The Tale of Hero Alice’s Social Death - Chapter 385: Unexpected Harvest?

“Is there something wrong with Soul’s Return? I saw that it was recorded in one of the elective textbooks for second-year high school students, so it should be a popular spell,” Alice said, scratching her head.

Andusia was right to assume that Alice did not read the spell’s introduction. This was because Alice had skipped straight to studying the spell’s operating principles after opening the book. Meanwhile, based on what she gathered from reading the operating principles, she concluded that Soul’s Return could indeed be used to influence the remnant souls lingering in the air. Hence, she had learned it.

In Alice’s opinion, any spell that could manipulate the remnant souls lingering in the air should suffice for her purposes. After all, she was only out to collect a small amount of remnant souls to stuff into the Living Wood figurine and get it to have the skin characteristics of a human. She didn’t need precise control over souls to accomplish this task.

In addition, Soul’s Return wasn’t a particularly complicated spell, which suited Alice’s needs perfectly since she didn’t have much time to invest in learning soul magic.

“Elective textbooks… They’re letting children learn such a thing?” Andusia scratched her head when she heard Alice’s words. Then, she took a deep breath and looked at Alice, saying, “Listen well. Soul’s Return might be an easy-to-learn spell, but it has very limited uses… It can indeed do a simple search for remnant souls and manipulate them, but the selection of remnant souls is extremely restricted.”

“The selection of remnant souls?” Andusia’s words stunned Alice. “What do you mean?”

“Soul’s Return is designed specifically to target only remnant souls that have attached themselves to intelligent creatures. In other words, under normal circumstances, this spell can only collect remnant souls attached to a person for reasons such as ‘yearning,'” Andusia explained.

“For example, say that your grandfather is incredibly worried about you even on his deathbed. His ‘yearning’ will cause a portion of his soul to stick to you even after his death. This remnant soul won’t cause you any harm. On the contrary, some strong people’s remnant souls can even bring blessings to their target of yearning. Anyway, that’s the gist of things.”

“So, you’re saying that Soul’s Return can only manipulate such remnant souls?”

Realization dawned on Alice. In other words, Soul’s Return could only be used to collect the remnant souls attached to a person for reasons such as yearning and was useless against remnant souls lingering in the air.

“Yes. Also, while it is true that Soul’s Return can manipulate the remnant souls attached to a person, the spell’s main purpose is actually to project images of those remnant souls,” Andusia said, shrugging as she looked at Alice’s frustrated expression. “In other words, this spell is normally used to remember the deceased. For example, should a day come when you miss your late grandfather, you can use this spell to collect your late grandfather’s remnant soul, project his image, and pay homage to him… Needless to say, most people wouldn’t try to stuff the souls blessing them into a figurine.”

Indeed… Only a cold-blooded person would be capable of stuffing their family members’ remnant souls into a figurine.

Not that I would have any of such remnant souls lingering around me, Alice thought to herself. She was alone in this world. Although she did have deceased family members back on Earth, the souls of people on Earth were much weaker than those of people in this world. So, it was highly unlikely any remnant souls were attached to her right now.

Although Alice also had the option of using Soul’s Return on someone else and using the remnant souls attached to that person to stuff into the Living Wood figurine…that was far too inhumane of an action to do. She wasn’t crazy enough or desperate enough to do such a thing.

“What should I do, then? How about you use one of your soul spells to collect a remnant soul, Andusia?”

Alice felt rather helpless in this situation. Soul’s Return was the only soul spell she knew right now. Although she could access a few soul taboos if she wielded the right type of panties, the active skills attached to those panties were either meant to suppress or purify souls.

However, in Alice’s opinion, while she might be out of options, it was a different story for Andusia. As a veteran Demon King, Andusia had learned a bunch of taboos when she was alive, so she should know one or two soul taboos, right? In that case, she might as well get Andusia to help her with the Living Wood figurine.

“Cough, cough… While I do know some soul taboos, they either can’t be used in this situation or will create a huge commotion,” Andusia said with an awkward expression on her face. “You should know that Demon Kings learn taboos for the express purpose of fighting. So, I didn’t bother learning taboos that didn’t have any use in combat…

“Most of the soul taboos I know use souls as ammunition for curses or attacks. I say most, but the two exceptions I have can’t be used in this situation, either. The first exception is a soul taboo meant to extract the user’s own soul to attach to a soul container. The second exception is a taboo called Soul Fortress. It is a taboo that can exert considerably powerful control over souls. However, if I use that, I’d be extracting the souls of every living individual in Icarus City…”

“…”

Alice closed her eyes and sighed. Unfortunately, it would seem that she couldn’t rely on Andusia, either. After all, she couldn’t possibly have Andusia use that “Soul Fortress,” right? The taboo might allow its user to control souls, but it was a taboo with a massive range. Even if Andusia did her best to limit the taboo’s range, there was a high possibility of an accident occurring, and the last thing Alice wanted was to add more troubles to her plate.

“It seems I have no choice but to try this spell…”

Although Alice felt rather helpless, she decided to try Soul’s Return. Immediately, mana spread from her body to the surroundings. Then, in no time, she sensed the presence of a few remnant souls in the room.

“Indeed, I can’t control the remnant souls in the air…”

Of course, that wasn’t to say that someone had died or gotten killed in this house recently. Most remnant souls that lingered in the air were incredibly fragmented and would wander around with time. Moreover, unless they were deliberately erased, these remnant souls wouldn’t disappear with them. So, after human civilization had existed for more than ten thousand years, remnant souls could be found almost everywhere in the air. Some of the remnant souls in the room might even belong to someone from thousands of years ago.

The Living Wood didn’t have any requirements for a soul’s completeness. So long as the remnant soul belonged to a human, even if it was incredibly fragmented, it was enough to get the Living Wood to take on the skin characteristics of a human. Unfortunately, none of these remnant souls reacted when Alice tried to manipulate them using Soul’s Return.

However, just when Alice had thought of canceling her spell, she suddenly got a strange feeling. Although none of the remnant souls lingering in the surroundings reacted to her, she sensed that a soul somewhere had shown a little movement because of her Soul’s Return…