"Stink?"

Ariel sniffed herself. "Do I stink...? No—now isn’t the time to talk about that."

Ariel snapped back to herself and stared hard at the person in front of her.

Dignified, delicate features. An elegant, otherworldly aura. Three thousand strands of dark hair pinned back with meticulous care. Just a simple black long dress, yet clear and pure like a piece of night scooped up from midsummer.

A dignified-type beauty—right in her strike zone.

If this were any normal time, she’d already have put on her signature unruly grin and stepped forward for a dashing greeting.

But the problem right now was...

This was a demon.

Ariel stared at those scarlet pupils that marked demonfolk identity. "You know me?"

The last demon general who recognized her had been because of that hateful Muen Campbell. This one couldn’t possibly be—

"I’ve seen you from afar, but you probably don’t have any impression of me."

The “high-ranking demon” lowered her eyes. When she opened them again, the scarlet was gone completely, turning into the deep gray of an ordinary human.

"You..."

"I’m not a demon." An said.

"Then your horns..." Ariel was shocked.

"Just decoration."

"This..."

Ariel blinked, and suddenly a powerful wave of shame hit her.

So she wasn’t a demon? And she hadn’t even seen through the disguise?

Ariel stole a glance at the horns on her head, then thought of that vivid scarlet in her eyes earlier. As “decoration,” it was far too realistic.

But in the demonfolk’s main base, it made sense that you’d need something convincing to fool demonfolk.

But if she wasn’t a demon—

"Ah, sorry..."

Ariel yanked her Heavenfire Greatsword behind her back and forced an awkward smile.

"I didn’t realize just now, so... I’m really, truly sorry! That was rude of me!"

So stupid.

How could she make such a low-level mistake? This was completely unacceptable!

As she apologized, Ariel only grew more regretful.

To actually strike first at such a beautiful, dignified-type pretty girl... Forget whether she might someday have the chance to develop a wondrous journey with her—being that rude the moment they met meant she’d already dragged the other girl’s favorability into the negatives right from the start!

That completely violated her broad-hearted, kind, friendly principles of making friends!

Of course, those principles only applied to pretty girls...

"No need to apologize."

An looked completely unconcerned about what had happened. With a cold expression, she said, "Even if you hadn’t drawn your sword first, I might have attacked first anyway. Just like I said, I actually didn’t recognize you right away, even though I did smell your scent."

"Huh?"

"Your chest misled me too much."

Expressionless, An swept her gaze over the surging waves on Ariel’s chest. That drastic, sea-changes transformation—from flat plains to a towering mountain abruptly rising from the earth—felt so unreal it genuinely gave her a huge misdirection.

She’d thought it was some stupid demon trying to pass as human but forgetting to do field measurements.

The succubi here were always skilled at disguises.

"..."

Ariel’s cheek twitched.

If anyone else dared to say that, she’d already have shoved the Heavenfire Greatsword straight into their ass.

But what had she just told herself? Be broad-hearted. Be kind. After all, this was a pretty girl.

Besides, the past was the past. Seas really did turn into fields, and fields could become mountains—and right now, she was a mountain.

Mountains didn’t care about idle chatter blown in on the breeze.

"Um..."

Ariel scratched her head. "You said you know me, but honestly I still can’t remember you. May I ask... what should I call you?"

"Just call me An."

"An... that’s a wonderful name."

Ariel savored the name, as if she could excavate endless meaning from that single syllable.

"But..."

She frowned slightly.

That name, and that dignified, delicate face, really did give her a sense of familiarity—but not strongly. Just a faint, hazy feeling of having seen her before.

Like she’d only heard someone mention the name, or caught a fleeting glimpse out of the corner of her eye somewhere.

But she couldn’t recall anything else.

"I said you wouldn’t have any impression of me. But you should have a deep impression of someone very important to me." As if she’d seen Ariel’s confusion, An said flatly.

"Huh? Who?"

"..."

