The Tale of Hero Alice's Social Death - Chapter 170

Chapter 170 – Furry Tribe (Not)

“Welcome, Lord Demon King.”

After much deliberation, Alice had decided to meet with Frosette again. However, their meeting wasn’t taking place in a cramped cubicle in the library this time. After learning that the March Academy’s “Academy Know-It-All” was Frosette, Alice chose to meet Frosette directly in her dormitory.

Frosette was a year two student in the March Academy’s high school division, and she belonged to Class C01. Hence, her dormitory building was just next to Alice’s dormitory building.

After Alice contacted Frosette, she quickly found Frosette’s room according to the instructions she was given. Then, she opened the door and entered the room.

Frosette’s room looked rather plain compared to Alice and Zauna’s room. Unlike Zauna, who had decorated the room with all sorts of ornaments and small objects, Frosette didn’t bother decorating her room. Moreover, what surprised Alice was that there was only one bed in Frosette’s room.

“As you know, it’ll be problematic if my true identity gets exposed, so I can’t have other people staying with me,” Frosette explained after noticing Alice looking at her bed in surprise. “So, I discussed it with my roommate and paid her to move out.”

“So that’s how it is.”

Alice nodded, expressing her understanding. Frosette was a spy for the demon race, so she naturally needed to communicate with the demon realm frequently. If someone else lived with her, there was a high risk that she’d get exposed.

“So, what is you want from me, Lord Demon King? I will do my best to assist you so long as it is within my capabilities,” Frosette said as she moved over a chair for Alice. Then, she sat on her bed and casually said, “By the way, I heard that you fought against the Hero some time ago, Lord Demon King. Although it is unfortunate that you lost…it doesn’t matter. After all, the Hero awakened a little sooner than you. In time, I’m sure you’ll be able to overtake the Hero, Lord Demon King!”

With how widespread that piece of news had become, it was only natural that Frosette had learned about the fight. It was also only natural for Frosette to assume that the Demon King in that fight was Alice in disguise.

“Let’s set that matter aside for some other time,” Alice said, massaging her temples.

This matter was too much of a headache for Alice to talk about right now. After all, she was technically both the Hero and the Demon King. She had just finished talking with Hatter as the Hero, yet here she was, talking to Frosette as the Demon King a moment later. She felt that she was going to develop a split personality soon if she kept on talking about the fight from different perspectives.

Not to mention, Alice had visited Frosette because she had something to ask the other party:

“Since you said that the demons have planted spies in the five human kingdoms’ best magic academies, that means you have a spy in the Rhine Kingdom’s Royal Magic Tower as well, right?”

The Rhine Royal Magic Tower operated under strict regulations, so not much information about the tower was available to the public. The only thing most people knew was that the tower housed a wealth of knowledge.

Moreover, the Royal Magic Tower’s research on unique magic was second to none, and it was one of the main contributors to the various unique spells available in the world. One example would be the Energize spell. Although the latest version of the Energize spell was developed thanks to the joint effort of countless capitalists, the prototype version of the spell had originated from the Royal Magic Tower.

After discovering this fact, Alice felt that the Rhine Royal Magic Tower might possess many taboos that other magic academies did not possess. If her conjecture was correct, she could try to acquire the Royal Magic Tower’s taboos by putting in a request with the Rhine Kingdom’s king.

However, before doing so, she wanted to first make sure that there indeed existed strange and unique taboos inside the Royal Magic Tower. Hence, she had chosen to seek out Frosette.

“We do have an agent in the Royal Magic Tower. However, because of the tower’s strict regulations, it’s a little tough for him to relay messages out of the tower. He can only do so at fixed intervals,” Frosette said, nodding. “Typically, he can only send reports out of the tower during Friday nights. If you need any information for him, it’s best if you tell me now, Lord Demon King. I’ll ask him about it when he sends in his weekly report tomorrow.”

It was Thursday today, which meant that the spy would be sending in his weekly report tomorrow night.

