The Tale of Hero Alice's Social Death - Chapter 225

Chapter 225 – Fate Works in Strange Ways

Andusia recalled that her catkin friend had left behind children before she died.

Elkite wasn’t a big town, and its population was relatively small. So, the people living here didn’t move houses frequently like those living in big cities. Most catkin families would typically stay in the same home even after thousands of years had passed.

Andusia didn’t have anything productive to do during all those years she spent in the Living Wood. So, whenever she was bored out of her mind, she would think back to and memorize the decades of memories she had made when she was alive. Because of this, her memories of when she was alive remained fresh in her mind, and that included the location of her friend’s house.

Since Elkite was very well hidden, it wasn’t until the humans had abolished slavery and made amends with the various beastkin races that its location was revealed. Hence, Elkite had never suffered any attacks throughout all these years, and the town’s layout remained mostly the same as Andusia remembered.

This situation made it very easy for Andusia to search for the location in her memories. Meanwhile, as soon as she arrived within the vicinity of the location, she quickly recognized her friend’s house.

Obviously, there were some differences between the house before her and the house in her memories. It was evident that the house’s owners had given it some upgrades as the originally two-story house had been converted into a three-story house. However, the two small cat ear-shaped attics on the roof were colored black, just like Andusia remembered.

The cat ears that decorated the buildings in Elkite weren’t just decorations. Instead, they also functioned as triangular lofts. Meanwhile, as per tradition, catkins would paint these lofts in the color of their family’s hair color. So, the black cat ears on the house before Andusia meant that the family staying in it mainly had black hair.

As Andusia recalled, her catkin friend had a pair of black cat ears and a black cat tail. So, seeing the color of the house’s cat ears further raised Andusia’s hopes that the people living in this house were her friend’s descendants.

Of course, Andusia couldn’t just waltz up to the house and knock on the door in her current form. Otherwise, with the catkins’ disposition to tease small animals, the house’s current owners might chase her around like a toy.

There was also the option of increasing her body size with magic. Since Living Wood would display the characteristics of a living creature when it had a soul inhabiting it, if she expanded her body’s size with magic, the average person wouldn’t notice that she was actually a gigantified figurine.

However, while catkins might have reconciled with humans and were getting along quite well with humans, Elkite was still a semi-closed town. The town might allow outsiders to enter it, but that was under the precondition that these outsiders had permission. Meanwhile, Andusia had entered the town without any official paperwork. So long as she was discovered, the catkins would definitely treat her as a hostile intruder.

Whatever… I’m only here to see whether the people living here are her descendants. I don’t have to talk to them to do so.

After hesitating for a while, Andusia revealed a helpless smile and gave up on taking the direct approach. Instead, she decided to take advantage of her small frame to sneak into the house and investigate.

Catkins were a race that attached great importance to family. So, they would keep detailed records about their family in their home. It was possible to find records of even ancestors from thousands of years ago.

If the family living in this house turned out to be the descendants of her friend, Andusia decided that she would ask Alice to ensure the peace and stability of her friend’s descendants. In exchange, she would help Alice with whatever she could.

The main reason Andusia had become a Demon King was because of her catkin friend. So, the importance of her friend in her heart went without saying. If she could ensure that her friend’s descendants lived a peaceful life, she wouldn’t mind cooperating with Alice.

While keeping herself concealed using magic, Andusia flew to the house’s second floor and easily breached it through an open window.

This looks like a girl’s room.

After looking around for a moment, Andusia quickly concluded that, even though the room’s decorations were different from the conventional decorations during her era, the room she had entered belonged to a young lady. There were also quite a few textbooks on the desk.

Aside from this detail, Andusia also keenly noticed a few strands of cat hair on the floor. Catkins shed their hair quite often. This was something Andusia was well aware of since her friend had complained about it on more than one occasion.

Black hair… It seems the catkins living here are indeed black cats.

Andusia nodded in satisfaction after verifying this point. Then, she walked to the door, opened it, and boldly walked out of the bedroom.

There was no one else in the second-floor corridor. However, Andusia could hear some bits of conversation coming from the first floor. Although she didn’t use wind magic to deliberately eavesdrop on the conversation, she could still faintly hear words such as “friend is coming over” and “make something delicious.”

It would seem that this family would be having a friend over later.

Andusia didn’t continue eavesdropping. Instead, she made her way straight to the third floor and found the ladders leading up to the two cat-ear attics.

Catkins would typically keep their genealogy and things they normally didn’t use in their attics. After searching the two attics, Andusia found this family’s genealogy in the second attic.

After setting up a small barrier on the attic’s entrance, Andusia began looking through this genealogy. The genealogy wasn’t written on a piece of old parchment or tree bark handed down thousands of years ago. Instead, it was rewritten into a new book. Even so, the content was not lacking whatsoever.

According to the index on the first page, this genealogy started around 5,000 years ago. It was also around that era that catkins had taken on the habit of writing genealogies. Catkins of earlier eras didn’t have such a habit, so their names naturally weren’t recorded.

After flipping through around a dozen pages, Andusia finally found the name she was looking for.

“Jill Maelor…” Andusia sighed when she saw the familiar name. While caressing this name with her little hand, she muttered, “I can’t believe it is actually you.”

A couple of thousand years ago, Andusia had come to know a catkin in a human kingdom. In an era where it was common for catkins to be captured and enslaved, the catkin known as Jill Maelor had visited the various human kingdoms, hoping that she could convince the various human kings to let humans and catkins progress together. In addition, she had also raised the hidden dangers of slavery and the conflicts that it might bring about in the future.

As a human and the daughter of a nobleman, Andusia was deeply persuaded by Jill’s words. She also decided to stand on the same front as Jill and help convince others to the catkin’s cause. Meanwhile, because slave riots would often occur during that period, their ideology received unexpectedly strong support.

Unfortunately, Jill was eventually betrayed and died tragically at the hands of slavers. Andusia had also become a Demon King because of this and embarked on the road of drowning the human realm in the flames of war.

See? Jill was right. Slavery is so dangerous that it managed to bring about the birth of a Demon King, Andusia thought sarcastically. After such a long time had passed, she had long since learned to look at her past self and humans of the past with a playful attitude.

Shaking her head, Andusia stopped her reminiscence and turned to the last page that wasn’t empty. Seeing as her friend had been such a strong and intelligent catkin, she believed that her friend’s descendants should be just as brilliant as her friend was.

Holding such a belief in her mind, Andusia cast her gaze toward the last and most recent name recorded in the genealogy in the hopes of seeing her friend through this name.