The daylight dimmed, and night spread over everything.

Inside the amusement park that had risen from the ground in the space of three days, the crystal palace still shone with dazzling brilliance, making countless passersby stop and marvel.

Yet no one noticed that an invisible boundary had already cut this place off, turning it into an absolute dead zone... one no one could escape from.

"Why is it you Love God followers again?"

With Parls standing in front of him, Muen had no way to stop the entire crystal palace from falling into lockdown. All he could do was let out a rather helpless sigh.

"There are so many Evil Gods in this world, so why is it specifically your lot that’s this active?"

Evil Gods, or evil cultists.

Whenever other evil forces made trouble, they always seemed to have some kind of restraint. Usually they kept quiet, but the moment they did show up, it was basically always something huge.

Only the Love God had no such standards. The deity seemed to abide by the principle that no mosquito was too small to count as meat, sneaking a hand into practically every incident.

The previous times were one thing, but this time, it had actually come back around for another strike?

Really...

"That’s enough to piss anyone off..."

Muen tightened his grip on the pure white twin blades. Unrestrained killing intent surged from him. The image of being toyed with and ambushed earlier kept flashing through his mind, and his rage toward that disgrace among Evil Gods had already reached the brink of explosion.

"Now, now, don’t get so worked up, respected Young Master Campbell. Killing and fighting is such an ugly thing."

But Parls acted as though he could not feel Muen’s killing intent at all, still maintaining that respectful posture.

"This time, I’ve come to help you."

"Oh? Help me?"

Muen let out a cold laugh.

"Since when did a disgrace among Evil Gods have a change of heart and become this charitable?"

"My lord has always been charitable. He is the God of Love. To spread true love throughout the mortal world is His greatest wish."

Parls spread his arms. That respectful face of his once again filled with morbid fanaticism.

"So just as I said a moment ago, Young Master Muen, I am here to help you. I will grant you the true love of my lord and allow this love story to finally come to a perfect end."

"Go fuck yourself."

Sometimes simple trash talk brought the purest satisfaction. Muen sneered:

"I need that piece of shit’s love? If it really loved me, it could kill itself right now. When I get married, I’ll make sure to bring its tombstone along."

"Do you truly not need it?"

Parls did not get angry. He only asked in return:

"Think carefully, Young Master Muen. You’ve worked this long, struggled this long, spent so much money and effort, all for the sake of capturing Miss Ariel’s heart, haven’t you? But the problem is, you want to win her over, and yet you can’t even open her heart’s defenses. So how are you supposed to capture what’s inside?"

"..."

Muen fell silent.

No matter how much he hated the Love God’s followers, some of what Parls said was true.

Yes, he had failed.

Even now, he still had not managed to break through Ariel’s incredibly solid defenses. Whether it was the roller coaster, the haunted house, or the Ferris wheel, all the things he had done before seemed at most to have pried open only a tiny crack in the hard outer defenses around Ariel’s heart.

That had already been the limit, yet it changed nothing.

In the end, her rejection on the Ferris wheel had seemed like the conclusion.

"You see?"

Parls smiled smugly.

"You know it too. Everything you did was meaningless. Since that’s the case, why not let my lord—"

"No, you’re wrong."

But at that moment, Muen suddenly cut him off.

"Maybe I really am useless. Maybe I can’t shake Ariel’s heart. Maybe I can’t completely break through her defenses, but..."

"But?"

"But there absolutely is someone in this world who can break through her defenses and make her take off that hard outer shell..."

Muen smiled.

"That person has to exist, doesn’t she?"

Yes, apparently.

Ariel still had not come out from there. Nothing had reached its final ending yet.

...

...

"Mom..."

The moment Ariel looked at the words on the paper, her nose instantly stung.

What exactly was a phantom of the past? What exactly was this clock? She did not know for the moment.

But the only thing she knew now was that the woman appearing before her at this moment was neither a dream nor a false illusion.

