The Yellow-Haired Villain in Soaring Phoenix's Novels Also Desires Happiness Chapter 708: Mirror

"Stink?"

Ariel sniffed herself. "Do I stink...? No—now isn’t the ti 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 ticulous care. Just a simple black long dress, yet clear and pure like a piece of night scooped up from midsumr.

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

If this were any normal ti, 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 ?"

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 ."

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 sha 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 sothing 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 !"

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 soday have the chance to develop a wondrous journey with her—being that rude the mont they t ant 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 sll your scent."

"Huh?"

"Your chest misled 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 so stupid demon trying to pass as human but forgetting to do field asurents.

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 beco 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 , but honestly I still can’t rember you. May I ask... what should I call you?"

"Just call An."

"An... that’s a wonderful na."

Ariel savored the na, as if she could excavate endless aning from that single syllable.

"But..."

She frowned slightly.

That na, 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 soone ntion the na, or caught a fleeting glimpse out of the corner of her eye sowhere.

But she couldn’t recall anything else.

"I said you wouldn’t have any impression of . But you should have a deep impression of soone very important to ." 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.

Soone 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 mont.

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

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

"You like won?"

She looked at Ariel and asked bluntly.

Asking soone’s orientation the first ti you et—especially soone you weren’t even familiar with—was extrely 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 ant sothing else entirely.

"That’s... that’s way too direct!"

Ariel jumped.

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

They’d only just t, 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 sothing.

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 sothing else, but held it back. Because she knew this person’s relationship with Young Master wasn’t very good.

Co to think of it, how bad the relationship was between her and Young Master... she bore so 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 sa?"

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

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

"I have my own business too!"

"Because of that Miss Muse you ntioned?"

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

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

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

An gave that cold evaluation, then turned away.

tal 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 tal 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 co." 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 ..." 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 ca 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 ti 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 movent last night? I heard it too. She was naturally in the room next to yours—but not next to yours in this space."

An’s tone remained flat.

"What does that an?" 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 taphor 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 an... 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 sowhere 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 sothing 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 ti."

She wasn’t bragging. She’d experienced predicants ten tis 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 ans I, and a lot of others, were hit without realizing it, right? Let think. Along the way, the only thing that could have hit 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 mont 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 Bewildernt. 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.

tal condensed again, forming into a smooth tal 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...