The Tale of Hero Alice’s Social Death

Alice had originally been in a good mood when she got ready to leave the church. However, by the time she walked out of the church, her mood had already fallen to the opposite end of the spectrum.

What Alice feared most had still ended up happening. Previously, the reason why she had agonized over the Hero's Sword's name and even gone out of her way to pester God for help was precisely because she worried that the Hero's Sword's name would be publicized. Then, once the entire world found out about the Hero's Sword's name, they would realize how lousy this generation's Hero was.

Although there was an even unluckier bloke named Miller, Alice still couldn't bring herself to feel happy. When she thought about how schools would pose ridiculous questions such as "Please analyze Hero Alice's psychological state when she named her Hero's Sword 'Okay' (9 marks)" in the future, she felt that she was bound to be ridiculed and hated by students.

The previous generation's Hero's "Enheria" was at least an adage that conveyed the meaning of courage. So, it clearly expressed the previous Hero's psychological state when she named her Hero's Sword. However, what the hell did "Okay" convey? How was anyone supposed to analyze anything from it?

While Alice had the option to give a random name to Father Kasandora just now instead of telling the truth, she dared not do so. This was because the HEro's Sword was a Law-grade weapon. In other words, its true name was similar to the Hero's existence—a law. After learning about the significance of laws from the Loli Goddess, Alice dared not fool around regarding matters involving laws.

Had she reported a false name to Father Kasandora, not only would she be hampering the Hero's Sword's growth, but she might even cause the Demon King's Power to grow stronger.

Thus, carrying unhappy feelings, Alice followed her memories and quickly arrived in front of Rosa's home. As a working paparazzi and former thief with the ability to bypass the realm barrier, Rosa should have access to classified information that most people weren't aware of.

Previously, when Alice had searched the internet for information on the Gryffin Kingdom's capital, the result she ended up with was merely a bunch of flattery and praise about the city's governance. She did not learn anything important about the city or the kingdom's ruler, Chris Hatter.

Compared to the useless essays on the internet, Alice felt that it'd be more reliable to ask Rosa about the positives and negatives of Holl City and the Gryffin King.

However, when Alice arrived in front of Rosa's house, she found a relatively new piece of paper pasted on the door. Meanwhile, the words "House For Sale" followed by a housing agent's contact number were clearly written on the paper.

Evidently, Rosa had fled.

While Alice didn't know whether Rosa's relocation was related to her, she was willing to bet that it was. After all, who wouldn't feel afraid of being targeted by a Hero-cum-panty thief? Moreover, Rosa had even avoided leaving her own contact number on the paper and instead chose to leave an intermediary's number. With Rosa's cautiousness as a thief, Alice guessed that she wouldn't get any useful results even if she called the intermediary and asked for Rosa's contact.

"She actually fled?"

Alice's lips curled upwards, a wicked feeling appearing in her heart. She had no desire to look for a new thief to abuse. After all, she had a lot of fun interacting with Rosa. Moreover, not only did Rosa help her with a bunch of things, but the thief girl was also good at keeping secrets, as proven by the fact that her identity as the Hero remained unleaked even until now.

If Alice were to find a new thief to collaborate with, she would have to put her identity at risk again. Thus, to ensure that her identity remained secret, Alice decided that it'd be best if she looked for Rosa again. She also had an idea on how she could locate the missing thief.

For the average person, trying to look for a person in a big city like Mana City while only knowing the person's name and appearance was an incredibly difficult feat. Not to mention, there was also the possibility that Rosa had already fled Mana City.

However, Alice wasn't your average joe. The idea she came up with wasn't anything normal, either.

After leaving Rosa's place, Alice made her way to Mana City's biggest department store.

While this world's architecture might be stuck in Earth's Middle Ages, the standard of its construction engineering was not. Tall buildings and skyscrapers existed in this world. The department store Alice visited, for example, was a 16-story-tall building. Even on Earth, it was a department store of considerable size.

