Who knew how much time had passed.

Ariel felt as though her soul had entered a strange state, slipping free of her body and floating above it, looking down from somewhere outside as she watched everything happening in the room.

She watched the maids dress her up over and over again like she was some kind of doll. One moment it was a pale long dress paired with simple, cute deerskin boots. The next, it was a Lolita outfit with a huge bow tied on top of her head. Then it was an elaborate court gown, complete with a hoop-lined underskirt that nearly squeezed her waist in half.

One outfit after another after another. Ariel felt her soul drifting farther and farther away, until it seemed ready to leave the room altogether and fly straight up into the sky...

“It’s done!”

Suddenly, the maids’ delighted shrieks yanked Ariel’s soul back into her body. After fierce debate and repeated practical testing, they finally seemed to have reached a consensus and settled on the outfit that best suited their doll... no, the outfit that best suited Ariel.

“Ta-da! Behold—the new Miss Ariel!”

With a dramatic flourish, Noah yanked the black cloth off the mirror, and Ariel’s figure instantly appeared in the glass.

Looking at the reflection, even though her soul had only just returned, a faint spark of astonishment still flickered through Ariel’s lifeless eyes.

She almost didn’t recognize herself.

It was obviously still her, that much she could be sure of. But that image—so strange and yet so familiar—still filled her with a sliver of doubt.

In the mirror, Ariel wore a long white silk dress. There were no overly complicated decorations, but the edges had been cut with exquisitely delicate floral patterns, so that when a pale wrist or ankle slipped into view, it looked as though her whole body were buried in clouds.

The neckline wasn’t cut too low. It revealed just enough to show off the flawless lines of her collarbones, while her long, fair neck rose from it, paired with a carefully chosen necklace, like an elegant white swan admiring its own reflection in the lake.

At her waist was a pale rose-colored sash. Tied lightly, it emphasized a slenderness beyond what most people possessed. But there was nothing weak about that slenderness. Ariel’s lovely body had long since endured all kinds of unimaginable training, and the strength and agility in her every movement could shift perfectly between stillness and motion.

Beneath the skirt were two long legs. Even veteran maids had sighed over the shape and texture of those legs, so they hadn’t burdened them with extra ornamentation—just short socks with little bows and a pair of delicate leather shoes. But that modest touch was just enough, like a plum blossom blooming in winter snow.

And beyond the clothes, one particularly meddlesome maid had taken advantage of Ariel’s helpless compliance to put a light touch of makeup on her face. The pale eyeshadow softened the sharpness between her brows and eyes, making the beauty that had once gone unnoticed stand out far more clearly.

She no longer looked freewheeling and untamed.

Now she looked sweet and lovely.

“So beautiful...”

Even Ariel couldn’t help murmuring it. She had lived this long, and she had never seen herself like this before.

She had always clawed and fought at the edge of death, always climbed desperately toward greater strength. When had she ever looked this fragile and adorable?

“Right? Isn’t it gorgeous?”

Noah and the other maids looked utterly intoxicated.

“Miss Ariel really does have an excellent foundation. She just never pays attention to dressing herself up. As a beautiful girl, how can you waste your natural gifts like that?”

“It-it’s not pretty at all!”

Ariel finally snapped back to her senses, her face turning bright red.

“This ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) style doesn’t suit me one bit!”

“Whether it suits you or not isn’t something Miss Ariel gets to decide all by herself.”

Noah helped Ariel to her feet, then eagerly started leading her out.

“Whether the princess is beautiful or not, of course the prince is the one who decides.”

“The prince?”

“All right, it’s almost time. Hurry along, Miss Ariel. Don’t keep the prince waiting.”

Noah escorted Ariel to a garden, then left with a suggestive wiggle of her brows.

Ariel was completely baffled. The public execution she had just gone through—on the level of being forced to read some essay she wrote ten years ago in front of a room full of relatives—had already made her forget to stay on guard. Her only thought was that in a garden this large, she might not be able to find the way.

But the facts proved she had no need to worry about that at all.