In reality, Alice could’ve simply used her identity as the Hero to ask for this information from the Rhine Kingdom’s king. She doubted that the Rhine King would refuse. However, if she went with that route, she’d have to wait until she met with the Rhine King, state her request to him at that time, and wait for some time before she could acquire the information she wanted. The entire process would take too much time, and Alice didn’t have the patience to wait for so long.

“Have him check what taboos are in the Royal Magic Tower for me.”

Alice was currently speaking to Frosette as the Demon King, so there was no problem for her to give orders to Frosette. Not to mention, the demon race revered strength. After watching the video of the “Demon King” casting taboos, Frosette naturally wouldn’t be resistant toward carrying out Alice’s commands.

“I see. Do you plan on learning the Royal Magic Tower’s taboos as well, Lord Demon King?” Frosette quickly understood Alice’s aim. The Demon King and the Hero would grow stronger with time. Meanwhile, if they could learn a greater variety of taboos during this period, it’d give them an additional edge over each other when they fought in the future. “That won’t be a problem. I’ll pass on your message to the agent’s handler later and have the agent send over the Royal Magic Tower’s taboo catalog tomorrow.”

“Besides the Royal Magic Tower, do you know of any other places that house rare and unique taboos?” Alice asked as she watched Frosette jotting down her orders into a notepad. “Preferably taboos that are different from those stored in the March Academy.”

“The taboos the various magic academies store are typically meant for researching and developing magic technology, so the taboos they collect are indeed lacking in diversification. But if we are talking about places holding the most unique taboos…” After pondering for a moment, Frosette said, “It’d have to be the beastkin tribes, I suppose?”

“The beastkin tribes?”

Alice was momentarily stunned. She naturally knew about the existence of beastkin. She would also occasionally come across beastkin in the March Academy. She had even talked with some of these beastkin students a few days ago.

The beastkin were essentially humanoid versions of their beast counterparts. However, it’d be wrong to assume that all beastkin looked like beasts walking on two feet.

The beastkin shared a good relationship with the humans, so interracial marriages happened frequently. As a result, the purity of the beastkin’s bloodline had thinned out to varying extents over the years. Meanwhile, depending on the purity of their bloodline, their appearances would also differ.

The purer a beastkin’s bloodline, the more they would look like a beast walking upright on two feet. For example, there was a male foxkin with a relatively pure bloodline in Class B02. When Alice first saw the boy, the first thought that came to her mind was that the other party was a fox wearing clothes and walking on two legs. Though, upon closer look, she found that his face somewhat resembled a human’s face. It was just that his entire body was covered in fur. However, because his fur was soft and pleasant to the touch, he was relatively popular among the girls of his class.

Conversely, the thinner a beastkin’s bloodline, the more human they would look. Take the female catkin in Class C06, the class next to Alice’s, for example. Other than having a cat tail and a pair of cat ears, the girl looked no different than a human. She didn’t have any fur covering her body like the foxkin boy in Class B02. If Alice didn’t know any better, she would’ve thought that the girl was cosplaying.

“The beastkin will have different characteristics depending on their races. For example, the foxkin’s charm, the catkin’s agility, etc. Because of this difference, the beastkin had also developed varying taboos that allowed them to take advantage of their different characteristics,” Frosette explained. “The operating principles of these taboos are mostly based on the beastkin’s characteristics, so they don’t have much use in technology development. However, some of these taboos can also be used by humans and demons. So, if you wish to learn about unique taboos, your best bet would be the beastkin tribes, Lord Demon King.”

“Is it really okay to use those taboos?”

Alice felt a little torn when she heard Frosette’s answer. Although the beastkin shared similar cultures to humans because of their good relationship with humans, it was still a fact that the beastkin had different body structures than humans. What if there were side effects for a human to use the beastkin’s taboos?

“Will I end up growing extra ears or a tail?”

“That… I’m not too sure…”

Frosette was only making a suggestion. She honestly didn’t know what would happen if humans and demons tried using the beastkin’s taboos.