As Chara’s view got wider and wider, she started get a massive headache.

She felt like if she was still human, there would be veins throbbing all over her head and her eyes would be nearly bulging out of their eye sockets. Recognizing that she had long past the point of diminishing returns, she quickly pulled back before she passed out or worse.

As a result of stretching her perception so thin, her view of her environment was extremely fuzzy and indistinct. The lack of discernable detail meant that she needed more time than usual to properly interpret her surroundings.

Despite the fuzziness starting to cloud both her mind and her perception, Chara tried her best to maintain her current state while also taking note of her surroundings.

One thing that immediately drew her attention was the abundance of areas that only contained the solid and stable color. This was not only because these areas surrounded her from every direction, but also because she was having a hard time sensing them in the first place.

Why does the mist in these areas seem so much… thinner? Or is it really? I can’t tell. It’s too fuzzy and I can barely sense anything…

Chara was about to move to take a closer look, when she felt her mind nearly dissolve as she was overcome with searing pain.

Arg— UWAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!

Chara felt like she was slowly dissolving, from every direction at once. In a moment of desperation and instinct, she completely retracted her perception until she could no longer sense even what was right in front of her.

She wasn’t clear whether this was helping, but it did make her feel just a bit safer. She tried her best to maintain her fading consciousness, but gradually succumbed to her exhaustion, passing out.

***

When Chara woke up, she quickly remembered everything that happened. Only now that things had completely fallen apart, did she recognize that she might have been acting too recklessly, making her feel frightened and ashamed.

Uuu… Note to future self. The body is very wise. Do not ignore its warnings. They are there for a reason…

Once she finished reflecting on the earlier incident and calmed down, she promptly began preparations for moving around as originally planned. She was wondering whether she would have to spend an eternity learning how to move, but to her delight, her worries were unfounded. Just like with her perception, when she thought of moving, her body just did as she envisioned. She even began to think there might be a correlation between perception and movement.

She lightly wondered how her movement worked, but as there didn’t appear to be anything obvious propelling her, she didn’t think she would be able to figure this one out.

As for exploration… Naturally, she didn’t know a thing about scouting or exploration. Her idea of exploring was just wandering around and looking for things that might be interesting like a tourist. She was a city girl through and through.

And with that misconception, Chara took her first “step” into the great unknown.

The first thing that caught her attention was a very large column. Unlike the surrounding mist, which constantly swirled around in a never-ending tempest of chaos, the mist within this pillar was mostly settled and unmoving.

This must be one of those areas that I was having a hard time sensing earlier. It looks like I was right, the mist really is thinner, but why is it so stagnant? It’s barely moving…

I’ve already seen this color floating around freely, so it’s probably not just because of its impression. So why is it different here?

Did it turn into a solid? No, that doesn’t make any sense. The mist within the pillar is actually even more sparse than the mist outside of it, which is floating around freely.

Floating in place like this shouldn’t be possible, unless there’s something silly going on like the mist literally being held in place by something else…

Wait—could it be trapped within a solid?!

Floating over to take a closer look, she concentrated her perception around the exterior of the mysterious column. And as she suspected, when the fuzziness went away, what was revealed to her was akin to a high-resolution 3d scan of a weathered looking stone surface!

Witnessing this, she was instantly reminded of her earlier survey, and how these areas were surrounding her from every direction. As she took a moment to finally complete the puzzle pieces, it dawned upon her that she was probably in an underground cavern like the ones she had only seen in documentaries and picture books.

So, I really am in an underground cavern. Well, at least I’m not in outer space. Probably…

Returning from her musing, she decided to try scaling the pillar until she reached either the floor or ceiling, but as she started moving, she just kept going, and going, and going, and going…

What the heck? They’re HUUUGE!

She had already vaguely guessed when she looked over the entire cave at once, but it hadn’t quite registered just how big they were, or rather, how small she was in comparison.

Wait!! C—could it be that I’m like… super small?!

She didn’t have any idea of her current size as there was nothing familiar to compare to, but she wasn’t ready to accept that she could be gumball-sized either.

No no Chara. Those umm… stalagmites could just be enormous. Wait, no. Why are you getting self-conscious over your size? There is nothing wrong with being small! Wait, that sounded really patronizing. Wait, that sounded worse! Ah, no. Uwaaaaaaa!

The particles inside her wisp-like body swirled rapidly.

…

……

After deleting the previous incident from her memory, she went back to exploring. As she brushed her perception through the stone, through the air, and everything around her, she could perceive the world in more vivid detail than earlier.

Still slightly curious about the various earth formations, she wandered over to some nearby columns to take a look. As usual, the earth was suffused in a solid and stable color. But unexpectedly, there were also minute amounts of a color she had never seen before.

This color felt very lively and energetic.

However, even deeper below the earth still, there seemed to be small clumps of a newer different color.

This color was very bright and visible.

New colors—! Hm… All these colors are starting to seem oddly familiar, but I can’t place my finger on why…

Out of curiosity, she approached the pillar containing the bright and captivating color to take a closer look. As she wrapped the area with her perception, she asked herself a question.

What is this?

As if responding to her thoughts, a number of the particles on her body glimmered faintly before quietly vanishing. Out of nowhere, Chara felt like a stream of knowledge was transmitted directly into her mind.

Uuu— Uwaaaaaaaa!

maury

Chara is very smol.