The Tale of Hero Alice’s Social Death

There weren't many places that Haydn visited often, and were off-limits to the average person. If Alice had to name them, there'd probably be only two places that would fit these criteria. The first would be Haydn's office in the palace, while the second would be Haydn's home.

Fortunately, Alice had determined the whereabouts of these two locations when she was investigating Haydn previously.

However, the problem was that Alice had never found any items related to Demon Kings in Haydn's home or office. She also didn't find anything that could help Haydn cast taboos.

The taboo Haydn used this time had most likely touched upon the world's laws already. A taboo of this caliber was something even Heroes and Demon Kings would have difficulty learning, so there was no way Haydn could activate this taboo by himself.

If Haydn wished to use such a taboo, there were only two methods he could use to do so. Either Haydn had a Demon King's soul helping him, or he used some special means to gather many magicians and combine their strength to activate this taboo.

Most taboos could be activated with the combined efforts of many magicians, so it wasn't out of the question for Haydn to rely on this method. However, considering that this was a Law-grade taboo they were talking about, Haydn would probably need a significant number of magicians to pull off this feat. Alice estimated that a hundred magicians or more would be needed.

Evidently, Haydn's office in the palace couldn't fit such a large number of people.

So, Alice intended to visit Haydn's house first. If Haydn truly did rely on numbers to cast his taboo, only his house could possibly fit 100 magicians or more. As the Rhine Kingdom's king, Haydn lived in a large manor that occupied a large plot of land. It was comparable in size to the residence of Flaman, one of the demons' Four Heavenly Kings. So, it was more than big enough to accommodate hundreds of people.

Since Alice was in a hurry, she naturally chose to travel by flying. After leaving her apartment, she held onto her magic robe with her right hand and vanished from her apartment's corridor. Then, she jumped out of one of the windows in the corridor and dragged herself into the air using her psychic power.

In this situation, Alice had to thank the fact that the various human kingdoms had implemented flying restrictions in their towns and cities. Because of these restrictions, Alice didn't have to worry about colliding with people or objects. Although some airships still flew across the city, these flying contraptions flew at high altitudes. So long as Alice stayed beneath the clouds, she shouldn't be at risk of colliding with these airships.

…

Haydn's manor was situated on the edge of Icarus City. Of course, even though it wasn't situated in the city center, it was only a 30-minute drive from the palace. Moreover, the area around the manor was just as developed as the city center.

With the current standard of her psychic power, Alice needed only five minutes to propel herself from her apartment to Haydn's manor. Although flying at such high speeds subjected her body to significant stress, Alice could easily handle the stress with her current physique.

Originally, Alice thought that if her luck was bad, she might have to visit Haydn's home and office to find the man. However, when she closed in on Haydn's manor, she knew she had come to the right place as she could feel a large amount of mana enveloping the mansion situated in the middle of the manor.

The volume of mana surrounding the mansion was so significant that it had already condensed into a physical substance, making the entire mansion look as if it was shrouded in black and purple mist. Moreover, the mist looked suspiciously similar to the special effects that would appear when Alice held a pair of black panties in her right hand.

After a quick look around, Alice failed to find anybody near the manor's vicinity. By the looks of things, Haydn had evacuated the neighborhood beforehand to avoid attracting the attention of others.

It made sense Haydn would take such a precaution. In the era of the internet, any scandalous information uploaded onto the internet would quickly find itself spread across the human realm. At that time, even if there was no evidence of Haydn colluding with the demons, the black and purple mist surrounding his mansion would be more than enough to attract many people's attention to him, and there was no guarantee such a situation wouldn't affect his plans.

So it is you, Haydn.

Alice's expression sank. This black mist was a common characteristic of a Demon King's mana. Upon seeing this black mist, Alice was already certain that the mana enveloping Haydn's mansion belonged to Luna. Moreover, even though Alice had no demon mana in her body, she could feel an inexplicable suction force drawing on her mana when she got near the mansion. This should be the effect of the special taboo draining Luna's mana.

It was a pity that the taboo didn't have a physical presence. Otherwise, Alice could have grabbed ahold of it with her right hand and seen what kind of ability the taboo had.

However, even though Alice already knew Haydn was doing something fishy here, she didn't just outright bombard the place with a Burning Star.

Firstly, she knew Haydn must have prepared some defensive measures against taboo attacks. If she recklessly attacked the manor, not only would she fail to achieve anything, but she would even alert Haydn to her presence.

Secondly, she wanted to check whether Haydn was relying on other magicians to activate his taboo and whether these magicians were helping him willingly. If those people were helping Haydn against their will, Alice wouldn't mind saving them. After all, so long as she rescued even one of them, it should be enough to cause Haydn's taboo to crumble.

So, rather than recklessly attack the manor and increase the difficulty of saving Luna, Alice felt that she would be much better off sneaking into the manor and disrupting Haydn's taboo before Haydn noticed her presence.

Having made this decision, Alice chose to keep her Mana Concealment active as she descended toward the mansion situated in the middle of the manor. Then, she found a window, verified that nobody was inside the corridor, gently pushed the window apart, and snuck into the building.

After entering the mansion, Alice immediately got a better grasp of the mana in the building. Under normal circumstances, people would have difficulty perceiving mana outside their bodies. Mana could normally only be detected when it had reached a sufficiently large mass or during the activation of a spell.

Evidently, there was a large-scale spell being activated somewhere in the mansion. Hence, Alice could feel intense mana fluctuations filling every corner of the large mansion. Meanwhile, so long as Alice traced the origins of these mana fluctuations, she would be able to find the core of the spell being used.