At least until the time on this clock ran out, she truly existed.

Ariel carefully put the note away, tucking it into the safest inner lining of her beautiful dress, then turned and threw herself onto the familiar wooden bed, urgent and gentle all at once.

"Mom, I’m back..."

The quilt was covered in patches, but it smelled of sunlight. The strong medicinal odor was a little sharp, yet like a fresh breeze it instantly wiped away the mental wounds Ariel had suffered just moments ago.

Greedily, she pressed her cheek against it, searching for the memories of childhood.

"You’re back..."

The woman raised a hand and just as gently stroked the girl’s head.

"You’ve gotten so big, my little Ariel."

"Mm, I grew up..."

Ariel gave a soft hum, her voice thickening more and more with a nasal edge.

"It’s already been more than ten years. Of course I grew up..."

"Has it really been that long?"

The woman’s expression turned startled, then enlightened.

"For me, it was only an instant... I see. So you’ve already been walking on alone for a very long time."

"You were the one who chose to stay where you were."

"I got old. I couldn’t keep going. The fact that you were able to go so far is good. It’s really good..."

Tears welled at the corners of the woman’s eyes. With thin, withered fingers, she carefully smoothed Ariel’s hair. For many years before, this had been something she did every day, but for Ariel, it had already been more than ten years since she had felt the warmth of her mother’s fingertips.

Ariel quietly let herself feel it. For some reason, she suddenly thought again of that time Muen had smoothed her bangs for her... his fingertips had been warm too.

"Come on, tell me about what happened to you all these years. Mom really wants to hear it."

After smoothing her hair, the woman pulled Ariel under the blanket and had her sit facing her.

Just like every time in the past, when little Ariel returned from some adventure outside, the woman would pull her in like this and talk with her knee to knee.

"Okay."

Ariel took a deep breath, pressed down the churning emotions for the moment, and then said to her mother in a spirited voice:

"Mom, listen to me. The me right now is incredible... I kept my promise. I became strong."

She talked about how she met her teacher through the ring her mother had left behind, and how that teacher taught her how to become strong.

She talked about how she met Liya beneath a big tree, how Liya was cute and kind and always secretly shared her portion of breakfast whenever one of the nun matrons punished Ariel for failing morning prayers by forbidding her to eat.

Of course, the matron was a good person too. In the end, she would still leave bread for her, and Ariel would share it with Liya.

She talked about how happy she had been the first time she condensed aura, how happy she had been the first time she felt magic, and the first time she learned martial skills, the first time she used magic. Only, when she accidentally cast a spell off target while attacking a magical beast, that beast had chased her for three hours.

She talked about how she used multiple identities to infiltrate Belrand’s black market and toyed with a bunch of greedy idiots.

She talked about how skilled she was at stealing from thieves, and that ever since she learned about the black market, she had never worried about money again.

She talked about how she got into Saint Maria Academy, defeated that noble brat who had tried to use connections and make things difficult for her, and won a professor’s favor.

She talked about how she started going on adventures and, under her teacher’s guidance, cleared one ancient ruin after another, obtaining all sorts of incredible things.

She said...

She said...

Ariel kept talking, from ten years ago all the way to now. Whenever she reached an exciting part, she would always add a few gestures, showing her mother just how dangerous the situation had been, and just how clever and brave she herself had been.

And the woman kept listening, nodding now and then, praising her now and then, even laughing at Ariel’s exaggerated motions...

This was a warmth Ariel had not felt in a very long time. She talked and talked, for a very long time. She even talked about this date. There was nothing to hide about any of it. In her words, she fully expressed her disdain for Muen’s overestimating himself... and the clock continued ticking on, tick, tick, tick, though it moved very slowly.

"I only ended up going on this date because I had no choice. That Love God doesn’t know what’s good for it and what isn’t and ambushed me. Once this date is over, I’ll definitely find some other way to get rid of the pollution. Mom, trust me!"

