The Tale of Hero Alice’s Social Death

"Huh?"

Alice was a little surprised. She could feel that her Soul's Return had indeed received a response from a remnant soul. However, wasn't Soul's Return supposed to only affect souls attached of targeted individuals?

Alice was certain she didn't have any remnant souls attached to her. Although she had made some close friends since coming to this world, all her new friends were alive and healthy. So, there shouldn't be any remnant souls attaching themselves to her because of "longing" feelings.

As for Andusia, the likelihood of Soul's Return receiving a response because of her was even lower. Andusia had already experienced a physical death thousands of years ago, and only her soul had survived until now. Andusia might have had many remnant souls attached to her because of feelings such as "hatred" when she was alive, but those remnant souls would have separated from her the moment her physical body died.

As for the bodyguards keeping watch over Lilith's house outside, there was no way Soul's Return had received a reaction because of them. This was because Alice's Soul's Return only covered Lilith's bedroom. It was why Alice could sense the presence of the remnant souls in the room.

In that case, there was only one answer. With a perplexed look on her face, Alice retrieved the Milu Rabbit hidden under her skirt. Apart from herself and Andusia, the only other creature in this room that Alice could consider intelligent would be the Milu Rabbit that had followed alongside her since she first arrived in this world.

The Milu Rabbit was still asleep even now. Ever since it ate the ashes of the burnt Soul Mark Scroll, it had fallen asleep and never regained consciousness. Originally, Alice thought this situation was because the Milu Rabbit needed some time to digest the soul power in those ashes. However, she now felt that her Milu Rabbit might never be able to regain consciousness…

Milu Rabbits might hold mana in their bodies, but this mana only allowed them to become slightly stronger than the average rabbit. In other words, it was a negligible upgrade. In reality, it could even be considered a downgrade since the addition of this mana made their flesh even more appealing and caused them to be raised for their meat. More than once, Alice had come across cookbooks focused on turning Milu Rabbits into various dishes.

Meanwhile, seeing as Milu Rabbits could be raised as livestock, it was obvious that they weren't very smart. This also meant that a Milu Rabbit's small head was unlikely to withstand a Demon King's soul power, even if the soul in question was already destroyed and reduced to fragments. This was most likely why Alice's Milu Rabbit couldn't regain consciousness even until now.

Even if all of the Milu Rabbit's physiological characteristics remained, an indicator that it was still a living creature, if it could never regain consciousness, it was essentially a vegetable... In reality, Alice had thought of getting Luna to inspect the Milu Rabbit's brain once she was done with her matters in the Rhine Kingdom. However, she didn't think that the Soul's Return she used would react to the Milu Rabbit.

Or, more specifically, the spell had reacted to a remnant soul attached to the Milu Rabbit?

But wasn't this situation a little too strange? To put it bluntly, her Milu Rabbit was just a rabbit. Who would possibly choose to bless or bear a grudge against a rabbit? Was it the blessing of another rabbit? Or was it hatred from a different kind of animal? Neither of these things made sense.

Unintelligent creatures had pitifully weak souls. Logically, with how little energy these unintelligent creatures possessed, it shouldn't even be possible for them to leave behind a remnant soul after their death.

If the average human had 100 points of soul energy when they were alive, they would produce several remnant souls carrying one soul energy each after their deaths, and these remnant souls would attach to the people they had an obsession over. In the case of small animals, they would typically only have several points of soul energy when they were alive. That was nowhere near enough to generate a remnant soul after they passed away.

So, how exactly did the Milu Rabbit get a remnant soul attached to it?

Alice was confused by this situation. Fortunately, it wasn't a confusion she couldn't resolve. Although Soul's Return was a spell with strict limitations, the spell wasn't limited to just manipulating the remnant souls that met its conditions. In addition to that, Soul's Return could also project the images of these remnant souls.

Since she couldn't figure out the origin of the remnant soul attached to the Milu Rabbit, she could simply project the remnant soul's image. Once she saw what the remnant soul looked like, everything would be clear.

Thinking up to this point, Alice promptly separated the remnant soul attached to the Milu Rabbit through her Soul's Return. Then, using her mana as a catalyst, she formed an image of the remnant soul. As soon as she did so, a somewhat translucent figure promptly appeared next to the Milu Rabbit.

"Huh? This person is…?"

The remnant soul attached to the Milu Rabbit carried an unexpectedly large amount of soul energy. Even the projection Alice created of the person looked quite realistic. Regardless, when Alice saw the remnant soul's projection, she immediately recognized the other party.

"So it's this person."

The remnant soul attached to the Milu Rabbit was none other than Miriya Hampar, the blonde Demon King with a severe case of myopia. Thinking back now, Alice realized that since the Milu Rabbit had devoured Miriya's soul fragments after the Demon King died, it was only natural that the Demon King's remnant soul would get attached to the Milu Rabbit.

Alice had to admit that the souls of Demon Kings were truly incredible. Only a small portion of Miriya's soul energy should have remained after the container housing her soul got destroyed. Yet, this small portion of soul energy was still enough to create a remnant soul.

If the average person's soul contained 100 points of soul energy, Miriya's soul, when she was alive, should have thousands, if not over ten thousand, points of soul energy. That was the only explanation Alice could come up with. After all, from what her senses told her, Miriya's remnant soul attached to the Milu Rabbit had roughly two points' worth of soul energy. This meant that even after Miriya's soul was destroyed along with the Soul Mark Scroll, her soul fragments contained in the ashes of the scroll still had hundreds of points worth of soul energy.

"Oh? This must be Miriya, the Eighth Demon King, right? I've seen her portraits before," Andusia suddenly said. This was the first time she had seen Miriya Hampar's true appearance. Although she knew Alice had eliminated Miriya's soul, she wasn't at the scene at the time, so she could only deduce Miriya's identity based on Alice's description of the other party.

Meanwhile, after seeing the blonde Demon King's remnant soul, Andusia quickly came to a realization and asked:

"Don't tell me you fed Miriya's soul container to your Milu Rabbit? There is no way a creature like the Milu Rabbit has the brain and soul necessary to withstand a Demon King's soul energy."

"Miriya's soul container was a piece of parchment called the Soul Mark Scroll, and I had already burnt it into ashes. I saw that the Milu Rabbit was interested in the ashes at the time, so I thought it could withstand her soul energy…"

Alice scratched her head awkwardly. She had admittedly been rather reckless with her decisions at the time.

However, the fact that the Milu Rabbit didn't die on the spot after ingesting a Demon King's soul energy also showed how much soul energy Miriya had already lost at the time.

Andusia was momentarily rendered speechless by Alice's answer. Then, she said, "But it seems you are quite lucky. Not only did this Milu Rabbit not explode from the overabundance of soul energy, but it has even gradually digested some of this energy to improve its soul and intelligence… But with the basic qualities of a Milu Rabbit, it'll probably be several hundred years before it can regain consciousness."