LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 382: Troubled Alice
"I'm still here. Didn't the Demon King show up here previously? So, I thought of staying around to investigate things and see if she left anything behind. I'm also using this opportunity to sightsee."
Alice didn't try to lie and say that she had left the Rhine Kingdom already. Instead, she truthfully told King Haydn her whereabouts while giving him a reasonable excuse.
If it was a few days ago, King Haydn wouldn't have cared, even if Alice had lied about her whereabouts. He wouldn't go out of his way to verify her whereabouts, either. After all, he'd be offending the Hero if his actions got discovered.
Now, however, King Haydn was very concerned about the Hero's whereabouts. He also no longer cared about offending the Hero. After all, whether it was the pollution of the treant settlement, the attempted collusion with the demons, or his goal of stealing a Demon King's power, any of these crimes was enough to warrant death.
Hence, if Alice lied to him at this time, King Haydn would realize that she already knew about the deeds he had done once he saw through her lie.
It also wouldn't be difficult for King Haydn to determine Alice's whereabouts. All portable communication devices in this world had to connect to a specific internet frequency to achieve long-distance communication. Meanwhile, authority over the human realm's internet was in the hands of the various human kings. Because of this, King Haydn could easily determine Alice's whereabouts by tracing their phone call.
Meanwhile, should King Haydn discover that Alice had already learned about his deeds, there was no telling what he would do. Worst case scenario, King Haydn might decide to detonate all of the Rhine Kingdom's taboo bombs to achieve mutual destruction after learning that his fate was sealed. If that happened, the entire Rhine Kingdom would be erased from the human realm.
"Y-You're still in the Rhine Kingdom?"
King Haydn did not expect such an answer from Alice. Originally, he was 80% certain that Gunst was defeated by the Hero. Yet, Alice frankly told him she was still in the Rhine Kingdom. Moreover, judging by her tone, it didn't seem like she was trying to denounce him. This situation stunned him a little.
What's going on? Could Gunst's disappearance be unrelated to the Hero?
"That's right. I'm still staying in the apartment I rented in the magic town."
While saying so, Alice walked up to the window and opened it, letting King Haydn hear the creaking sound of the window being opened and the commotion caused by her battle with Gunst just now.
After indirectly hinting to King Haydn that she was still at home, Alice continued, "By the way, it seems a huge battle took place a few blocks away just now. I can feel the residual mana all the way from my place. I suspect someone has used taboos or taboo bombs, so I was just about to head out and investigate it. Are you not going to send some people to investigate this matter as well, King Haydn?
Why would I need to investigate it? My subordinates are the ones responsible for evacuating the area. They also reported back to me as soon as the battle ended.
King Haydn was feeling incredibly depressed right now. He naturally couldn't voice his thoughts to Alice. Although Heroes chosen by God were known to have pure souls, they weren't naive fools with one-track minds. Heroes were not beneath using crafty tricks to achieve their goals. So, King Haydn couldn't tell if Alice was truly unrelated to this matter or if she was just playing dumb with him.
King Haydn was a ruthless person wielding great power. If Alice was any other person, he would have had her arrested regardless of whether he had any evidence of her suspicion. It didn't matter even if Alice turned out to be innocent. Unfortunately, Alice wasn't just any other person. She was the Hero, an opponent King Haydn couldn't afford to provoke. So, King Haydn had no choice but to take it easy for the time being.
This is fine. If the Hero has truly determined my crimes, with how Heroes normally operated, she should have already come knocking on my door to question me. Since she hasn't come to find me, she shouldn't have noticed those matters yet... Either that or she hasn't found any evidence that can point to me.
After exchanging a few more words with Alice, King Haydn hung up the call with a gloomy face. Although Alice didn't seem to have shown any hostility toward him and frankly told him that she was still in the Rhine Kingdom, he still couldn't trust her completely. At the very least, he would have to pay closer attention to Alice during this period.
However, if what Alice said was the truth, and she truly didn't have anything to do with Gunst's kidnapping, who could possibly abduct Gunst? The Demon King? But shouldn't the Hero have chased the Demon King away already? Or, could it be really like Alice had said, and the Demon King left some kind of hidden threat behind?
Of course, no matter how much King Haydn racked his mind, he would never consider the possibility that the Hero and the Demon King were actually the same person. He would also never consider the possibility of the Hero and the Demon King working together. This was a situation that would only appear in fantasies. After all, there was no way God would allow their chosen one to collaborate with the Demon King.
…
That guy should be having a huge headache right about now, right？
Alice chuckled as she looked at her phone. If she were in King Haydn's shoes, she would probably be mulling over whether the Hero was telling the truth right now. After all, the Hero wasn't someone who could afford to casually take action against civilians. What if the Hero truly didn't have anything to do with Gunst's abduction? If she were to recklessly take action, wouldn't she be voluntarily exposing her intentions to the Hero?
Knowing about King Haydn's concerns, Alice guessed that King Haydn would most likely try to observe her movements for some time before making a decision.
In reality, Alice had thought of confronting King Haydn and eliminating him right away. However, if she chose to take such rash action, while she could indeed dispose of King Haydn, she would also be creating many future problems for herself.
If she were to abruptly kill King Haydn without any valid evidence of his wrongdoings, she would create civil unrest in the Rhine Kingdom. At that time, the kingdom's nobles would most likely take advantage of the situation to steal some of the royal family's authority. To avoid such a situation, she needed to denounce King Haydn with valid evidence and have one of his children take over the position of king.
At this point, it was no longer a question that King Haydn was trying to ally with the demons to steal a Demon King's power. So long as she could find enough evidence, she could denounce him and have him abdicate the throne. However, the problem was that she had no substantive evidence of King Haydn's wrongdoings.
Even if she used Consciousness Transformation to make Gunst testify against King Haydn, she doubted Gunst's words would be enough to convince the public. After all, spirit magic could be used to influence a person's words and actions. So, in this world, the persuasiveness of human evidence was far less than that of physical evidence. It was especially so when the Hero was the one making Gunst give a testimony... After all, who didn't know that the Hero was capable of using taboos? What if the Hero had manipulated Gunst to give false testimony?
Although everyone believed that the Hero was a noble person, even the noblest of people were susceptible to deception. What if someone had tricked the Hero into manipulating Gunst?
Let's hope Luna can get some useful information out of this guy's memories… Alice thought as she looked toward the unconscious Gunst. Then, she held up her phone and dialed Luna's number.
Although Alice could use Consciousness Transformation to get Gunst to speak only the truth, it was pointless to do so since she didn't know what questions she should be asking Gunst to get the evidence she wanted. Take a computer folder, for example. The evidence could be in the form of a video file, a music file, a document, or a program. If Alice didn't even know the format of this evidence, how was she supposed to look for the thing she wanted?