The Tale of Hero Alice’s Social Death

Of course, if Alice followed her new theory that the mastermind's goal wasn't actually to usurp the throne, then King Haydn's suspicion would shoot through the roof. However, Alice couldn't simply say that King Haydn was the mastermind without concrete evidence, either. This was because she still had a few questions plaguing her.

Firstly, what was King Haydn's motive in obtaining the Demon King's power? Unlike the demon realm, the human realm's inhabitants did not choose their leaders based on strength. Instead, humans chose talented politicians to lead them. Meanwhile, King Haydn was undoubtedly a good king, and there didn't seem to be a need for him to seek great strength.

Secondly, why did King Haydn try to pollute the treants' territory? If Alice was right in her guess, the mastermind behind the attempted collusion with the demons should also be the culprit behind the treant settlement's pollution. In that case, what could King Haydn possibly gain from polluting the treants' living environment?

Lastly, did King Haydn ever consider the consequences of his actions? After all, if his actions were to get discovered, he would drag the entire Rhine Kingdom down with him. There was no way the other human kingdoms would allow such a traitorous kingdom to remain in the human realm.

It was also because of these concerns that Alice didn't bring up her suspicion of King Haydn to Lilith. King Haydn was currently the Rhine Kingdom's king and Lilith's father. If she voiced her suspicion, she might hurt Lilith's feelings.

Alice had a rather favorable impression of Lilith. The girl had done her best to help her with many things. So, Alice didn't wish to sour Lilith's relationship with her father without concrete evidence.

Sylvia and Lilith did not notice the changes in Alice's expression. They also didn't point their suspicion toward King Haydn like Alice. After all, they didn't have as much information as Alice, and neither could they think from the demons' perspective. So, after the two held a simple discussion, they set Gunst Brianken, the kingdom's royal guard captain, as their new target.

Alice did not disagree with this outcome. She felt it would be a good idea to let Lilith investigate Gunst. If they looked deep enough, they might shift their investigation toward King Haydn. This would save Alice from becoming the bringer of bad news.

"Since we now know the mastermind, what should we do with this guy?" Lilith asked as she pointed at Canlat. Although Alice never expressed her opinion throughout their discussion, since she never voiced any objections, Lilith took Alice's silence as an acknowledgment of their decision to investigate Gunst. "Should we kill him?"

Although many of Canlat's previous assumptions were incorrect, there was one thing he had assumed correctly—Lilith, a member of the Rhine Kingdom's royal family, was not a soft-hearted person. If the situation called for it, she could be a ruthless person. Otherwise, someone as strong as Kurse wouldn't have chosen to follow Lilith and work as her bodyguard. Thieves like Sylvia wouldn't have agreed to serve a weak and indecisive princess, either.

Not to mention, Canlat wasn't just someone who had stolen the Demon King's Shadow book. He had also heard about many things. Although thieves were known to keep their personal information tightly guarded, they had a very loose lip when it came to other information. Nobody could tell if Canlat would share the information surrounding the Demon King's Shadow book and Gunst Brianken to the whole world as soon as they released him.

While it wasn't good to kill people, once Gunst's actions got exposed, they would have a huge impact on the kingdom. It might even cause Gunst to start his rebellion ahead of time. If that happened, many lives would be lost. If she could stop such a tragedy, Lilith was prepared to carry out an unjust punishment on Canlat.

There was no helping it. Lilith couldn't think of any other way to prevent Canlat from leaking information. There was no way she could trust him to keep quiet, either. She was well aware of how thieves were. Sylvia, too, was well aware of this.

It should be known that the thieves working under Lilith were put through multiple screenings before they were recruited. Even then, they still had to be checked frequently. So, an unsupervised thief like Canlat was very unreliable.

"No! Spare me! I was only working for someone else! I'm not the mastermind of this matter!" Canlat was greatly frightened by Lilith's words. Although he had long known that members of the royal family weren't saints, he still couldn't help but panic upon hearing that he was going to be killed. "I-I've already told you everything about my employer! Can't you just spare me?!"

"How do you intend on handling the information you just learned, then?" Sylvia casually asked as she sent Canlat a glance.

"I am naturally going to sell it to people interested in it. The Rhine Kingdom's royal guard captain planning a rebellion is big news."

Only five minutes had passed since Alice planted the command not to lie in Canlat's mind. So, even though Canlat wanted to swear that he absolutely wouldn't share this information with others, his true thoughts ended up coming out of his mouth.

Meanwhile, as soon as Canlat finished speaking, despair colored his face. He knew that it was very unlikely he could get away this time. Even until now, he still couldn't figure out why the Gryffin Kingdom's Princess Alice would know how to cast a spirit taboo.

Spirit magicians were relatively rare compared to other types of magicians. As a result, the chances of a spirit magician capable of using spirit taboos appearing were very low, and one wouldn't necessarily see such a great magician appearing once every several decades.

Currently, out of all the known spirit magicians in the human realm, only one was capable of casting spirit taboos. However, he was an old man in his nineties and served as the honorary director of a mental hospital in the Ymir Kingdom. No matter how Canlat looked at it, there shouldn't be any correlations between that old man and Alice.

"I knew it."

Sylvia smiled. She herself was a thief, so she knew "wild" thieves who didn't belong to any particular organization were very fond of selling information. It was especially true when this information was of great value and importance. She'd be a fool to believe that Canlat could keep such an important secret.

The only reason Canlat didn't dare reveal Gunst's identity to Lilith previously was because he was afraid of death. However, evidently, Lilith's deterrence wasn't as powerful as Gunst's. He also didn't have to worry about suffering any consequences from the Thieves Guild so long as he didn't reveal any information about Gunst's commission. Hence, Canlat immediately started to have thoughts that he shouldn't have after learning that Lilith was investigating a possible rebellion led by Gunst.