Chapter 701: A Glimpse Like a Startling Swan

After Ariel sized up the entire carriage once, in the end she still sat down next to the beautiful girl named Feifei.

For no other reason—lazy-type beauties were her thing.

As for the white-stocking loli on the other side... loli aside, a certain attribute about her overlapped a little too much with Ariel’s former self, and it was the attribute she hated the most.

"Miss Feifei... aren’t you worried?"

Ariel tried to strike up a conversation.

In fact, this was also the first question that had popped into her head after she came in.

Because in Ariel’s own imagination, what should be waiting for her in this carriage should’ve been some helpless beautiful girls who, after being captured by demonfolk, were currently despairing because they had no power to escape.

But sure, they were beautiful girls—but where was the despair? Where was the helplessness?

Leaving everyone else aside for now, Ariel only felt a kind of leisurely ease from this Feifei, like she was on a trip.

"Oh my, it seems I made Miss Yali misunderstand."

Feifei frowned slightly at the words, one hand pressing to her chest. At last, she displayed the pitiful, delicate posture of a frail young girl.

"Actually, my heart is also very uneasy right now. After all, next we’re going to be sent to the demonfolk main camp, where a demonfolk Grand Duke personally sits in command. I think no matter who it is, it would be hard to be certain about how their fate will end next."

"Then..."

"I’m just like this by nature."

"By nature?"

"That’s right. Even if I’m about to get stabbed, I’m the type who’ll sleep an extra nap if I can. Life is so hard. Work and studies are so busy. Elder pressure chokes you until you can’t breathe. If you don’t learn how to slack off, how will you survive?"

Feifei stretched lazily. That lovely curve made it hard to look away.

"On that point, I can testify."

The white-stocking, flat-chested, short-tempered loli Nian suddenly cut in.

"Someone really has been stabbed before. Her kidney was almost pierced through."

"Pointing out other people’s weak spots isn’t nice, you know. At least back then I did play a little role."

As a beautiful girl, even the white eye she rolled with those unfocused eyes was still pretty. But just like she said, Feifei was so lazy she didn’t have any intention of arguing with Nian at all. She slightly tilted her head toward Ariel’s position.

"Then what about Miss Yali? I can hear that your heartbeat is very steady. It seems you also aren’t afraid because of your current situation."

"Me?"

Ariel thought for a moment, then clasped her fingers together in a handsome pose and propped her chin.

"I probably just feel that in a situation like this, panicking is useless. What we should be doing right now isn’t meaningless panic and fear, but using all our strength to find a way to escape."

"Wow. That’s amazing."

Feifei lightly clapped.

"Even though I can’t see right now, Miss Yali’s courage and determination are truly admirable."

"..."

She almost forgot this beauty couldn’t see at the moment.

Ariel—who had just been acting cool for a blind person—blew her bangs aside in boredom. After glancing at the white-stocking loli, who also had zero interest in her and even showed obvious disgust, her attention finally fell on the last person in the carriage.

That was a girl who had been extremely inconspicuous from the very beginning. Even while Ariel and Feifei were talking, she stayed curled up in the very corner of the carriage, hugging her knees, silent.

"And you?"

Ariel blinked, smiling as she leaned closer to the girl. "Do you think I’m right?"

"..." The girl didn’t answer.

"What’s your name? We can get to know each other—so it’s easier to watch out for each other." Ariel still wouldn’t give up.

"Julia."

The girl finally lifted her head to look at Ariel. That face—at least an eight out of ten in Ariel’s mind—made Ariel’s eyes light up again.

But before Ariel could say anything else, the girl named Julia suddenly hardened her tone.

"It’s useless. Everything you just said is useless. We can’t escape."

"Why?"

Ariel deliberately put on a puzzled expression, but inside, her thoughts couldn’t help shifting slightly.

Here it comes—the pessimistic-type beauty.

That was her thing.