Because amid all that riotous color, two rows of vivid roses stood out especially clearly. It was already past late spring and early summer, long past rose season, so these had obviously been magically forced into bloom, then transplanted here.

And after going through all that trouble, after arranging such a charming flower-lined path, all of it had been done for one reason only—

to guide Ariel forward at this very moment.

“Tacky to the point of embarrassment. What a pathetic stunt.”

Ariel curled her lip in disdain.

She wasn’t some lovestruck little girl. How could she possibly be moved by such cheap tricks?

“After putting on this irritating little farce, I just hope the bastard hiding behind it lets me punch him a few times.”

Her little leather shoes stepped onto the flower path, making a gentle rustling sound like leaves brushing together. Ariel cracked her knuckles, though in her current cute little outfit she didn’t look threatening in the slightest.

Then again, threat level wasn’t something you judged by appearances alone. Ariel felt that even in a dress, her combat ability remained completely unaffected.

Of course, that was assuming she could find a way to break the restriction on her first.

“Ah, there it is.”

A breeze carrying a faint trace of moisture drifted past, pleasantly cool beneath the full blaze of the noon sun.

Ariel narrowed her eyes, because the shimmering reflections on the sapphire-blue lake were a little too bright.

And beside the lake, there stood a white gazebo, quiet and still.

The lakeside gazebo was delicate and elegant, obviously the work of a truly exceptional architect. The sculptures along the eaves alone, done in that late artistic style from two centuries ago, would have been enough for visiting noblewomen to chatter about at length.

But Ariel had absolutely no thoughts about those sculptures, because she was neither a noblewoman nor someone who knew the first thing about late artistic styles.

And more importantly...

she saw the person inside the gazebo.

It was a man wearing an expensive fitted formal suit, seated there at an angle with casual ease, yet impossible to separate from elegance. Even with the light behind him, there was no disguising the handsome sharpness of his features.

Most important of all, that head of fine golden hair, bathed in the noonday sun, was even more dazzling than the lake itself.

“Yo.”

The blond man laced his fingers together as if he had been waiting there all along. The moment he saw Ariel, he gave her a smile more than capable of making countless young girls lose their hearts.

“You came.”

“Mhm, I came.”

Ariel smiled faintly as well. Then she strode forward, spun, and delivered a beautiful high roundhouse kick straight at that familiar handsome face.

“So why the hell is it you, Muen Campbell?”

“And why can’t it be me?”

Muen seemed to have expected it. He casually caught Ariel’s little foot.

“Am I not allowed to invite you to a pleasant and lovely lunch?”

“Are you trying to make me puke? Ugh—”

Ariel answered his performance with a dry heave, expressing her most sincere contempt.

Before coming here, Ariel had imagined countless possibilities. She had even thought she might have somehow stepped into some kind of romantic fairy tale.

But never in her wildest dreams had she expected that this so-called prince would be Muen Campbell!

What prince was he supposed to be, huh?

Other than being rich and handsome, and maybe being a tiny bit reliable at critical moments, what part of him had anything to do with a prince?

What princess would ever accept a prince with practically no redeeming qualities at all?

“What rotten luck.”

Not wanting Muen to go on enjoying the view under her skirt in such a disgusting way, Ariel quickly pulled her foot back.

“Give me back my ring already and undo the restriction!”

“You don’t want to ask why I did all this?”

Muen kept his fingers laced together.

“No! Who knows if you’re cooking up some new scheme again? I’m not falling for it!”

Ariel shot Muen a fierce glare, then muttered:

“How annoying. I already braced myself for the worst, and in the end it turns out it was just your stupid prank. I got worked up for nothing.” 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

“Oh, a prank?”

Hearing that, Muen raised a brow and said meaningfully:

“We’ve already come this far, and you still don’t think I’d do anything bad to you? Looks like, even if you keep cursing me out, you actually trust me quite a bit now.”

“...”

Ariel’s expression froze.

“Wh-who trusts you!”

“Isn’t that the case?” Muen asked back.

“I...”

Ariel took a deep breath and said seriously:

“Don’t get the wrong idea. This is just a rational judgment on my part, that’s all. It doesn’t mean anything else.”