The Tale of Hero Alice's Social Death - Chapter 368
Chapter 368 – Nothing to Do
With the help of her identity as the Gryffin Kingdom’s princess, Alice quickly got in touch with the figurine company she wanted. Specifically, it was KG Company. Unlike most other figurine manufacturers that only used plastic to manufacture their figurines, KG Company also produced a special line of wooden figurines. Although these figurines were only produced in small quantities due to cost, they were the best figurines in the world in terms of quality.
Coincidentally, Andusia’s body was also produced by KG Company. Hence, Collins had initially assumed Alice had given Lilith a figurine from KG Company when he saw Andusia. However, because Andusia’s posture differed from all of the Hikari figurines KG Company had produced, he eventually dismissed this conjecture.
Since KG Company was experienced in making wooden figurines, Alice naturally left the task of carving a new Hikari figurine to the company. However, instead of handling this matter herself, she sent the Living Wood to Catherine via a teleportation delivery service and had Catherine take care of everything for her. After all, when it came to contacting companies, Catherine was much more experienced than her.
At this point, Alice was already close to forgetting that Catherine was the Gryffin Kingdom’s royal guard captain. However, she couldn’t be blamed for this. Catherine was simply too useful. There were hardly any tasks that could trouble the woman.
Of course, Alice’s authority also played a part in Catherine’s omnipotence. Although Catherine already possessed great authority as the kingdom’s royal guard captain, there was still a limit to her authority. However, her work efficiency had improved drastically because she could now use the excuse of “assisting the princess” as well.
Meanwhile, according to Catherine’s message, KG Company had already agreed to help Alice make the Hikari figurine. In addition, because it was a request from Catherine, KG Company had promised to complete the figurine within a week while ensuring the figurine’s quality was the best. KG Company also assured Catherine that they would prioritize the safety of the material Alice provided first and foremost.
The last part was actually a condition put in by Alice. After all, she only had one block of Living Wood. If it got damaged to the extent that there wasn’t enough material to make a figurine, there’d be no replacements. There was no way she could trick the treants into giving her another block of Living Wood. Hence, she had told Catherine to give a reminder to KG Company to take their time and not make any mistakes.
After outsourcing the figurine manufacturing work, Alice began researching the Pollution Roulette. However, after taking another look at the Pollution Roulette, she couldn’t help but admit that it was indeed an item made using the Demon King’s Power.
—Of course, she didn’t mean it in a good way.
Despite its normal-sounding name, the Pollution Roulette had a relatively questionable appearance.
In modern times, it had already become a trendy fashion for people to wear collars. When Alice searched the internet for Sylvia’s images, a few images showed Sylvia and several other gyarus walking together. Meanwhile, every one of them wore a well-designed collar on their neck. When Alice first saw those gyarus in these collars, she had to admit they looked pretty cool.
However, unlike the cool collars the gyarus wore, the Pollution Roulette was a collar with several heart-shaped patterns decorating it. Their addition to the collar suddenly made it look much sexier. While this didn’t necessarily mean that the collar was meant to be used during bedroom activities, Alice felt that it was a bit too much for her to wear in public.
Also, this Law Breaker skill is quite troublesome… Although I can suppress its destructive properties while holding the collar in my right hand, I can’t dismiss it completely.
Alice frowned as she looked at the black mist radiating from her right hand. When she held the Pollution Roulette in her right hand, she would gain absolute control over it. Hence, she had tried to control its “Law Breaker – Mana” skill.
Unfortunately, this passive skill was seemingly part of the Pollution Roulette’s “baseline code.” While she could influence the skill to minimize its range, she couldn’t dismiss it completely. So, even now, she could still feel a little instability in her mana. It felt as if this skill could destroy her mana at any moment.
The good news was that the ambient mana around her remained unaffected. It was only her mana that was affected. If the unsuppressed Law Breaker was working at 100% efficiency, then the current Law Breaker, in its suppressed state, was only working at 10% efficiency. However, this was also as far as Alice could weaken the skill.
Before I send it to Lacey and Kristine, I think I’ll make use of it one last time.
Originally, Alice had intended to deliver the Pollution Roulette back to the Gryffin Kingdom together with the Living Wood so that she could let Lacey and Kristine research it. The two had already reached a bottleneck in their research of the demon realm’s air and mana, so the Pollution Roulette might help them achieve a breakthrough.
Lacey was a senior alchemist, albeit an uncertified one. She possessed an in-depth understanding of the properties of mana and various materials. As for Kristine, she had mastered Psychokinesis Transcendence to a level far higher than Alice had currently, so she could analyze the Pollution Roulette’s internal structure with much better clarity. If the Pollution Roulette entered their hands, they could produce much better results than Alice if she researched it by herself.
However, Alice decided not to send the Pollution Roulette back for now. This was because she realized that since someone had gone through the trouble of planting the Pollution Roulette in the treants’ territory, they must have done so with a goal in mind. Moreover, the other party must have some means to keep track of the Pollution Roulette’s location. There was no way they would leave such an important item completely unattended.
Since that was the case, Alice decided to keep this thing by her side. For all she knew, the other party might quickly realize that the Pollution Roulette they had hidden in the Kalu Forest had switched locations and take the initiative to look for it. Alice was very interested to learn who had put the Pollution Roulette in the Kalu Forest. After all, this was an item made using the Demon King’s Power’s essence.
By placing the Pollution Roulette in the treants’ territory, the other party was essentially trying to recreate the demon realm’s environment in that region. There was no way the other party was simply looking to take revenge on the treants, right? Alice had a hunch that she could uncover some very interesting information.
However, after deciding on her next step of action, Alice quickly came across another problem—there was nothing for her to do. Not for the time being, at least.
Currently, Alice had three immediate matters she needed to take care of:
Recovering Andusia from the nefarious Lilith’s clutches.
Finding the thief who stole the book Demon King’s Shadow.
Uncovering the culprit responsible for planting the Pollution Roulette in the treants’ territory.
For the first matter, there was nothing Alice could do but wait for KG Company to complete Andusia’s replacement. For the second matter, Alice also could do nothing but wait for Sylvia to finish her investigations into the thieving industry. For the third matter, Alice, likewise, could only wait for the culprit to find her.
All three matters required Alice to practice her patience. So, all of a sudden, Alice found herself with free time.
The figurine is going to take a week. Sylvia’s side will also take a week at a minimum. As for the last guy, who knows when he’ll come knocking on my door…
Alice scratched her head awkwardly. She didn’t think she would suddenly run out of things to do.
Eventually, Alice sighed and stood up from her bed. Then, she walked to her desk, plopped her butt down on the chair, turned on her computer, and…started playing an online game.
There was no helping it. While playing games might seem like a waste of time, Alice truly couldn’t think of anything else to do. Although she wanted nothing more than to be done with the Rhine Kingdom’s troublesome affairs as soon as possible, the only thing she could do now was waste time while waiting for clues to arrive.
Hopefully, Sylvia’s side can bring me some good news… Although my instincts tell me that the book thief is related to the person trying to collude with the demons, it is, at the end of the day, only a conjecture.
When Alice saw her game’s login interface, the Pollution Roulette suddenly appeared in her mind again.
Speaking of which, the Pollution Roulette also has something to do with the Demon King… Could it also be related to those two other matters?