Chapter 174 – Catkin Girl Ciel

Alice decided to wait until the Conference of Kings before she made a decision on Etoria’s matter. She felt that it was necessary to get up close and learn what kind of person Etoria really was before she decided how she would deal with him.

Should the need arise, Alice wasn’t worried that she couldn’t deal with Etoria, either. Regardless of the circumstances, Alice wasn’t just the humans’ Hero right now. She was also the demons’ Demon King. She took on the two most important roles in the war between the human and demon realms. So, if she intended to take care of Etoria, the prince would have no power to resist her whatsoever.

Aside from learning about Etoria, Alice also needed to figure out what had happened in the Rhine Kingdom. Why would Etoria, the person who was almost certain to inherit the throne, find the need to collude with the demons to inherit the position of king? There was clearly something strange about this situation.

However, these were all questions saved for next week. For now, Alice shifted her focus to the other group that she had prioritized in her plan—the beastkins.

Setting aside the Rhine Kingdom’s Royal Magic Tower, the only other places Alice could gain access to unique taboos reliably were the various human kingdoms’ intelligence departments and beastkin tribes.

Alice had no intentions of choosing between these two options. She was going to go for everything. In the case of the intelligence department’s taboo collection, Alice should be able to acquire it so long as she talked with Hatter. However, Alice would have to personally take the field regarding the beastkin tribes’ taboos.

While there might be some beastkin tribes living in autonomous regions inside the various human kingdoms, they were not humans. Thus, Hatter couldn’t just command the beastkin tribes to hand over their taboos. This might lead to him getting denounced for racial discrimination.

Hence, if Alice wanted to learn the beastkin tribes’ taboos without putting others in a bind, she would have to contact the various beastkin tribes and form a good relationship with them.

Fortunately, the relationship between humans and beastkins had always been good. Unlike the elves, who only had Lalu to represent their race in the March Academy, plenty of beastkin students were studying in the academy. Some classes even had multiple beastkin students.

However, Alice’s class was slightly special. Probably because of Lalu’s presence, no beastkins were assigned to Alice’s class. So, if Alice wanted to form good relations with the beastkins, she’d have to visit other classes.

Alice was rather popular among Class Groups B and C, and everyone in these class groups was rather welcoming of the friendly princess. Hence, Alice had a very easy time visiting the beastkin students in the various classes. Meanwhile, after spending two days going around the various classes, she found out how many beastkin students attended the March Royal School of Magic.

One hundred and thirty… This might seem like a small number compared to the academy’s total student population, but considering that the beastkins have schools in their own tribes, having over a hundred beastkin students in a human school is already a lot, Alice thought to herself as she looked at the handbook she was holding.

Recorded on the handbook was the information Alice got from visiting the various classes these past two days. She had even included the classes in Class Group A in her visits. However, as most of the students in Class Group A were nobles, there was not a single beastkin there.

Wait, no. That wasn’t completely accurate. Most of the nobles in Class Group A had attendants, and several students had beastkins as their attendants. Moreover, almost all of these beastkin attendants were foxkins. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that these students must’ve been charmed by the beauty of the foxkins.

Of course, there was also an exception. One of the female nobles had a rabbitkin maid. When Alice visited the female noble’s classroom, the rabbitkin maid had given her a disgruntled glare. Initially, Alice was quite confused by this situation, unaware of how she had managed to offend this rabbitkin whom she was meeting for the first time. However, a moment later, she realized that it was the unconscious Milu Rabbit tied to her waist that had earned her the rabbitkin maid’s dissatisfaction.

Setting this small hiccup aside, Alice had Luna help her filter through the 130 beastkin students, and they eventually decided on the best person for their first target.

Class B10’s catkin girl—Ciel.

“That’s Ciel, right?”

While peeking through Class B10’s door, Alice quickly found her target. Although Ciel had been absent from Class B10 when Alice was conducting her reconnaissance mission previously, that did not prevent her from identifying Ciel. After all, the other party was the only catkin girl in Class B10.

It was currently the afternoon recess, and Ciel was talking with one of her female classmates. Alice couldn’t hear what the two were talking about as they were far from the door. However, the cat ears above Ciel’s head were rather conspicuous, and the ears would twitch from time to time as Ciel spoke.

Ciel was your typical beastkin with a diluted bloodline. After more than ten thousand years of interracial marriage, many beastkin bloodlines had already been diluted significantly. In the case of such beastkins, they looked largely similar to humans. The only differences between them and humans were the presence of their unique beastkin characteristics such as ears, tail, claws, etc.

Ciel was also one such beastkin. Aside from having a pair of black cat ears on top of her head and a black cat tail swaying behind her, she looked no different from the other students in the classroom. The only other difference Alice noted was that Ciel gave off the impression of a cat whenever the catkin girl smiled.

However, while Alice might be acquainted with several of Class B10’s students, she had never shared any interactions with Ciel before. Meanwhile, the reason Luna had chosen Ciel as Alice’s first target was simple. Ciel was a very friendly person, and she was quite popular in the March Academy.

For some reason, though, Ciel never tried to approach Alice. Logically, an outgoing person like Ciel would’ve taken the initiative to approach Alice, the princess known to be an amiable person. Yet, the catkin girl had done the exact opposite and treated Alice as if she were air.

Although Luna didn’t know why Ciel was ignoring Alice, based on the testimony of others, Ciel was unlikely to mind making new friends. Thus, Luna had recommended Alice to try approaching Ciel as her first target.

“Huh? Alice?”

Although Alice observed Ciel from the door, she did not enter the classroom. Even so, a boy sitting near the door still noticed her. The boy had spoken with Alice before, so he took the initiative to approach her.

“Do you have some business in our class? Did you come across another problem in your studies?”

Alice had frantically tried to cram magic knowledge into her brain since half a month ago. So, she would often seek the geniuses of the various classes for help with her studies. Meanwhile, a boy in Class B10 had ranked within the top 10 of their year in the most recent written exam, so he also became a target of one of Alice’s previous visitations. Thus, now that Alice had appeared in Class B10 again, the boy who spotted her couldn’t help but ask such a question.

“No, I’m here to find Ciel,” Alice said with a smile.

Alice wasn’t an actual princess with a princess disease, so she acted naturally even when dealing with students outside of Class Group A. This was why many students had a favorable opinion of her. Not only did she have a beautiful appearance, great talent, and noble status, but she also treated everyone kindly. Never would she put herself in a high position when talking to others.

“Ciel?” The boy froze for a moment. Then, he nodded, turned his head in Ciel’s direction, and shouted, “Ciel! Alice is looking for you!!!”

Instantly, the eyes of the entire class turned toward Alice. This included the catkin girl named Ciel.