Huohuo led everyone out, but instead of taking the route they had come from, she went deeper into the garden and took a shortcut.
The farther they went into the garden, the quieter it became.
There was no one around. Instead, quite a bit of vegetation swayed gently in the dim light. The footsteps of the group echoed softly through the area, and Huohuo couldn't help moving a little closer to Nero.
"It's so quiet. It's getting scarier and scarier..."
The little fox girl was clearly a judge, yet at this moment, she was the most frightened person in the group.
Still, she was trying her best to stay calm and carry out her duties.
"Please stay close to Huohuo..."
After walking a bit farther, Guinaifen suddenly shuddered. Then she hurriedly looked around and cried out,
"Y-you guys heard that!? W-what was that weird sound? There's a ghost! Aaaaaaaah!"
"Waaaah! W-w-wh-wh-wh-what happened?"
Huohuo was badly startled by Guinaifen's scream. Almost instantly, she grabbed Nero's arm. The panic on her face was obvious.
As she nervously watched the surroundings, she asked in alarm.
"Y-y-y-you don't need to be scared!" March said, standing close to Stelle as she tried to comfort Huohuo.
"I-I'm not scared. I-I-I just can't stand steadily..." Huohuo replied in a trembling voice, but she quickly noticed something was wrong.
"Huh?... G-Guinaifen Miss? Guinaifen Miss..."
Huohuo called out, but there was no response.
In the suddenly quiet surroundings, March, Stelle, and Nero also looked around for Guinaifen, but saw nothing.
Huohuo stood there and blinked twice.
"...D-did we lose her..."
Nero looked around. He had planned to find a ghost and ask what had happened, but there wasn't a single one here.
Then again, that made sense. The place was so deserted and lonely that ghosts probably didn't want to stay here either.
People would flee in panic when an environment became too bleak. Since ghosts came from people, they were probably much the same.
So he said, "In that case, March and Huohuo stay here. Stelle and I will go look for her."
After saying that, Nero didn't wait for any response and immediately turned and went into the bamboo grove.
Stelle patted March on the shoulder, pulled out her bat, and followed Nero.
March and Huohuo looked at each other. In the end, they could only hold hands and encourage each other.
After entering the bamboo grove, Stelle and Nero followed a gravel path running through it. Lamps emitting a faint, pale glow hung above the path, making it easy enough to see the way.
After walking for a while, ghostly green flames occasionally appeared out of nowhere along the road. This caught their attention, and they followed them all the way until they entered a courtyard.
"Guinaifen? Where are you? Nero, stay close to me..."
As Stelle walked forward, she kept calling out.
Nero, meanwhile, strode after her with his sleeves swaying. There wasn't the slightest sign of nervousness in him. He only gave off a sense of uprightness and ease.
The boy looked around but still found no trace of Guinaifen.
In the courtyard, the only thing they saw was a huge bronze mirror.
"Looks like nobody's here either," Stelle muttered, preparing to call Nero and leave to search somewhere else.
But before she could speak, the gate suddenly closed on its own with a decayed creaking sound.
The sight made Stelle pause slightly.
"There are no ghosts here, so they didn't do it. And I didn't feel any wind either," Nero said as he walked over.
"So it was probably affected by the power of some kind of thing. Guinaifen's disappearance may be related to it."
Stelle nodded, feeling that what Nero said made sense.
"Still, we haven't found anything suspicious here, except..."
As she spoke, she turned around and fixed her gaze on the huge mirror.
She slowly approached it and looked at the reflections of herself and Nero.
"Why would they put a mirror here? Such a huge mirror sitting here feels pretty creepy."
"Indeed."
Nero walked over as well.
The two stared at the mirror for a while but didn't find anything strange about it.
Stelle shook her head.
"Let's go. We should find Huohuo. As a judge, she should know something about this kind of thing.", As she spoke, she turned around and prepared to push open the gate.
However, the Stelle in the mirror didn't turn with her. Instead, she narrowed her eyes and curled her lips into a somewhat sinister smile.
The next moment, the Stelle inside the mirror actually reached a hand out from it.
But just as she was about to grab Stelle, Nero's hand suddenly reached over from the side and caught her wrist.
"Get over here!"
Before either Stelle could react, Nero shouted and pulled hard, trying to drag the Stelle inside the mirror out.
The "Stelle" in the mirror clearly hadn't expected this situation. Panic flashed across her face instantly. Then she felt an enormous force pulling her, directly dragging her out of the mirror.
"F*cking *Heliobus curse words*!"
"Stelle" was startled and let out a cry.
But immediately afterward, she realized she couldn't just let herself be dragged out like this.
Without having any time to think about what exactly this white-haired kid was, she used a trick that made the huge mirror standing there start shaking.
When Stelle heard the commotion and turned around, she froze slightly. She only saw the version of herself in the mirror desperately trying to stop Nero from dragging her out.
But the next second, the mirror toppled straight over.
The expected scene of the mirror shattering never happened. Instead, a ripple appeared across the mirror's surface, and in the next moment, both Stelle and Nero were swallowed by it.
The next instant, the two arrived in a completely different environment.
"This is..."
Stelle frowned and began thinking.
"Where am I? It seems a little different."
"Looks like we've been trapped inside the mirror.", Nero's voice came from beside her.
Stelle turned and found him standing right next to her.
He was currently holding up one of his arms. Stelle could clearly see that it no longer looked like flesh and blood.
Instead, it looked like some reflective work of art, somewhat like crystal, with the surrounding objects reflected across its surface.
"Tell me, if you enter a mirror world from inside a mirror world, do you go into an even deeper layer of the world, or do you return to reality?"
After seeing Falcorez's mirror world, Nero had already learned how to use this ability. After eating the fragment that guy carried, he had become even more skilled with it.
However, for him, this ability didn't seem particularly useful.
But at this moment, he was genuinely curious about it.
Seeing that Nero was still beside her, Stelle felt relieved.
Then she shook her head, "Forget it, Nero. Guinaifen is still missing. We can do experiments later."
"Mm, okay."
Nero nodded obediently.