Ariel crossed her arms and said that with complete confidence.

"Mm, I trust you. My Ariel is the most amazing."

The woman smiled and nodded. Everything Ariel had described from those ten-plus years truly was too vast and stormy for a woman who had once only been an ordinary maid in a count’s household to even understand. And yet she did not doubt a single thing. She simply kept listening with patience.

Because she believed with certainty that her daughter, stronger than anyone and braver than anyone, would be able to do it. She would surely be able to fulfill all those things she once said... become stronger than anyone, in heart as well as body.

But by the end, the smile on the woman’s face gradually turned into deep pity and self-reproach.

She gazed at Ariel. Her daughter was clearly so radiant and full of life, yet what she saw was not that at all, but the blood and flame hidden beneath all that brightness.

Ariel had come from there, all alone, full of stubbornness.

"Ariel..."

The woman opened her arms and pulled Ariel tightly into her embrace.

"Ariel, my little Ariel... these past years must have been so hard on you."

"It wasn’t hard at all!"

Feeling her mother’s warmth, Ariel still kept her chin up and smiled.

"Not hard in the slightest. Becoming stronger was one of my goals, and I succeeded. So how could I possibly think it was hard?"

"...Really?"

"Of course it’s true. Would I lie to you, Mom?"

"..."

The woman said nothing. Her hands pressed lightly against Ariel’s shoulders as she studied her carefully.

Those eyes of hers were clear as gemstones, and right now they were blinking as they looked back at the woman without the slightest avoidance, seeming only confused as to why her mother had suddenly become a little strange.

"Mom?"

When Ariel said those words, her expression had been completely normal. None of the little movements people showed when they were lying appeared on her face at all.

Of course. For Ariel, she had not been lying. What she said was true. They were all honest words from the depths of her heart. If they were true, why would she need to avoid anything or feel guilty?

But...

"Ariel, you’re lying to yourself again."

The pity and self-reproach in the woman’s eyes did not fade in the slightest. If anything, they only deepened further.

She remembered that tiny little Ariel. In order to become strong enough to protect her mother, she would keep training the moves she had secretly learned in that little courtyard buried in heavy snow, swinging her wooden sword again and again, until her fingertips and nose turned red from the cold, until blisters rose on her palms.

"Ariel, does it hurt?"

"It doesn’t hurt."

Little Ariel, thin and frail, wiped away the tears that had gathered at the corners of her eyes from the pain and smiled as she answered.

"It doesn’t hurt at all."

Back then she had been the same as she was now. So her mother would not worry, she gave "the truth" "from the bottom of her heart."

But...

How could it possibly not have been hard?

She had only been a child.

How could it possibly not have been hard?

She had only been an ordinary girl.

She did not feel it was hard—or rather, she believed she did not feel it was hard—because the very first thing that little girl, who had grown up too fast, learned to do... was deceive herself.

Deceive herself. Keep deceiving herself. Deceive herself until even she believed the things she said were true, not lies.

And after more than ten years of facing hardships and dangers head-on, one after another, just how far had that self-deception gone?

"M-Mom... what are you saying..."

Ariel forced out a smile.

"Lying to myself... how could I? Everything I said is true. I’ve never lied to you..."

"I know you never lied to me. What you said to me was true, but... my poor Ariel, could you say the truth to yourself just once too?"

The woman held Ariel in her arms, their foreheads pressed together.

"Have you really not noticed it?"

"...Noticed what?"

For the moment, the woman did not answer that question.

Because it was very hard for a person to notice their own problems. Ariel’s self-deception over the years had long since made all of this seem only natural to her.

There needed to be a crack. A crack big enough that Ariel could no longer run from it.

And that crack... seemed to have appeared long ago.

The woman thought for a moment, then ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) said:

"You just said the reason this date happened was because of Miss Muse?"

"Mm-hm!"

