The Tale of Hero Alice's Social Death - Chapter 285

Chapter 285 – Unexpected Destination

There were no direct teleportation routes linking Rumble City and Bang Bang City since the two cities were quite close to each other. If one traveled by car, it would only take an hour to go from Rumble City to Bang Bang City. Hence, it was unnecessary to waste the large amount of manpower and materials required to construct a complex teleportation array. As a result, Alice’s group had no choice but to travel to Bang Bang City by car.

In reality, they could have easily avoided this hassle and traveled to Bang Bang much more quickly by using taboos that drastically accelerated their agility or allowed them to fly. However, everyone tacitly avoided suggesting these methods. This was because Alice seemed quite interested in this form of ordinary travel, a look of enthusiasm on her face as she walked around the streets of Rumble City and bought snacks left and right. Although the demon realm’s food had strange appearances, it tasted good, so Alice felt satisfied eating it.

When Luna saw Alice enjoying herself, she naturally wouldn’t try to ruin Alice’s fun. Andusia and Little Death had also noticed this. Although they didn’t know why Alice, a Demon King acknowledged by the Four Heavenly Kings, would be interested in an ordinary city like Rumble City, they, too, decided to go along with Alice’s whims.

Although Little Death couldn’t tell lies as an undead, she wasn’t required to take the initiative to make suggestions. Not to mention, traveling a little slower wouldn’t jeopardize Alice’s safety.

As to why Alice was taking her time traveling, it wasn’t because she was a country bumpkin who had never seen a city before. Instead, it was because the Terra Kingdom’s unique terrain reminded her of a city called Chongqing back on Earth. Of course, compared to the terrain around Chongqing, the Terra Kingdom’s terrain was many times more exaggerated. While walking down the streets of Rumble City, Alice would occasionally come across high walls that extended into the clouds. Yet, at the top of these walls was flat land.

Aside from nostalgia, Alice was also interested in the various delicacies unique to the Terra Kingdom and the strange sights in the demon realm, such as the strange trees planted along the streets. All of these things piqued her interest, so she decided that she might as well enjoy herself while making her way to the destination.

She wasn’t in a rush for time, anyway. It was still morning, and it would only take around an hour to reach Bang Bang City by car. Thus, they could afford to take their time.

Meanwhile, seemingly affected by Alice’s leisurely mood, Luna, Andusia, and Little Death also gradually got into the mood of sightseeing. Then, to their surprise, they discovered that there were quite a few things that managed to pique their interests.

“Hey, can you not eat raw meat in public? What would you do if others took notice?” Andusia said, a look of disgust on her face as she looked at Little Death.

Currently, Little Death was holding several skewers of Coulter beef in her hands and taking bites out of them as she walked. While it wasn’t against any rules to eating in public, the problem was that the Coulter beef skewers Little Death held were uncooked. The undead girl was eating the skewers raw. If others noticed this point, they’d definitely grow suspicious of Little Death.

Little Death didn’t try to argue with Andusia. Instead, she quickly tore through the raw meat with her saw-like teeth and swallowed them into her stomach, skipping the chewing process entirely.

When Alice bought these meat skewers for Little Death, she had told the shopkeeper that she would bring them home and cook them later herself. The shopkeeper didn’t suspect a thing and simply sold Alice a few uncooked skewers. Though, he probably never imagined that one of the girls walking alongside Alice was an undead who ate raw meat.

“Don’t worry, nobody will notice. Who would care to check whether the skewer someone else is eating is cooked?” Little Death said as she licked the bit of meat juice that stained her lips. Although raw meat was much tougher than cooked meat, her teeth had no trouble tearing it apart. “Rather than me, you’re the one who should be more careful. Since when have you seen a talking figurine sitting on a person’s shoulder? You’re even carrying such a gloomy piece of clothing in your hands.”

“How is this gloomy? Is this not cool?” Andusia glared at Little Death before looking at the doll costume in her hands. She had gotten Alice to buy this doll costume for her from a magic doll shop. It was a dark dress that gave off a very strong chuunibyou feeling.

