The Tale of Hero Alice’s Social Death - Chapter 342

Five days had gone by since Alice liberated Sylvia of her panties. During these five days, Alice began investigating Collins Doyle, the cross-dressing eldest prince who had given up his rights to the throne.

Compared to Lilith, Alice had a much easier time acquiring Collins’s address and information. It was as if Collins had completely forgotten that he was a prince. Not only did he live like an ordinary otaku, but he had also joined a game development company and made plenty of commoner friends.

Although Collins’s status as royalty would mean he would always have bodyguards secretly protecting him, these bodyguards would typically never interfere with Collins’s life. They also wouldn’t trespass on his privacy. Hence, Collins simply treated the bodyguards like air and lived his life peacefully.

Alice had also observed Collins’s actions for five consecutive days through the shota Dark Guard. Because of the Dark Guard’s “dedication,” Collins’s bodyguards, who would usually never bother to interact or remember each other, had ended up remembering this boy who would dutifully work for more than ten hours a day.

Some of the more soft-hearted bodyguards would even bring snacks for the shota Dark Guard sometimes. Unfortunately, as a Dark Guard’s body was made entirely of mana, it didn’t have the ability to digest food like a normal person’s. Hence, after receiving the snacks, the shota Dark Guard would usually find a secluded place and stuff the snacks into his stomach. Then, he would envelop the snacks in mana and bring them back for Alice.

But this guy really is no different from a normal working-class otaku. Aside from looking quite pretty when cross-dressing, everything else about his life is as normal as they can get. He doesn’t behave like a prince at all.

While snacking on a skewer the shota Dark Guard had brought home for her, Alice quickly browsed through the surveillance footage the Dark Guard’s camera had captured today. However, even though she had already observed Collins’s actions for the past five days, she failed to find anything suspicious about him. He behaved just like the average working-class citizen.

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Moreover, not one of the bodyguards protecting Collins belonged to Collins. They were either sent by King Haydn or nobles seeking to gain favor with the royal family. So, if Collins were to carry out any suspicious activity while under the watchful eyes of these bodyguards, King Haydn and those nobles would probably notice it right away.

Hence, Alice could only conclude that either Collins had truly given up his right to inherit the throne and chosen to live a normal life, or he was incredibly skilled at hiding his actions.

Collins should know that King Haydn and those nobles would be informed if he did anything worthy of concern. So, if I want to know if he is doing anything suspicious in secret, it should be impossible to learn any useful information just by observing him amidst his bodyguards, Alice thought.

If Collins was to do something while evading his bodyguards’ sight, he would naturally be sure to avoid the shota Dark Guard’s sight as well. So, even if there really was something suspicious about Collins’s lifestyle, it would be difficult to notice it through the shota Dark Guard’s perspective. If Alice wanted to conduct further investigation into Collins, she would have to look into what Collins did whenever he was outside of his bodyguards’ view.

As mentioned before, Collins’s bodyguards would not interfere with his private life. So, if Collins were to do something suspicious outside of his bodyguards’ view, he would most likely do it when he was alone in his house after work.

For the sake of protecting Collins’s privacy, Collins’s bodyguards naturally wouldn’t enter Collins’s house. However, if someone were to visit Collins, these bodyguards would swiftly close their distance from Collins’s house and investigate the visitor. So long as they found anything suspicious about the visitor, they would promptly charge into Collins’s house and apprehend the other party.

These were all things the bodyguards had said to the shota Dark Guard. However, up till this point, the bodyguards never saw the need to break into Collins’s house. This was because Collins’s visitors were mainly his colleagues from work. These colleagues were usually otakus with clean backgrounds, so they wouldn’t be a threat to Collins’s safety.

However, if Alice approached the subject with “Collins has been secretly nurturing his own forces” as a starting point, the company Collins worked for would be very suspicious. Moreover, seeing as this company’s employees would frequently visit Collins, the whole company’s employees might actually be the forces Collins had cultivated in secret.

Although this way of thinking felt very much like a conspiracy theory, Alice had to rule out all possibilities. So, even if it was only baseless speculation, so long as there was a possibility for it to be true, she had to investigate it.

“Let’s go, little guy,” Alice said as she gave the daydreaming shota next to her a pat on the head. Then, she stood up and got ready to leave.

It was currently nighttime already, so Collins and his colleagues should have gone home from work already. Collins’s company building should be devoid of people right now, so it was the perfect opportunity to investigate the company.

While she was out, she could also get the “battle” between the Hero and the Demon King taken care of. King Haydn had become quite restless because there had been no news about the Demon King this past week. He had already called her multiple times. She felt that King Haydn was going to have a heart attack if she didn’t take care of the Demon King matter soon.

However, it wasn’t strange for King Haydn to have such a reaction. After all, the Demon King was a walking arsenal of taboos. It’d be strange if he wasn’t anxious that such an existence was lurking in the heart of his kingdom. It was also fortunate that this information was only known by the Rhine Kingdom’s royalty and a select few nobles. If this information were to spread, Icarus City would probably become a ghost city within a few days.

Although the shota Dark Guard didn’t know what Alice wanted to do, he didn’t have any excess processing abilities. So, since Alice told him to follow her, he obediently followed her out of the house.

The reason Alice chose not to dismiss the shota Dark Guard was because she still needed him to continue observing Collins amidst the eldest prince’s bodyguards. Although resummoning a Dark Guard was as simple as pulling out It’s So Short, she found it incredibly awkward to hold an anal plug in her hand. Hence, she had kept the shota Dark Guard materialized throughout this entire time. So long as he didn’t engage in battle and waste mana, he should have no problems staying materialized for half a month.

Collins did not hide the whereabouts of his workplace. So, Alice got to learn the location of the game development company he worked at through the shota Dark Guard. However, the company Collins worked for wasn’t a big one. It mostly developed simple PC games and mobile games.

After putting on her shoes, Alice left the house with the shota magician. Then, she made her way to her destination.

Let’s hope you’re not the mastermind trying to mess up the relationship between humans and demons.

In reality, Alice had quite a favorable opinion of Collins. So, she sincerely hoped that he wasn’t the mastermind.

But if you are the mastermind… I’m afraid the “battle” between the Hero and Demon King will have to take place at your office.