Ariel immediately nodded angrily.

"It’s all that awful Muen Campbell’s fault. If he hadn’t turned into Miss Muse and thrown my heart into chaos, how would I have ended up in such a miserable state?"

"Is that so? But..."

The woman stared straight into Ariel’s eyes without blinking once, not allowing her gaze to drift away.

"If this date happened because of that Miss Muse, then while telling me about the date, why did you not mention Miss Muse even once?"

"...Huh?"

Ariel froze.

"I didn’t?"

"No, you didn’t, Ariel."

The woman’s tone was gentle, but direct.

"At least, when you were excitedly talking about the roller coaster, the haunted house, and the Ferris wheel, and about how boring and overconfident this date was, the one you kept talking about the whole time was that boy named Muen. You say the one you like is Miss Muse, and a date like this would be a betrayal of her, and yet during this date, you never even thought of her, did you?"

"..."

Ariel went stiff. Instinctively, she tried to turn her gaze away, but with the woman still holding her pretty face, there was nowhere to escape.

"You’ve said so many things, from the beginning until now. Miss Muse only came up three times: the first time you met her, the second time, and the goodbye. Just those three very simple times."

The woman continued:

"But the name Muen... came up more than a hundred times... Ever since that adventure underground, all you’ve done is talk about him."

"No... I didn’t... How could I possibly..."

Ariel shook her head, still trying to deny it.

But the woman gave her no chance. She knew her daughter better than anyone. This little girl was more stubborn and obstinate than anyone.

Fortunately, the traces someone had left behind had finally become the crack in Ariel’s heart, allowing the woman to follow those traces and gently peel open her heart.

Crack. Crack.

Ariel suddenly heard something shattering.

In a panic, she tore herself free of the woman’s hold and looked around, trying to find the source of the breaking sound, but nothing in the room was broken. Everything was exactly as it had been.

Until the woman gently took her hand and pressed it against her own chest.

Only then did Ariel finally understand.

The thing that was breaking was not here. It was inside her heart.

Under the woman’s unwavering gaze, the softest part buried deepest inside her finally pushed aside the hard shell little by little and completely exposed itself...

Countless scenes flashed past her eyes as the defenses around her heart split open.

When she was ten, she told herself she was not afraid, that she had already grown up, but the hand clutching the wooden sword was still trembling nonstop.

When she wandered through alleys and failed to beat the older children, she told herself it did not hurt, that she had long since grown used to pain, and yet her injuries still kept her awake all night.

The first time she hunted a magical beast alone, she told herself she was calm, but the very first spell she cast still flew right past the beast...

She was not afraid. She was not in pain. She was not nervous... but in truth, she was very afraid, very much in pain, very nervous.

To her, such weakness was useless. It would only drag down her progress toward becoming stronger. So every single time, she hid it in the most secret place she could.

Until it became a habit.

A habit of self-deception.

And then, and then...

And then it reached that underground space. She watched Muen and An embracing under the light, and she was jealous, so she told herself...

"Damn that Muen Campbell. What gives you the right to hug a beautiful girl like that? I hate you."

But... in truth, what she had been jealous of was not Muen, who was hugging An, but An, who was hugging Muen.

The roles had merely been reversed, yet the meaning had become completely different.

So the twisted knot in her heart was not that Miss Muse had disappeared from this world and she still could not let go.

It was that, at some point, she had fallen for the person she used to hate most, while believing she had not fallen for him at all...

For more than ten years, she had kept deceiving herself, until the hollow inside her heart only grew larger and larger, and so she could only keep devouring everything she came across, filling that emptiness again and again.

Without ever noticing that the hollow had already been filled long ago.

She was the best there was at fooling herself.

So good at it that the deception had even fooled the Love God.

That seed really had taken root in her heart, but it had not grown entirely where it was supposed to. It had only rooted and sprouted inside layer after layer of that hard shell.

