Chapter 709: Mirror
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 709: Mirror
"A smell?"
Ariel sniffed herself. "Do I really stink... No, wait, now isn't the time for that."
Snapping back to reality, Ariel fixed her gaze on the person before her.
The woman possessed a dignified and exquisite beauty, her temperament elegant and ethereal. Her long, dark tresses were meticulously pinned behind her head. Though she wore only a simple black dress, she looked as pure and clear as a sliver of the night sky plucked from the height of midsummer.
A dignified beauty—exactly Ariel's type.
Under normal circumstances, Ariel would have already flashed her trademark roguish smile and stepped forward with a dashing greeting.
But the problem was... this was a demon.
Ariel stared into those crimson pupils, the hallmark of the Demon Race. "You know me?"
The last Demon General who recognized her did so because of that detestable Muen Campbell. Surely this one couldn't also be...
"I have seen you from a distance, though you likely have no impression of me."
The "High-Class Demon" closed her eyes. When she opened them again, the crimson hue had completely vanished, replaced by the deep gray typical of an ordinary human.
"You..."
"I am not a demon," An said.
"Then your horns..." Ariel was shocked.
"Just decorations."
"This..."
Ariel blinked, suddenly overcome by a wave of intense shame.
She wasn't a demon? And Ariel hadn't even seen through the disguise?
Stealing a glance at the horns and recalling the vivid crimson of the woman's pupils just moments ago, Ariel thought those "decorations" were far too realistic.
Then again, in the heart of the demon stronghold, it made sense to use incredibly lifelike disguises to fool the enemy.
But since she wasn't a demon...
"Ah, sorry..."
Ariel quickly hid the Heavenly Fire Greatsword behind her back and offered an awkward smile.
"I didn't realize... so... I'm truly very sorry! That was incredibly rude of me!"
How stupid.
To make such a low-level mistake—it was inexcusable!
As she apologized, Ariel’s regret deepened.
To have initiated an attack against such a beautiful, dignified lady... setting aside any possibility of a romantic journey in the future, being this rude upon their first meeting had surely dropped her favorability into the negatives!
This went entirely against her principles of being broad-minded and kind to others!
Of course, those principles only applied to beautiful girls...
"There is no need to apologize."
An seemed completely indifferent to what had just happened. Her expression remained cold as she said, "Even if you hadn't swung your sword first, I might have struck first myself. As I said, I didn't recognize you immediately, even though I did catch your scent."
"Huh?"
"Your chest was far too misleading."
An expressionlessly swept her gaze over the surging waves of Ariel's bosom. That dramatic transformation—like a majestic mountain suddenly erupting from a flat plain—felt almost surreal, and it had indeed misled her.
She had thought it was some foolish demon pretending to be human but forgetting to do proper field research.
The succubi here were usually very good at disguising themselves.
"..."
Ariel’s cheek twitched.
If anyone else had dared to say that, she would have already shoved the Heavenly Fire Greatsword up their backside.
But what were her principles again? Be broad-minded, be kind... after all, she was a beautiful girl.
Besides, the past was the past. The shifting of eons eventually turns seas into fields and fields into mountains, and right now, she was the mountain.
A mountain didn't care about idle gossip carried by the breeze.
"Um..."
Ariel scratched her head. "You said you know me, but to be honest, I still can't place you. May I ask... what's your name?"
"Just call me An."
"An... that's a lovely name."
Ariel savored the name, as if discovering profound meaning within that single syllable.
"However..."
She frowned slightly.
The name, along with that dignified and delicate face, did feel somewhat familiar. But the feeling wasn't strong—it was just a faint, ethereal sense of déjà vu.
It was as if she had heard someone mention the name in passing, or perhaps her eyes had caught a fleeting glimpse of her somewhere.
But she truly couldn't remember anything else.
"I told you, you wouldn't have an impression of me. But you should be very familiar with someone who is very important to me." Seeing Ariel's confusion, An spoke calmly.
"Eh? Who?"
"..."
An shook her head and didn't answer.
Ariel grew more bewildered, her mind racing as she fell into deep thought.
Familiar with someone important to her... and combined with the faint air of dislike Miss An has been radiating toward me since the start...
Could that person be...
"Do you know Miss Muse as well?" Ariel’s eyes lit up with joy.
"Miss... Muse?"
An’s brow furrowed in confusion. "Who is that?"
"Ah... did I guess wrong?" Ariel scratched her head awkwardly again. "Sorry."
"..."
An fell silent for a moment.
But this time, her calm eyes landed directly on Ariel's face.
Noticing Ariel's shift from excitement to disappointment, and combining that with the intelligence she had gathered previously, An’s eyebrow twitched slightly.
"Do you like women?"
She looked at Ariel and asked the question with startling bluntness.
To ask such a sensitive question about someone's orientation upon a first meeting was incredibly rude.
But An asked anyway.
She didn't care about being polite; or rather, she didn't care about the person in front of her at all.
There were very few people in this world she cared about, and her politeness was reserved for only one person.
However... in Ariel's ears, those words took on a different meaning.
"That's... that's a bit too direct!"
Ariel was startled.
Even after several failures and humiliations, having decided to be decisive and never hesitate when facing someone she liked, Ariel still felt An’s question was a bit too forward.
They had only just met, and they were already discussing such deep life philosophies?
"Ahem..."
Ariel touched her slightly flushed cheek. In the past, she might have played coy, but now: "I suppose so..."
"I see... It seems there is no threat then. As long as you aren't a pest."
An nodded, as if she had reached an understanding.
The faint aura of wariness and disgust she had held toward Ariel actually weakened significantly following that answer.
Ariel blinked. Although Miss An hadn't followed up after that blunt question... it seemed she had given the "correct" answer.
"What are you doing here?"
