Chapter 297 – Hatter: Please Spare Me

According to the information Alice got from the dogkins' chief totem, there were nine objects in the demon realm that carried the Demon King's Power's aura.
Among them, one was the weapon named “It's So Short” that Alice had retrieved yesterday.

As for what the remaining eight objects were, Alice did not know.
However, she didn't plan to seek out those items for the time being.

On the one hand, Zauna and Lalu had already spent enough time having fun in the demon realm, so it was about time for them to go back.
In that case, it was only natural that Alice had to follow them back as well.
On the other hand, there was no way the Demon King's Power would be in the demon realm.

The Demon King's Power would only select humans harboring great hatred toward humanity to convert into a Demon King.
Hence, even if one of the objects the dogkins' chief totem located was the Demon King's Power, there was no way it would be one of the eight remaining objects in the demon realm.

Moreover, even if Alice retrieved the eight other objects in the demon realm, they'd be of little use to her.

Currently, Alice already had two weapons made using the Demon King's Power's essence.
She had also obtained the taboos past Demon Kings had developed to steal the Demon King's Power's essence from Demon King Castle.
Hence, what she should be doing next would be to develop her own taboo that she could use against the Demon King's Power instead of finding a bunch of items that wouldn't be of much use to her.

“Are you going back already, Alice? We've barely spent any time together these past few days,” Heris said unhappily as she tightly embraced Alice.
Alice had been busy running around the demon realm these past few days, so Heris had very few opportunities to interact with Alice, their interactions limited mainly to the early mornings and late evenings.

“I'm sorry.
I promise I'll make more time the next time I visit,” Alice apologized as she let the demoness play with her hair.
At this point, she couldn't help but wonder if her appearance matched Heris's appetite a little too much.
After all, Heris would always cuddle her like a pet and ruffle her hair whenever they met, ruining the hair Luna had painstakingly combed.

However, Alice also knew that she had spent hardly any time with Heris throughout her visit, so she had never said anything about Heris's actions, simply letting the demoness do whatever she wanted.
Of course, in exchange, she would always notice Luna glaring at them from nearby.
Though, whether Luna was doing so out of envy or wariness toward Heris was something only Luna herself knew.

All in all, Alice had achieved her goal of visiting the demon realm this time.
She had successfully brought back a large number of taboos belonging to past Demon Kings and also acquired another weapon made using the Demon King's Power's essence.
As luck would have it, this weapon also came with a pretty good skill.
With this skill, Alice wouldn't have to personally take action when dealing with somewhat tricky matters.

The next thing Alice needed to deal with after returning to the human realm would be to uncover the mole impersonating the Rhine Kingdom's Second Prince Etoria in the Royal Magic Tower.

Search Hosted Novel for the original.

One of Alice's goals was to prevent humans and demons from going to war with each other.
Hence, she absolutely could not allow anyone to incite conflict between the two races.

Although the conflict between humans and demons had already been very strained, both sides were at least avoiding any frontal confrontations with each other for the time being.
However, if a demon was found to be interfering in the affairs of a human kingdom's royal family, there was a high chance it would become the spark necessary to ignite the flames of war.

At that time, an all-out war might break out between humans and demons regardless of the Hero's and Demon King's involvement.
If such a war broke out, the relationship between humans and demons would thoroughly devolve into an irreconcilable state.

Currently, Alice could still use excuses such as “the demon realm's polluted environment” and “the Demon King's influence” to explain the demons' invasive behavior.
Meanwhile, once she took care of the demon realm's pollution and the Demon King's Power, she could simply let time gradually resolve the problem between the two races.

However, if the demons were suspected of having planted spies to interfere with the internal affairs of human royalty, this would no longer be a problem that could be pushed onto the Demon King.
At that time, the entire demon race would have to shoulder this blame.

Thus, there was no way Alice could tolerate this mole's existence.

Fortunately, thanks to her “rare figurine” named Andusia, Alice managed to find a way to sneak into the Rhine Kingdom's Royal Magic Tower.
Now, all she hoped was that her internet buddy “Blonde Twintails” could fulfill her promise.

…

“So, you mean to say that you want me to arrange a normal identity for this undead?” Hatter asked, feeling the onset of a headache as he looked at the girl with the deathly pale complexion standing next to Alice.
“You have given me a very challenging task, Lady Alice.”

The first thing Alice did after returning to the human realm was to seek out Hatter and get him to arrange a normal identity for Little Death.
It went without saying that Little Death didn't have any identification in the human realm.
However, in the current modern era, where telecommunication and identification systems have become incredibly developed, it'd be very difficult for a person to move about without a proof of identity.

Meanwhile, after learning about Little Death from Alice, Hatter couldn't help but be a little surprised.
It should be known that the undead had long since disappeared in the wheel of history along with the necromancers.
Modern alchemy had also replaced the art of necromancy, so it was almost impossible to find any undead in this world.

Although past Demon Kings had summoned Little Death to their side, none of them had ever assigned Little Death to the frontlines.
Instead, they took advantage of her lack of a living presence to conduct assassinations.
Hence, Little Death's existence was never recorded in history books.

“The characteristics of the undead are too obvious.
Her deathly pale complexion and lack of blood flowing through her skin will make her stand out a lot.
If others get closer to her, they'll even notice that she lacks body heat and a beating heart…” Hatter said to Alice in a helpless tone.
“Everyone might have become more accepting of the undead since it's been thousands of years since the last undead was seen, but it is also because no undead has appeared all these years that it will be difficult to explain her origins.
Or perhaps you can come up with a suitable identity for her?”

Indeed, because there had been no sightings of the undead for thousands of years, people of modern times were no longer as scared of the undead as they used to be in the past.
Moreover, with the advent of the internet, people have grown more accepting of many things.
Recently, one could even find Hero novels with “deviant” plots.
So, a mere undead was nothing special.

However, the problem was that Alice did not have an excuse for Little Death's origins.
Once others learn that Little Death was an undead, they would most definitely ask how she came into being.
In that case, how should Alice answer these people? Should she say that she was studying necromancy? That evidently wouldn't be possible since she didn't know even the slightest bit about necromancy.

Moreover, even if Alice used necromancy as a cover, Little Death's origins would still be a problem.
After all, the undead did not simply appear out of the blue.
Every undead had their own identity when they were still alive.
If Alice said that Little Death was an undead she created, she'd still have to come up with a fake identity for Little Death.

Although it was unlikely that anybody would bother looking into Little Death's identity, there was no saying whether there'd be people with nothing better to do.

“An identity for Little Death when she was still alive? How about…”

After thinking for a moment, Alice suddenly lifted her head and looked at Hatter.

“No! Absolutely not!”

Hatter was scared out of his wits when he saw Alice looking at him.
Having two illegitimate daughters, who were clearly born from different mothers, had already caused his reputation to take a hit.
Fortunately, his contributions to the country were clear for all to see, so nobody had pursued too deeply into his supposed philandering.

However, it was an entirely different story for him to have an undead daughter.
What was he supposed to say? That even corpses were within his strike zone?