An shook her head and didn’t answer.

Ariel grew even more confused, then sank into thought, her mind spinning.

Someone very important to her... and paired with the subtle dislike in Miss An’s attitude from the beginning...

Could that person be—

"You also know Miss Muse?" Ariel’s eyes lit up, delighted.

"Miss Muse...?" An frowned, baffled. "Who is that?"

"Ah... I guessed wrong?" Ariel could only scratch her head awkwardly again. "Sorry."

"..."

An fell silent for another moment.

But this time, her calm eyes landed directly on Ariel’s face.

Noticing Ariel’s mood flip from excitement to disappointment, and combining it with the intel she’d deliberately collected before, An’s eyebrow lifted slightly.

"You like women?"

She looked at Ariel and asked bluntly.

Asking someone’s orientation the first time you meet—especially someone you weren’t even familiar with—was extremely rude.

But An asked anyway.

Because she didn’t care whether it was rude. Or rather, she didn’t care about the person in front of her at all.

There weren’t many people in this world she cared about. Her politeness was reserved for only one person.

But in Ariel’s ears, those words meant something else entirely.

"That’s... that’s way too direct!"

Ariel jumped.

Even after her previous failures and humiliations—after deciding that when she faced someone she liked, she needed to be decisive and stop hesitating—Ariel still felt this question was far too direct.

They’d only just met, and they were already talking about such a deep philosophy of life?

"Ahem..."

Ariel touched her slightly flushed cheek. In the past, she might have played coy, but now—

"Probably."

"I see... then it looks like there’s no threat. As long as you’re not a stinkbug."

An nodded, as if she understood something.

And the faint wariness and dislike she’d had toward Ariel from the beginning actually eased noticeably after Ariel’s answer.

Ariel blinked. Even though Miss An had asked so bluntly and then offered no follow-up... it looked like that had been the correct answer.

"What are you doing here?"

An had wanted to ask Ariel something else, but held it back. Because she knew this person’s relationship with Young Master wasn’t very good.

Come to think of it, how bad the relationship was between her and Young Master... she bore some responsibility for that too, which made it even harder for her to ask anything about him.

It had been more than half a year since she’d last seen him. Her longing was like a tide, already about to drown her whole consciousness.

Fortunately, she could endure it for now.

"This isn’t where you should be."

"Aren’t you the same?"

Ariel crossed her arms. "Why is Miss An in a dangerous place like this?"

"I have my own business to handle." After a moment’s thought, An said.

"I have my own business too!"

"Because of that Miss Muse you mentioned?"

"Of course... of course it’s not just Miss Muse."

Ariel coughed twice and said seriously, "Someone as broad-hearted as me—how could my goal be only to rescue one Miss Muse?"

"I see. You came in specifically to rescue these adventurers captured by the demonfolk. How foolish."

An gave that cold evaluation, then turned away.

Metal turned to liquid and flowed across her palm, filling the cracks in the ground beneath her feet. As it solidified, this shattered stretch of corridor finally stopped being on the verge of becoming total rubble.

But she wasn’t doing it out of kindness toward the demonfolk. She only needed to restore a path she could walk on.

"Speaking °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° of which..."

Watching this, Ariel finally got the chance to ask what had felt strange to her since earlier.

"We made such a huge commotion. Why hasn’t it drawn demonfolk to investigate?"

Whether it was An’s Metal Divine Favor or Ariel’s Heavenfire Greatsword, once fully unleashed, neither was the sort of move that could be hidden from demonfolk.

And besides, this was basically the whole corridor—including the rooms beside it—nearly getting torn apart. No matter how lax the guards were, even if they were all blind and deaf, it was impossible they still hadn’t noticed.

"For now, no other demonfolk will come." An said.

"Why?"

"Because strictly speaking, we’re still inside this cage."

"Cage?"

"Haven’t you noticed the other problems yet?"

An glanced back at Ariel. "Is the only strange thing here really the demonfolk guards’ slow reaction?"

