NOVEL WEB Chapter 338: Bound
Sylvia's body instantly stiffened upon getting hit by Alice's Consciousness Transformation. Although Sylvia had tried to resist the spirit taboo, her mind quickly went blank, and she became a puppet for Alice to manipulate.
If this were an adult , the following scene would most likely be unsafe for work. However, Alice didn't have time to waste on such matters. After controlling Sylvia with Consciousness Transformation, Alice quickly locked the door to the room and turned on the lights.
Now that the room was brightly illuminated, if Sylvia had retained her consciousness, she would have noticed that there were actually three occupants in the room. Aside from Sylvia and Alice, there was a girl slightly taller than Alice lying unconscious on the floor, the girl having a freckled face and an ordinary appearance.
This girl was the real waitress working for the Rosemary Bar. For the sake of her plans, Alice had visited the bar as soon as it opened for business, knocked this waitress unconscious, changed into the waitress's uniform, and pretended to be the receptionist manning the front desk. It was also fortunate that the bartenders and the other staff members in the establishment weren't very familiar with the receptionist. So, nobody suspected Alice to not be an employee of the bar.
"Sorry for borrowing your clothes for a bit. Here's some money as compensation," Alice said as she changed out of the waitress's uniform and put it back on for the unconscious waitress. After doing so, she pulled out some bank notes and stuffed them into the waitress's pocket.
Previously, Alice had inspected the waitress's wallet and ID out of curiosity when she was borrowing the other party's uniform. From the little change left in the wallet, Alice could tell that the girl wasn't doing very well financially. So, giving the girl some monetary compensation should be good enough. Not to mention, Alice had already helped to cover the girl's shift for the past couple of hours, so nobody would realize that the girl hadn't actually been working throughout this period.
Afterward, Alice opened the door and moved the waitress out into the corridor. Then, she gently woke the girl and quickly snuck back into the room before the girl realized what was going on.
The girl might grow confused about why she had fallen asleep in the corridor after waking up, but she shouldn't realize it was Alice's doing. After all, Alice had been quite careful when knocking the waitress unconscious, going as far as to conceal herself with her magic robe's active skill and taking action when the waitress was alone by herself. So, it was unlikely that the waitress would guess that an invisible person had knocked her unconscious using a spirit taboo.
"Alright, it's our time next."
After taking care of the waitress, Alice returned her focus to Sylvia, who remained standing in the room with a dazed expression. She also carefully glanced at the ring on Sylvia's left index finger. When she used Consciousness Transformation previously, she could feel a slight resistance to her mana, and this resistance came from this ring.
It would seem that the ring should have the effect of blocking spirit magic. Moreover, it should be quite the potent effect considering it had managed to work on a spirit taboo like Consciousness Transformation, albeit briefly. If someone were to use a spirit spell beneath the taboo level against Sylvia, the ring should more or less block the spell.
Unfortunately, the ring's protection against spirit magic was still insufficient. Even though Alice felt slight resistance against her Consciousness Transformation, her mana swiftly broke through this resistance and invaded Sylvia's mind.
Anyway, if Alice knew how to read memories right now, what followed next would be simple. All she would need to do was read Sylvia's memories, and she would know what tasks Sylvia had helped Lilith carry out recently. Then, through these tasks, she could judge whether Lilith was the culprit trying to ignite the flames of war between the human and demon realms.
Unfortunately, Alice still did not know how to read memories. The memory code she acquired through Consciousness Transformation remained a wall of nonsense to her. This situation left Alice at a loss on what to do.
Of course, Alice naturally thought of learning to read memory codes before taking action. However, the problem was that this was a time-consuming process.
The average person would need to study for one or two years before reaching an entry-level in spirit magic. Meanwhile, only after reaching an entry-level could they start to learn how to decipher memory codes.
Even if Alice's body possessed talents granted by God, she would most likely require upwards of half a month before she could learn how to decipher memory codes. Although Alice wasn't lacking time, it was still a considerable amount of time, in her opinion. Hence, she abandoned the idea of learning spirit magic before taking action, leaving this matter for when she had nothing better to do. For the time being, she decided to use a more direct and violent interrogation method.
"Sylvia Emerald. A student of the Ichu Vocational and Technical College…"
Alice found a student ID in Sylvia's handbag and learned about the other identity Sylvia used in conjunction with her thief identity. As Lilith's close aide, it should have been easy for Sylvia to get into the Royal Magic Tower. The fact that she didn't do so and chose to attend a vocational college instead was probably because the Royal Magic Tower's strict rules would become a hindrance to her irregularly-scheduled thief activities.
However, as someone capable of thriving in the thief industry, Sylvia might not be as smart as the top students studying in the Royal Magic Tower, but she was definitely superior in practical experiences and abilities. So, Alice wouldn't underestimate Sylvia simply because the other party wasn't studying in the Rhine Kingdom's best academy.
Let's tie her up first, then find a way to get her to spill information, Alice thought.
Currently, aside from a white shoulder bag, the only thing Alice carried on her was the Milu Rabbit and her panty pouch. So, it was obvious that she didn't have anything to tie Sylvia with. However, this wasn't a problem that could trouble her.
Placing a hand on the wooden wall nearby, Alice cast Hubert's Tree and created a long vine in the blink of an eye. Although it was overkill to use a taboo just to create a singular vine, Alice didn't know any normal spells that could enable her to create a vine.
After snapping the vine off the wall, Alice grabbed a chair, sat Sylvia on it, and tied the twintail gyaru to the chair using the vine. Hubert's Tree was a taboo, so the vine created using the taboo was incredibly tough. Alice might not have had trouble snapping it off the wall, but Sylvia would most likely struggle to break it.
Alice nodded in satisfaction after ensuring she had bound Sylvia's limbs and torso. Then, she dismissed Consciousness Transformation.
As soon as the spirit taboo was canceled, Sylvia gradually recovered her consciousness and quickly realized that she had been tricked—the waitress who guided her wasn't an actual employee of the bar. Instead, it was someone disguising as a waitress to lower her guard. Then, this someone must have used spirit magic to put her under their control.
Although Sylvia didn't understand why her "Ring of Divine Wisdom" had failed to protect her from the other party's spirit magic, there was no doubt that the person who controlled her was the enemy.