The Tale of Hero Alice’s Social Death

Chapter 227: Lacey and Kristine

The door opened, and Kristine entered the house, holding a massive cloth sack in her arms.

"You're back, Lady Kristine?"

When Lacey heard the sound coming from the living room, she hurriedly walked out of her bedroom and found herself looking at Kristine holding a cloth sack half as big as her loli body was tall. Because of the bag's large size, Kristine needed to keep her arms partially raised while holding it. Meanwhile, judging by the gloomy expression on Kristine's face, it was obvious she was very dissatisfied with this comedic posture.

Unfortunately, there was nothing Kristine could do to solve her height problem. The soul wasn't something that could be moved from container to container casually. Now that her soul had already adapted to this new body, if she tried to separate her soul from this body, her soul would most likely end up in a fragmented state.

Kristine wasn't so desperate as to damage her soul just to get a taller body, so she had no choice but to accept her current body.

"That's right; I'm back. I brought some important things back," Kristine said as she placed the giant cloth sack on the floor. Then, she laid back on the sofa and massaged her shoulders. "Alice sure has it easy, getting to travel the world and visit the catkins' town. I don't think I've ever visited the catkins' town before. Though, I did visit the foxkins' town a few times."

"Lady Alice is doing so to study taboos and prepare for her fight with the Demon King," Lacey answered with a smile.

Lacey did not return to the Ymir Kingdom immediately after she finished constructing Kristine's body. Or, more specifically, the Ymir Kingdom's King Celtic probably wouldn't agree to let her go back even if she wanted to. After all, he was hoping that Lacey could establish a good relationship with Alice the Hero and, if possible, drag Alice over to the Ymir Kingdom.

Although it sounded cold of Celtic to treat his daughter as a tool to befriend the Hero, Lacey was only an illegitimate daughter in the Ymir Kingdom's royal family. Meanwhile, unlike the Gryffin Kingdom, the Ymir Kingdom's royal family had legitimate heirs. So, it was normal for the Ymir King not to prioritize Lacey. Lacey herself had also long grown used to this situation.

Honestly, rather than returning to the Ymir Kingdom, Lacey preferred to stay in the Gryffin Kingdom more. At the very least, Kristine and Alice treated her as an equal, unlike the Ymir Kingdom's royalty and nobles, who would constantly look at her contemptuously.

"Her fight with the Demon King? Hmph. If she really was just aiming to fight the Demon King, I wouldn't have had to make this trip," Kristine said, snorting when she heard Lacey's attempt to justify Alice's actions. However, despite her dissatisfied tone, it still didn't change the fact that she was actively helping Alice. "Alice's ambitions are much larger than that. Simply taking care of the Demon King isn't enough to satisfy her."

Kristine had already communicated with God using the "Word of God." She had also successfully learned from the Loli Goddess about Alice's mission. Different from herself and other past Heroes, Alice had a much more arduous mission.

Eliminate the Demon King's Power and erase the Demon King from its source.

Kristine was taken aback when she learned this piece of information from God. This was because the Demon King's Power was something that had existed in this world since the beginning of recorded history. Every race in this world had long since treated the Demon King's Power's existence as a natural part of this world, just like the concept of "1+1=2." So, hearing that Alice was trying to eliminate the Demon King's Power was akin to hearing about Alice trying to eliminate the concept of "1+1=2." No matter how Kristine looked at it, this was simply an unbelievable situation.

However, Kristine could also tell that God wasn't joking with her from the other party's expression. Alice's mission was indeed to permanently remove the Demon King's Power from this world.

As a Hero, Kristine naturally trusted in God's words. Not to mention, eliminating the Demon King's Power wasn't a bad idea, either. At the very least, no more Demon Kings would appear to threaten the world's peace in the future.

However, Kristine also quickly noticed a problem with this plan.

The reason demons and humans were only waging wars with each other once every several hundred years was because they viewed the Demon King and Hero as a crucial part of their war. Hence, before these two individuals appeared, neither side would act recklessly.

However, what if the Demon King's Power disappeared and the demons realized that no more Demon Kings would appear in the future? Would they dismiss their thoughts of invading the human realm?

Kristine knew full well how terrible the demon realm's environment was. As someone who grew up surrounded by the human realm's pristine mana, she would feel very uncomfortable whenever she headed into the demon realm and experienced its polluted mana.

The demons had already lived in this terrible environment for over ten thousand years. Meanwhile, right next to the demon realm with a vastly cleaner environment Could the demons resist the temptation of this cleaner environment? Definitely not.

It wasn't just the demons. If the human and demon realms' environments were switched, Kristine felt that humans would also have the urge to invade the demon realm.

Hence, if the Demon King's Power disappeared, the most likely scenario was that war would instantly break out between the two realms.

When Kristine voiced this concern to God, the Loli Goddess replied with the idea that Alice had come up with, and that was to resolve the demon realm's pollution problem. So long as they could resolve the demon realm's pollution, the demons would no longer need to invade the human realm.

This was indeed a good permanent solution. It also sounded quite easy to accomplish. Honestly, it was such a simple idea that one would assume that someone had thought about it long ago. Unfortunately, the history of this world was rife with wars between the various races. So, no one would ever think about matters from each other's perspective. Only an otherworlder like Alice would think of solving the enemy's problem.

Perhaps this was a situation where the bystander sees things more clearly than the player. Although Kristine didn't know about Alice's identity as an otherworlder, she had to admit that this was a solution she had never thought of. Moreover, if this idea could be realized, it would thoroughly erase the reason for war between the human and demon realms.

"These jars are?"

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When Lacey helped Kristine unpack the large cloth sack, she found that the sack held a bunch of seemingly empty glass jars. However, after taking a closer look, she found that these jars weren't exactly empty. Instead, it contained some type of faintly colored gas.

"What's this gas?" Lacey asked out of curiosity.

"Have you never been to the demon realm before, Lacey?" Kristine asked, smirking when she saw the clueless look on Lacey's face. Then, she picked up one of the jars and said, "Inside this jar is air from the demon realm."

"What? The demon realm's air?" Lacey was given a fright when she heard Kristine's answer. However, she quickly calmed down since she realized that while this air came from the demon realm, it was still nothing but air. So, there was no reason to be worried. "Why does the demon realm's air look purplish?"

"The demon realm's air is similar to our human realm. It is filled with mana that we normally use to train our magic. However, the demon realm's mana is heavily polluted, which has caused it to take on a purple hue. Of course, you won't normally notice this due to the demon realm's dusky environment," Kristine said, swaying the jar in her hand. "The reason I brought air from the demon realm back is also simple. Research it with me, Lacey, and see if there is any possibility of purifying it."

"Huh? Me?"

Kristine's words stunned Lacey, and she subconsciously pointed at herself. Her voice also didn't sound very confident when she spoke.

"Don't belittle yourself so much. You're a genius with the abilities of a senior alchemist. You also haven't come into contact with standardized alchemist work much, so you might be able to offer some constructive comments," Kristine said as she stood up from the sofa and looked at Lacey. "The senior alchemists under the employment of the various kingdoms are often involved with precise and large-scale alchemy work that has stringent requirements, so their thinking has become extremely rigid. You, on the other hand, have hardly come into contact with such formulaic studies and work. So, your research might yield something a little different."

After saying so, Kristine picked up her sack and pushed Lacey into the study.

"Come on, come on, come on. This is for world peace, so don't complain."