"..."

Ariel froze for an instant, then quickly reacted.

That’s right. The biggest oddity was the demonfolk guards still not showing up—but there were plenty of other oddities she’d noticed much earlier.

For example...

"It’s too quiet."

Ariel looked around at the numbered doors.

It wasn’t just the guards. It was also the pitiful girls locked in the rooms.

No exaggeration—her fight with An had practically been about to tear this whole place down, and yet there had been no response from any of the girls in the rooms, quiet to the point of being...

"Don’t tell me..." Ariel thought of the empty room she’d checked earlier.

"That’s right. All those rooms are empty."

An nodded, confirming Ariel’s guess. "I think that aside from the room I came out of, and the room you were in, none of the other rooms are holding anyone."

"How is that possible?!"

Ariel’s eyes widened in shock. "But last night we clearly..."

She couldn’t believe it.

The pressure and sounds last night had been so real. It couldn’t be that the demonfolk had made fake sounds next door just to fool them.

Ariel picked a random room. This time she couldn’t be bothered with slowly opening it. She drew the Heavenfire Greatsword and slashed the lock.

The restriction on the lock naturally couldn’t withstand the powerful ancient relic in her hands and was cleanly split open.

Ariel pushed the door open... and the room was empty as well.

Based on the intel she had, at least eighty female adventurers should have been imprisoned here.

"You’re saying you heard the Enchantress’s movement last night? I heard it too. She was naturally in the room next to yours—but not next to yours in this space." 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

An’s tone remained flat.

"What does that mean?" Ariel was even more lost.

"It’s simple. You can treat the space you were in last night, and the space where the Enchantress was humiliating the human adventurers last night, as two spaces that overlap completely, but do not fully coincide."

An held her hands together, using them as a metaphor for two adjacent yet identical spaces.

"From a certain angle, you’re in adjacent positions. But if you push open the door next to you... it’s empty, because she isn’t next to your room. She’s next to your space."

"You mean... the rooms we were imprisoned in aren’t in the real world?"

An’s explanation was broad, but Ariel still quickly understood the key point.

"So that’s why you said I didn’t actually escape at all?"

If this wasn’t the real world—if this wasn’t a real space—then whether it was this corridor outside the door, or somewhere farther away, it was all just part of the cage.

And if it was part of the cage, then naturally it wouldn’t hold all the prisoners, and it wouldn’t have guards.

"Yes. Those guys who escaped ahead of you have something extraordinary on them, so they discovered this quickly and managed to get out. But you—"

"I can discover it quickly too."

Ariel lifted her chest seriously and snorted. "It’s just a matter of time."

She wasn’t bragging. She’d experienced predicaments ten times more complicated than this before. Compared to those, this could practically be called as easy as sightseeing. It was just that she hadn’t done a serious exploration yet before Miss An disrupted her train of thought.

"But if we’re trapped in a place like this, that means I, and a lot of others, were hit without realizing it, right? Let me think. Along the way, the only thing that could have hit me silently like that would be—"

Ariel touched her chin, her gaze passing over An and landing on the mirror at the end of the corridor.

It was a mirror that looked completely ordinary, hanging on the wall without the slightest incongruity. So commonplace you wouldn’t notice anything. But the moment you entered this corridor, your entire figure would be reflected in it.

"An ancient relic?"

"Smart."

An had already walked up to the mirror. She lifted a hand and gently stroked the mirror surface.

"An ancient relic—the Mirror of Bewilderment. As long as you’re reflected in it, you enter it without realizing."

"So... we really are inside the mirror’s space right now?" Ariel frowned.

"Yes, but strictly speaking, we’re not inside the mirror’s space."

An’s finger moved slightly.

Metal condensed again, forming into a smooth metal mirror.

"We’re inside one of the mirror’s spaces."

Two mirrors reflecting each other, producing countless mirrors shrinking smaller and smaller—and countless mirror-spaces layered on top of each other...