An had originally wanted to ask Ariel something else, but she held back. She knew this girl's relationship with the Young Master wasn't particularly good.
In fact, she was partly responsible for the friction between them, which made it even more awkward for her to ask about him.
Having not seen him for over half a year, her longing was like a tide, nearly drowning her consciousness.
Fortunately, she could still endure it for now.
"This isn't a place you should be."
"Aren't you the same?"
Ariel crossed her arms over her chest. "Why is Miss An in such a dangerous place?"
"I have my own business to attend to," An said after a moment's thought.
"I have my own business too!"
"Because of that Miss Muse you mentioned?"
"Of course... of course it's not just for Miss Muse."
Ariel coughed twice and said with a straight face, "How could someone as broad-minded as I am have a goal as small as saving just one Miss Muse?"
"I see. You came in specifically to save these adventurers captured by the demons. How foolish."
An gave a cold evaluation and turned away. Metal turned into liquid, flowing from her palm to fill the cracks in the floor beneath her feet. As the metal solidified, the shattered corridor was reinforced enough to prevent it from collapsing into total ruin.
She wasn't doing the demons a favor by cleaning up; she simply needed to clear a path to walk on.
"Speaking of which..."
Watching this, Ariel finally found the chance to ask about something that had felt strange since the beginning.
"We made such a huge commotion during our fight. How has it not attracted any demon patrols yet?"
Whether it was An's Metal Divine Blessing or her own Heavenly Fire Greatsword, neither were the type of techniques that could be hidden from demons once fully unleashed.
Furthermore, the corridor and the adjacent rooms had nearly been demolished. Even if the demon guards were incredibly lax—even if they were all blind and deaf—it was impossible for them not to have noticed by now.
"No other demons will be coming for the time being," An said.
"Why?"
"Because, strictly speaking, we are still inside the cage."
"The cage?"
"Have you not noticed the other anomalies?"
An glanced back at Ariel. "Do you really think the only strange thing here is the slow reaction of the demon guards?"
"..."
Ariel froze for a second, then quickly realized.
Yes, while the lack of guards was the most glaring oddity, there were many other strange things she had noticed even earlier.
For example...
"It's too quiet."
Ariel looked around at the numbered rooms.
It wasn't just the demon guards who weren't reacting; it was the poor girls locked in those rooms.
It was no exaggeration to say her battle with An had nearly torn the place apart, yet the girls in the rooms remained silent. It was so quiet it was as if...
"Could it be..." Ariel remembered the empty room she had investigated earlier.
"Yes. These rooms are all empty."
An nodded, confirming Ariel's suspicion. "I suspect that aside from the room I came from and the room you were in, none of the other rooms hold any prisoners."
"How is that possible?"
Ariel's eyes widened in shock. "But last night, we clearly..."
She found it hard to believe.
The pressure and the sounds from last night had been so real. The demons couldn't have gone to the trouble of creating fake sounds in the next room just to deceive them.
Ariel picked a room at random. This time, she didn't bother opening the door slowly. She drew the Heavenly Fire Greatsword and slashed the lock.
The restriction on the lock was no match for the powerful Ancient Artifact in her hand and was easily cleaved through.
Ariel pushed the door open... and the room was indeed empty.
According to the intelligence she had gathered, there should have been at least eighty female adventurers imprisoned here.
"You're saying you heard the movements of the Grand Duke of Bewitchment last night? I heard them too. She was indeed in the room next to yours, but not in the room next to you in this space." An's tone remained flat.
"What does that mean?" Ariel grew more confused.
"It's simple. You can think of the space you were in last night and the space where the Grand Duke was tormenting human adventurers as being perfectly superimposed, yet not entirely overlapping." An pressed her palms together, illustrating two adjacent and identical spaces. "From a certain perspective, you were in adjacent positions. But if you were to open the door to the next room at that moment... it would be empty. Because she wasn't in the room next to yours; she was in the space next to yours."
"You mean... the rooms we were imprisoned in aren't in the real world?"
Though An's explanation was a bit abstract, Ariel quickly grasped the core concept. "Is that why you said I haven't actually escaped?"
If this wasn't the real world—or rather, the real space—then this corridor, and even the areas further out, were merely part of the cage.
Since it was part of the cage, it naturally wouldn't hold all the prisoners, nor would there be guards.
"Yes. The few who escaped before you had some extraordinary items on them, so they realized this quickly and managed to break out. But you..."
"I would have realized it soon too." Ariel puffed out her chest and huffed. "It was only a matter of time."
She wasn't boasting. She had survived situations ten times more complex than this. Compared to those, this was practically a vacation. Her train of thought had simply been interrupted by Miss An before she could conduct a proper investigation.
"But since we're trapped in a place like this, it means I—and many others—fell for it without even knowing. Let me think... the only way I could have been caught off guard like that on the way here..."
Ariel rubbed her chin, her gaze moving past An to land on a mirror at the end of the corridor.
It looked like an ordinary mirror, hanging unobtrusively on the wall. It was so mundane that one wouldn't notice anything wrong with it, yet anyone walking down this corridor would have their reflection captured perfectly within it.
"An Ancient Artifact?"
"Smart."
An had already walked up to the mirror. She raised a hand and gently stroked the glass surface.
"Ancient Artifact: Mirror of Bewilderment. Once reflected within it, one enters its world, completely unaware."
"So... we really are in a space inside the mirror?" Ariel frowned.
"Yes. But strictly speaking, we aren't just in the space inside the mirror."
An's fingers moved slightly.
Metal condensed once more, forming a smooth, metallic mirror surface.
"We are in one of the spaces inside the mirror."
Two mirrors faced each other, reflecting back and forth, creating infinite, diminishing reflections—and infinite, overlapping layers of mirrored space...