chaotic yet rhythmic patterns. The wind element mana, seemingly the most affected, vibrated intensely, like a car being rattled by its owhe-top sound system.

  Wooooow~!

  Before she k, the little spirit had started bobbing up and down in sync with the music’s rhythm. Lost imosphere, she failed to notice where she was going until she felt the distinct gaze of another being.

  She had been noticed!

  Snapping out of her trance, she looked in the dire of the gaze, only to find a giant, swirling cloud of iridest mana, seemingly holding peared to be an illusory silver flute. Together, they exuded a free and urained aura, like a soft breeze blowing over a lush meadow—an impression emblematic of the wind element.

  A wind spirit!

  Chara, eager to firm her guess, examihe other spirit with her perception before she voiced an internal question.

  What are you?

  In response, a small amount of her mana glimmered before fading. Then, a stream of information flowed into her sciousness, her mind interpreting it a moment ter.

  [Music Essence Spirit]

  …!?

  With the final notes of her song eg, the music spirit did a little spin, before releasing a glimmering wave of mana that blew past Baby before fading.

  maury