She had not been completely polluted. That was why the "reflection" from before had been so furious.

"So that’s how it is..."

Ariel murmured blankly, lost and at a loss.

Her hand fumbled at her chest until it found that note again. The sentence on it was still so simple, and yet no one knew how much effort and care it contained.

"Happy first date anniversary, Ariel."

"—Muen"

The name Muen kept turning before her eyes, sketching itself, taking on color, until it finally drew out the complete silhouette of a blond figure.

The figure she had long since been unable to drive from her heart.

Ah, so that was it.

The logic was actually very simple. If the one she truly liked had really been "Miss Muse," then no matter how Muen invited her, she would never have agreed to this date she found so absurd.

She would not have put on the clothes he gave her. She would not have gone on the roller coaster with him, or gone through the haunted house with him, or ridden the Ferris wheel with him, the two of them alone in that narrow cabin, looking at the view in a place there was nowhere to escape.

She would not have let him hold her hand, wrap an arm around her waist, or even do something that intimate to her.

Because she was Ariel—the most stubborn and unyielding Ariel in the world. If there was something she refused to accept, no one could make her accept it.

And once she did accept it, then that meant...

"Do you understand now?"

The woman spoke softly.

"What you were describing at the end was never some love story about one person conquering another. It was a story about finding the true heart hidden away inside you. A date, just like a kiss, should never be the beginning. It should be the... result, after everything between two people has naturally fallen into place."

You may think it has not begun yet, but the truth was that the two of them had already begun leaning against one another, already begun walking hand in hand without realizing it, and that result had long since been destined.

That result had always been hidden in the deepest part of the girl’s heart. Only now had she truly looked her own heart in the face.

"But I’ve always liked beautiful girls most..."

Pouting, Ariel suddenly clenched the note tightly in her palm and muttered:

"Then you’d better take proper responsibility for changing that about me, damn you, Muen Campbell..."

...

...

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

Ding—

The ancient clock gave a crisp chime. The slender hands crawled forward at a snail’s pace, but in the end, they still crossed the final distance.

"Looks like the time’s up."

Ariel reluctantly got up from the bed, her eyes still full of unwillingness to leave.

"I have to go now, Mom."

"Mm."

With tears glimmering in her eyes, the woman smiled.

This reunion after more than ten years apart had been destined not to last long.

But she was already satisfied, because she knew her daughter had grown up healthy, and that she would not fear any hardship in this world.

"Oh, right. This should go to you."

The woman suddenly reached out and handed something to Ariel.

When Ariel took it, her eyes widened slightly.

Because lying quietly in her palm was a familiar old ring.

"This is..."

"Someone asked me to give it to you. He said that no matter how this ended, this would be the final destination, so there was no need for him to keep restraining you anymore." The woman blinked at her with a teasing look. "He seems like a good man. Completely different from that terrible father of yours. He just looks a little too popular with girls, so you’ll have to be careful."

"Someone..."

Ariel bit her lip.

"Idiot."

Their farewell was brief. The familiar scene before Ariel’s eyes began to warp, and this phantom of the past gradually started to fade away little by little.

"Oh, right."

At the very last moment before she disappeared, the woman called out to Ariel.

"I still haven’t asked the most important question."

Gazing at Ariel with deep affection, at the girl in that well-fitted white silk dress, graceful and beautiful, already grown into a lovely young woman—though for some reason her chest was disappointingly lacking, nothing at all like her own—the woman softly asked:

"Have you found your happiness, Ariel?"

"..."

Ariel felt as though she were waking from a dream.

Only now did she remember what it was she had been striving for so desperately, why she had struggled so hard, thrown herself forward so recklessly into becoming stronger after losing her only family member.

It was for the sake of the happiness she had promised her mother she would find.

That crystal palace had only ever been the stars decorating that goal.

And now, she had not only found the stars, she had found the sun.

"Mm."

Ariel answered seriously:

"Of course."