The Tale of Hero Alice’s Social Death

Chapter 188: Why Does It Seem Like Things Are Going to Get Out of Hand?

Alice rented a house for Lacey in the March Academy's "noble's dormitory" and found a set of advanced alchemy textbooks for her.

Lacey was mostly self-taught in alchemy, so she wasn't particularly well-known in the Ymir Kingdom's Kilub Royal School of Magic. King Celtic and the old king had never publicized Lacey's identity, either, so nobody in Kilub Academy actually knew that Lacey was the current Ymir King's illegitimate daughter. After all, unlike Hatter, Celtic was someone with a wife and a son. If it was made known that he had an illegitimate daughter, it would definitely tarnish his reputation.

For this reason, Lacey didn't have much authority within Kilub Academy, and she could only progress her studies according to the academy's syllabus. If she wanted to study more advanced alchemy materials, she would have to do it without the academy's assistance.

Meanwhile, it was also because Lacey's alchemy knowledge was self-taught for the most part that she never had much confidence in her own skills. As a result, even after coming to the March Academy with Alice, she didn't set out to construct Kristine's body immediately. Instead, she began revising her theoretical knowledge to avoid any unexpected accidents.

Alice also expressed her understanding of Lacey's need to revise. Hence, she had rented a house in the noble's dormitory for Lacey. Although the houses in the noble's dormitory cost a lot more money to rent than the rooms in the normal dormitory, Alice was the Gryffin Kingdom's "princess." This much money wasn't a problem for her.

Lacey didn't spend too much time revising. Three days after arriving at the March Academy, she informed Alice that she was ready, and Alice brought Kristine to Lacey's house.

After entering the house, Alice noticed that Lacey had done some remodeling in the living room. Specifically, she had moved all of the furniture that originally decorated the living room into the storage room, opening up a large vacant area. Then, she had drawn various complicated alchemy arrays on the floor. At the very least, they were complicated enough that Alice could not understand any of them.

In reality, there were many similarities between basic alchemy arrays and some magic arrays. So, if the alchemy arrays Lacey had drawn were on a basic level, Alice could more or less understand their purposes. However, evidently, the complexity of the alchemy arrays drawn on the living room floor had already exceeded Alice's realm of understanding.

"Will this child be responsible for creating my body?" Kristine asked as she flew out of the Soul Gathering Tablet in Alice's hand and looked at Lacey. Currently, the only people in this house were Alice, Luna, and Lacey. All three of these people knew about her soul's existence, so there was no need for her to hide her presence. "Hello, nice to meet you. I am Kristine."

"H-Hello, Lord Hero," Lacey greeted, her eyes darting between Alice and Kristine.

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Lacey was in the midst of sorting through some alchemy materials when Alice's group arrived. When she saw Kristine's soul flying out of the Soul Gathering Tablet, she couldn't help but grow nervous. After all, she was meeting two generations of Heroes simultaneously. Not even the present human kings and human kings of past generations have had such a privilege before.

"We won't know who you're talking to if you use that manner of address," Alice said, chuckling when she heard Lacey's greeting. While it wasn't particularly difficult to tell who Lacey was talking to, it would still create a little confusion if Lacey kept addressing her and Kristine as "Lord Hero" when both of them were in the same room. "Just call me by my name in the future since I still need to keep my identity a secret right now."

"Understood, Lady Alice," Lacey said, attaching an honorific to Alice's name. Although she knew that Alice was a friendly person, she still couldn't help but act a little reserved around Alice. It was especially so considering she was about to create a body for the previous generation's Hero. "Then, please give me the Soul Gathering Tablet."

"Should I excuse myself?" Alice asked after handing Kristine's Soul Gathering Tablet to Lacey.

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"Yes, if possible. Please wait in the bedroom, Lady Alice," Lacey said, her nervous expression getting replaced by a serious one as she got into her work mode. "If other people are present during the construction process, it might cause the soul's fluctuations to deviate a little and affect its compatibility with the constructed body."

"Got it. I'll be waiting for your good news," Alice said, nodding. Then, she entered the nearby bedroom. The bedroom's environment was no different than a standard room available in the normal dormitory. Lacey had only brought some simple items when she moved in, so the bedroom furniture was the standard furniture the academy provided.

After making herself comfortable on the bed, Alice looked at Luna, who stood beside the bed, and asked, "Luna, did you feel anything special when the Demon King's Power possessed your body?"

Alice already knew why Luna was so obsessed with the Hero. However, she still didn't know much about Luna's experience after the Demon King's Power chose her as its host. Hence, she decided to use this opportunity to satisfy her curiosity and increase her understanding of the Demon King's Power. After all, once Kristine got her new body, they would have to formally consider how they should deal with the Demon King's Power.

Before Luna could offer an answer, Alice and Luna suddenly sensed a huge amount of mana appearing outside the door. Evidently, Lacey had already begun constructing Kristine's body. Although Alice was interested to learn about this alchemy process, she held back her urges to take a peek to avoid creating any unwanted problems.

"I felt sick for a few days. My body would burn up to the point where my consciousness started to blur. In addition, my skin had turned purple, looking as if all the capillaries in my body had burst apart," Luna answered. "That should be the process of the Demon King's Power modifying my body. I felt like I could die at any moment throughout that period. My body only began to recover a few days later. Even then, it still hurt a lot."

"Those sound like rare symptoms. Maybe we can locate the new Demon King based on these reactions in the future," Alice said with a thoughtful look. If the Demon King's Power would cause its host to exhibit such obvious reactions when it modified its host's body, they could use this knowledge to locate the new Demon King.

The Loli Goddess would learn of the Demon King's Power's general location when it attached itself to a new host. Once they had this information, they could quickly locate the new Demon King so long as they searched for someone suffering from a high fever and showing purple skin in the targeted area.

While Alice and Luna were talking, the state of the mana outside underwent a continuous change. Upon noticing this, Alice couldn't help but marvel at this process's complexity. At the same time, she also realized that Lacey must have a very high level of control over mana.

Roughly half an hour later, the mana outside gradually dissipated. A moment later, Lacey's somewhat conflicted voice came through the door:

"You can come out now, Lady Alice."