The Tale of Hero Alice's Social Death - Chapter 235

Chapter 235 – Dogkins’ Search Engine

Compared to the catkins, the dogkins had slightly stricter personalities.

Alice was heading to the dogkins’ settlement Midog by herself this time. Of course, Andusia remained seated on her shoulder like usual, but the dogkins were unlikely to notice that she was an actual person.

The process of teleporting to Midog was similar to when she teleported to Elkite. After finding the teleportation room labeled with the “Midog” sign, Alice entered the room and activated the teleportation array via the provided interface.

Compared to when she teleported to Elkite, Alice experienced a much more nauseating feeling when she teleported to Midog. She deduced that this was because Midog was farther away from Holl City than Elkite. After all, the side effects of teleportation typically became more prominent the greater the distance traveled.

After the teleportation ended, Alice appeared in Midog’s teleportation house. It wasn’t much different from Elkite’s teleportation house. If she had to point out something different, it would be the presence of a vending machine in Midog’s teleportation house. After taking a quick look, Alice found that the vending machine was selling various bone-flavored carbonated drinks.

Admittedly, Alice found these drinks quite novel since she had never seen any shops in Holl City selling such flavors. Even so, she wasn’t the least bit interested in tasting these drinks.

After stepping out of the teleportation house, Alice found herself looking at a relatively retro town. Unlike the catkins in Elkite, most of the dogkins she could see wore a serious look on their faces.

Several dogkins walking on the street noticed Alice when she walked out of the teleportation house. Similar to Elkite’s catkins, these dogkins revealed surprised expressions when they saw a human walking out of the teleportation house. It would seem that none of them expected to see a human here.

A few dogkins seemingly recognized Alice, the surprise on their faces looking much more prominent. Midog was a municipality located within the Gryffin Kingdom. No matter how little attention these dogkins paid to the news, they were bound to learn about important pieces of information, such as the Gryffin Kingdom’s new princess(es). Hence, it was normal for some dogkins to recognize Alice.

Aside from the pedestrians, Alice noticed a few dogkins dressed in police uniforms. When these officers saw Alice, they took out a booklet from their pockets and flipped through it for a moment. Then, they resumed their patrol of the town, leaving Alice to her own devices.

When Alice saw this, she was once again reassured of Elodie’s work efficiency. With this, she should be able to walk around Midog without being harassed by law enforcement.

“But the dogkins sure have strict personalities. They’re completely different from the catkins,” Alice muttered as she walked through the streets of Midog.

She had come across quite a few dogkins merrily chatting with each other. Even so, the overall atmosphere in Midog was nowhere near as carefree as the atmosphere in Elkite. The catkins gave off a relaxed feeling even while they were at work, whereas the dogkins looked extremely serious when they were working. Even the shopkeepers of the shops she passed by wore serious looks on their faces.

“Every beastkin race has different characteristics, so this is normal. You’ll get used to it soon enough,” Andusia said while stiffly maintaining her sitting posture on Alice’s shoulder. Naturally, she had transmitted her voice directly into Alice’s ears. “At the very least, the situation here is much better than the beastkins living over at the demon realm. Take the wolfkins living in the demon realm, for example. When you walk into their settlement, every one of them will look at you as if you are food.”

Any beastkin race capable of living in the demon realm was a race that worshiped strength without exception. Hence, it was normal for the demon realm’s wolfkins to show such behavior.

Of course, the situation Andusia described was the wolfkins’ settlement thousands of years ago. Now that the current demon realm had established its own order, the situation over there wasn’t as chaotic as before. Hence, it was unlikely that the behavior of the demon realm’s wolfkins was as excessive as Andusia described anymore.

Alice followed the street signs and reached Midog’s administrative building unhindered. Then, she found the dogkins’ chieftain in one of the offices in the building.

The dogkins’ chieftain was similarly a serious dogkin. Appearance-wise, he was a male dogkin with gray canine ears on his head.

“Greetings, Your Highness Alice. I’ve heard much about you,” the dogkins’ chieftain said as he looked at Alice seriously. “I have already been informed of the purpose of your visit by Shadow. Although I do not know how you managed to convince Shadow to help you, since we have already promised to help her, we will not go back on our word.”

Shadow?

Alice was momentarily stunned. Then, she quickly realized that “Shadow” was most likely Elodie’s alias in the thieving industry. It also made sense that Elodie would use an alias. If she were to operate as a thief using her real name, it probably wouldn’t take more than a few days for her identity to get exposed.

Alice only had the fortune of knowing Elodie’s real identity because she had Rosa paving the way for her. Otherwise, if she were to contact Elodie through the thief circle, she would most likely only get to interact with an unknown thief going by the alias of “Shadow.”

“I will lead you to our chief totem,” the dogkins’ chieftain said as he stood up from his seat. Then, he led Alice to the administrative building’s third floor. “The chief totem doesn’t have a lot of energy accumulated, so we can only allow you to use it up to three times. Please understand.”

They’re actually giving me three uses?

Alice originally thought she could only use the dogkins’ chief totem once. She didn’t think she would get three uses. This was far outside of her expectations. However, Alice only needed the chief totem to search for the Demon King’s Power, so it was unlikely that she would need the two extra uses.

After arriving on the third floor, the dogkins’ chieftain stopped in front of a room. Then, he placed both hands on the room’s door and injected a continuous stream of mana into it.

“He’s unlocking the door,” Andusia explained, conveying her voice directly into Alice’s ears. “I can sense at least twenty complex magic locks set up around this room, so it’s going to take some time to unlock all of them.”

Magic locks, huh…

Against the average person, these 20-plus magic locks would definitely serve as a huge obstacle. Moreover, with how many locks there were in place, even a person who knew the combination to unlock these locks would need some time to unlock all of them.

However, supposed Alice needed to force her way into the room. In that case, she could easily get past these magic locks by giving them the concept of “ordinary lock” using Aspect Separation followed by a simple Lockpick spell.

“Okay, sorry for the long wait.” After working on the door for a few minutes, the dogkins’ chieftain removed his hands from the door and wiped the sweat on his forehead. Then, he nodded to Alice, opened the door, and stepped aside, saying, “Please enter. I believe you have already been informed of the chief totem’s usage method, right?”

“Yes. Thank you for the hard work.”

Alice nodded and entered the room, closing the door behind her. Meanwhile, the dogkins’ chieftain stood guard by the door. Although this might make it seem that he didn’t trust Alice, it was his duty to inspect the chief totem’s condition. Hence, once Alice was done using it, he needed to check how many times Alice had used the chief totem.

Alice didn’t mind that the dogkins’ chieftain was standing guard outside the room. The inside of the room was perfectly isolated from the outside world, so she didn’t have to worry that anything she did inside would be noticed outside.

“Andusia, you know what to do, right?”

“Yes, yes. I get it, I get it.”

Andusia rolled her eyes at Alice. Now that they were in this isolated room, she naturally didn’t have to continue speaking to Alice using magic. Although using such magic was as easy as eating and drinking for her, it still expended some of her energy.

After taking a look at the unremarkable cuboid canine totem sitting in the middle of the room, Andusia jumped off Alice’s shoulder and landed on the totem. Then, she sat cross-legged on the totem.

The dogkins’ chief totem was only as wide as an adult man’s arm. However, Andusia was only a small figurine, so she had no trouble sitting on it.

“I heard that the dogkins’ chief totem can search for the location of anything so long as it has a medium. Let’s check if that claim is true,” Andusia said, chuckling. Then, she injected some of her mana into the totem.