"Don’t you understand yet? Like that guy just said, this is the Abyss, and it’s the demonfolk’s main camp!"

The girl’s tone grew a little agitated.

"Here, we won’t have any rescue. The Adventurers’ Association can’t help us. The Empire can’t help us. Even the Church can’t help us. We’re isolated and helpless. Our companions are either scattered, or they’ve died at demonfolk hands. Like this... like this, do we still have any chance of escaping?"

"We can rely on ourselves."

Ariel said seriously.

"As long as we have courage and wisdom, there will always be a way."

"Heh. Rely on ourselves?"

The girl buried her head back into her knees, but still cast a faintly mocking glance through the gap between her arms at the chains binding Ariel’s hands and feet, and said in a low voice,

"Already like this, and you still have the nerve to talk about relying on yourself... too naïve. You’re all too naïve... one by one, you’ll pay the price for your naïveté."

"..."

Looking at the girl’s stubborn, oil-and-salt-won’t-enter attitude—as if she didn’t want to communicate with the outside world at all—Ariel couldn’t help letting out a light sigh.

With Ariel’s outstanding—even master-level—emotional experience, a girl whose mind was already on the verge of collapsing like this was the easiest to break through. Because their hearts were already extremely fragile. As long as you showed even a little solid, reliable aura, they would take the initiative to lean on you.

But now wasn’t the time.

Because right now, she really had no persuasiveness at all.

In that case, when she was fully prepared and led everyone to escape together, then she could act cool and steal her heart in a handsome way.

"Sure enough, my decision was correct."

Thinking that, the corner of Ariel’s mouth lightly hooked up.

In just this short time, she had already encountered two kinds of beauties that danced right on her xp—lazy-type and pessimistic-type. And without even thinking, she knew that as she went deeper, she would definitely encounter even more beauties in the near future.

After all, what that Enchantress Grand Duke collected was human young girls. And this time, Ariel had infiltrated in, and it gave her a kind of happiness like a shark being willingly fished onto a boat, then swimming around inside a fish hold packed full.

"Speaking of which, is it only us here?"

Ariel remembered something and asked curiously.

"I remember there was another carriage outside."

"Yes. That carriage is also loaded with adventurers like us."

Feifei answered with a troubled look.

"Speaking of it, a few of my friends are on that one."

"Friends?"

Ariel’s eyes lit up again.

According to the law of beautiful girls attracting each other, a beautiful girl’s friends... were very likely also beautiful girls!

Ariel stood up and leaned against the carriage wall. Through the narrow carriage window that only had a few ventilation slits, she observed outside.

Clang.

The carriage shook, and under the pulling of the giant demonic beast, it slowly moved forward.

And the driver of the other carriage was obviously more short-tempered. With a vicious crack of the whip on the demonic beast, he drove his carriage to gradually overtake Ariel’s carriage.

The two carriages crossed past each other.

And at the instant when the carriages were parallel, Ariel finally managed, through that equally narrow carriage window, to slightly glimpse the scene inside the other carriage...

In that single instant, it was like time stopped.

"Huh?"

Ariel abruptly cried out.

"Did something happen?"

Feifei tilted her head, asking curiously.

This Miss Yali, who from earlier had looked extremely composed and not flustered at all by her ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) current situation, seemed to have her heartbeat suddenly speed up at this moment.

"I... I think I saw..."

The other carriage rapidly pulled away, but Ariel’s gaze still stared tightly at the receding carriage, as if there were some peerless treasure inside that she couldn’t bear to part with.

"Saw what?"

"I saw..."

Ariel recalled that wave-like, dazzling golden yellow she had caught a glimpse of in that equally dim, cramped carriage compartment. In this moment, what lazy-type beauty, what pessimistic-type beauty, what fish hold full of fish—all of it drifted away from her at the same time.

In her mind, only that breathtaking face remained—one that had tangled with her several times, yet that she had missed several times again.

"I saw... a beauty."