The Tale of Hero Alice’s Social Death - Chapter 312

Through the use of Aspect Separation, Alice snuck into a nearby research room. If she didn’t guess wrongly, the Rhine Kingdom’s King Haydn should be calling her soon. She naturally couldn’t answer his call in the corridor since others could easily overhear their conversation. So, she decided to “borrow” a research room since these rooms had excellent soundproofing.

Sure enough, it was just like Alice expected. Shortly after Alice entered the research room, her phone rang, and the caller ID was “Haydn Doyle.” Alice had previously exchanged contact information with the human kings (Queen Abby of the Vulcan Kingdom included) during the Conference of Kings, so she already had Haydn’s number in her contacts list.

Fortunately, she didn’t exchange numbers with the princes and princesses who had followed their parents to the conference. Otherwise, Etoria might have contacted her directly just now. With how alert Etoria was then, he would have most likely noticed the weak mana fluctuations from Alice’s phone.

While inwardly celebrating that she didn’t exchange contact information with the various princes and princesses, Alice answered Haydn’s call. Because she needed to pretend she was still in the Gryffin Kingdom, she feigned ignorance and asked:

“Hello? King Haydn? Did something happen?”

Alice spoke in a very casual manner. However, because of Alice’s status as the Hero, Haydn dared not assume bureaucratic airs with Alice, and he could only respond with a laugh:

“Haha. Can I not contact you for no reason, Lord Hero?—Is what I would like to say, but I really have something I need to ask you for help, Lord Hero.”

When Alice heard Haydn’s laugh, the image of Haydn’s gloomy face wearing a forced smile appeared in her mind.

“Oh? What is it?”

Although Alice already knew why Haydn had called her, she pretended not to know anything. She might not be a good actor, but it was convincing enough that she wouldn’t attract suspicion to herself. Moreover, Haydn had never thought of suspecting Alice, so he naturally didn’t notice the slight hint of unnaturalness in Alice’s tone.

“It seems the Demon King has appeared in our Royal Magic Tower,” Haydn said without beating around the bush. “She has manipulated one of the tower’s students with a spirit-type taboo to initiate contact with an information broker going by the moniker of ‘Magic Tower Know-It-All.’ It would seem that the Demon King is trying to recruit him, but he did not fall for the Demon King’s temptations and reported this matter to us immediately.”

“Huh?”

Alice let out a somewhat surprised voice. This wasn’t an act. She was surprised to learn that Haydn seemingly knew “Magic Tower Know-It-All’s” real identity.

This situation piqued Alice’s curiosity. If Haydn knew about Magic Tower Know-It-All’s real identity, it might mean that this information broker wasn’t actually the demon spy Alice was looking for but a human instead.

“Surprising, right? We were similarly surprised when we learned about this. However, seeing as the other party can so effortlessly cast a taboo on a student, we have great reason to suspect that this is the Demon King’s work,” Haydn said. Of course, he naturally wouldn’t know that what surprised Alice wasn’t the news of the Demon King appearing in the Royal Magic Tower. Subsequently, he continued in a slightly somber tone, “We originally planned to call the Demon King’s phone number or restrict access to the Royal Magic Tower, but we decided against doing so when we considered the possibility of provoking the Demon King ahead of time. It will also alert the Demon King that we are aware of her presence.”

“Why didn’t you guys have that ‘Magic Tower Know-It-All’ pretend to agree to the Demon King’s invitation and contact her first to keep her distracted?” Alice curiously asked. Had “Magic Tower Know-It-All” arranged to meet with her before she realized her blunder, she would never have suspected a thing.

“We did consider this point, but the Demon King is capable of casting spirit taboos,” Haydn said. “The reason the Demon King is seeking to recruit ‘Know-It-All’ is most likely because he holds important information about the Royal Magic Tower. If we let him get near the Demon King, there is the risk that the Demon King wouldn’t bother to have a proper conversation with him and would simply break his spirit with a spirit taboo before forcibly reading his memories.”

Haydn paused for a moment. Then, in a helpless tone, he continued:

“If that happened, not only would the Demon King receive the information she wants, but she will also learn about our plan to use ‘Magic Tower Know-It-All’ to trap her.”

No, I’m not that ruthless. I wouldn’t break a person’s spirit just to read their memories. How much of a grudge must I have to do such a thing?

Alice very much wanted to say that she would never do such a cruel thing. However, considering her current stance, she naturally couldn’t say such words to Haydn. Moreover, unlike what Haydn assumed, Alice the “Demon King” might know how to use spirit taboos, but she didn’t have a single clue when it came to reading a person’s complex memory code. Though, nobody would believe her even if she did admit this fact. After all, reading memory codes was one of the most basic things when it came to learning spirit magic. It didn’t make sense that a person who knew how to cast spirit taboos didn’t know how to read memory codes.

“Which is why we have no way of dealing with the Demon King and can only seek your help, Lord Hero. You’ve beaten the Demon King before, so I’m sure the other party will restrain herself a little once she learns that you’ve arrived,” Haydn said, sighing.

The Demon King was why the various human kings treated the Hero so respectfully. The Demon King was akin to a walking taboo bomb that could infiltrate any country at will. Aside from the Hero, who could possibly stop such an existence?

It was fortunate that the current Demon King wasn’t a bloodthirsty maniac. Haydn recalled that there were two Demon Kings with utterly unreasonable behavior. When those two Demon Kings invaded the human realm, they did not care what would happen to the human territories they seized. They ruthlessly bombarded the various human kingdoms with taboos, reducing countless cities into rubble and scorched earth.

.

Although the Heroes of those eras had eventually defeated those two Demon Kings, the ruined lands remained uninhabitable for a long time as large amounts of dark mana had corroded the lands and air. At the time, even the demons cursed those two Demon Kings since the lands they conquered were even worse than those they had in the demon realm.

Fortunately, the current Demon King wasn’t like those two lunatics. Otherwise, taboos would probably be flying all over the Rhine Kingdom right about now.