When Alice bought the costume for Andusia, she was honestly surprised that Andusia had such a side to her. However, after giving the matter some thought, she felt that it wasn’t exactly accurate that Andusia suffered from eighth-grader syndrome. After all, Andusia was a bona fide Demon King, not a pretend Demon King. Moreover, Andusia had suffered through a real traumatic experience in the past, and her hatred for humanity couldn’t be any more real.

Aside from Little Death and Andusia, Luna had also found something to her liking. Only, in Alice’s opinion, this item did not match Luna’s character at all.

“Haven’t you taken enough photographs, Luna?” Alice asked as she turned to look at Luna, who walked next to her with a camera in hand.

Luna was currently holding a high-resolution camera that she had just bought. The resolution of this magic contraption was naturally higher than that of a mobile phone, and Luna had immediately fallen in love with it after testing it in the shop.

However, after purchasing the camera, Luna had not stopped taking pictures of Alice and the others. This situation caused Alice to feel a little helpless.

Regardless, everyone in the group found something that satisfied them on this trip, so it was, fortunately, a worthwhile trip. Of course, Alice didn’t forget the main purpose of this trip. Even as everyone was enjoying themselves, they still arrived at Bang Bang City in the afternoon and reached the location Alice had marked on her phone’s map application.

“Say, are you sure this is the place?” Andusia couldn’t help but ask when they reached the marked location. “Did you maybe make a mistake when marking the location previously?”

If even Andusia, who was right next to Alice when she marked the locations of the Demon King’s Power’s aura signatures previously, was skeptical about the accuracy of Alice’s marker, it went without saying that Luna and Little Death would be even more skeptical. Although Luna and Little Death regarded Alice as their master and wouldn’t refute Alice’s words, the expression in their eyes said it all.

—Was this marker really correct?

In reality, let alone Andusia and the others, even Alice herself couldn’t help but wonder if she had marked the wrong location previously. After all, who could have imagined that their destination was an open-air fountain?

That was to say, the object that carried a trace of the Demon King’s Power’s aura was most likely at the bottom of this fountain.

—This was, in fact, the reality of the situation.

Nobody in their group was an ordinary person. They were all either Demon Kings or individuals who had shared close ties with Demon Kings. So, despite their initial skepticism, as soon as they spread out their senses, they quickly sensed that there was indeed an object radiating powerful dark mana at the bottom of the fountain.

It also wasn’t strange that nobody had noticed this item until now. This was because the open-air fountain in question was a mana fountain. Aside from spraying water, the fountain also radiated small amounts of mana, allowing people standing near it to experience a mentally and physically soothing sensation. Meanwhile, because of this mana, those who weren’t sensitive to dark mana wouldn’t notice the item at the fountain’s bottom or that some dark mana was mixed in the fountain’s mana.

Dark mana was harmful to most living creatures. Fortunately, the mana that the mana fountain diffused carried a healing effect. So, it mitigated the damaging effects of the small amounts of dark mana mixed in. However, at the same time, the mana fountain’s healing properties were also weakened significantly.

The problem now was that their goal was at the bottom of this open-air fountain. Moreover, it was even embedded into the fountain. If they wanted to retrieve it, they’d have to jump into the fountain and retrieve it directly. However, they were currently in a public park. They couldn’t possibly jump into the fountain in front of so many people, right?”

Ad
“What should we do?”

Alice sat on a bench by the fountain while Luna sat on her left, Little Death sat on her right, and Andusia sat on her shoulder. Then, all four of them fell into contemplation.

“How about knocking everyone here unconscious?” Andusia was the first to put forward a suggestion. “Just like yesterday at Demon King Castle, I’ll drain the mana in this area, cutting off all communication devices and knocking all passersby unconscious.”

“This place isn’t Demon King Castle. The castle was never developed because it used to be plagued by deadly radiation. However, this park is covered in surveillance cameras. Our appearances were captured the moment we stepped into this place. If we pull a similar stunt, we’ll be exposed in no time,” Alice said, sighing. “Although I can get the Four Heavenly Kings to suppress this information, doing so will cause many people to learn of my identity. The risks are just too high.”