Because of the Milu Rabbit tied to her waist, Alice attracted a lot of attention when she walked around in the department store. However, Alice had long since adapted to such situations, and she could now ignore the gazes of surrounding people. In any case, the worst that could happen was for these people to upload her photos onto LINK. There was no risk of her identity getting exposed.

Through the use of mana escalators, Alice quickly arrived on the department store's tenth floor, which was also the floor specializing in selling magical contraptions. After arriving on the floor, she made her way to a store selling navigation devices. Then, after attracting the shop employee's strange gaze, Alice pointed at a GPS navigator in a display cabinet and said, "I want to look at this unit."

"Uh, okay."

The shop employee took a moment to react. After all, Alice looked like a 14-year-old girl no matter how he looked at her. His first thought when seeing her was to assume that she was a child who had gotten separated from her parents, and his second thought was to wonder whether he should take her to the department store's Lost Child Center. Never did he expect to hear her asking to check out a GPS navigator.

However, even though the shop employee felt that a child like Alice wouldn't know anything about GPS navigators, he still carried out his duties, took out the selected unit from the cabinet, and handed it over to Alice.

Meanwhile, under the employee's gaze, Alice received the small device and held it in her right hand. Immediately afterward, the device's weapon information appeared in her mind.

…

[Weapon: Brilliant Navigator Model LB-002]

[Quality: Not Bad]

[Effect: Agility +2, Control +5]

[Additional Effect: Advanced Navigation (Active Skill. When activated, displays the map of the targeted area.)]

…

It only displays a map…

Alice frowned. Just like what she expected, although the functions of these magical contraptions might seem unchanged on the surface, they actually had loopholes she could take advantage of. Take her phone's additional effect, which allowed her to access the internet, for example. Because the Mana Network skill's description did not limit the scope of the term "internet," it allowed her to connect to even the demon realm's internet.

This was also the case for this navigator. The Advanced Navigation skill stated that it could display the map of a targeted area. In other words, it could display the map of any area in the world. Even if it was a place this navigation unit's satellite system did not cover, it did not matter.

However, the Advanced Navigation skill's function was useless to Alice. What she needed to find was a person, not a map. Thus, she placed the GPS navigator back on the cabinet and asked the employee, "IS there a unit that can pinpoint the location of a person?"

"You mean a navigator with the positioning function?" Initially, the shop employee thought that Alice was merely a lost child. However, looking at it now, it would seem that Alice was indeed a customer. So, the shop employee retracted his thoughts of taking Alice to the Lost Child Center and began earnestly promoting the navigators the shop sold. After looking around for a moment, he took out a slightly larger navigator from a different cabinet and handed it to Alice, saying, "This unit has the positioning function. Feel free to take a look."

Alice accepted the navigator. Then, before she even turned it on, her right hand displayed the navigator's information in her mind.

…

[Weapon: Brilliant Navigator Model XB-005]

[Quality: Not Bad]

[Effect: Agility +5, Control +8]

[Additional Effect:

Advanced Navigation (Active Skill. When activated, displays the map of the targeted area);

Advanced Positioning (Active Skill. When activated, displays the precise position of the searched target.)]

…

Good. It does have a positioning function. Moreover, its description is rather vague, so I should be able to use it to find Rosa.

After seeing that this bigger navigator could locate Rosa's position, Alice had initially thought of using it to search for Rosa's location in the name of a "test" and leave without buying the navigator. That way, she wouldn't have to waste money unnecessarily. However, after considering that she might have a use for the navigator's functions in the future and that Rosa might move around, Alice eventually decided to buy it.

"How much is it?"

"It is nine silver and fifteen cents."

"Hm?"

Alice raised an eyebrow when she heard the employee's words. Then, when she saw the unnatural look on the employee's face, she immediately understood what was going on—the employee must've decided to fleece her after seeing that she looked young and gullible.

Alice hadn't come to buy a GPS navigator without prior research. During the taxi ride to the department store, she had looked up the internet for GPS navigator prices. Meanwhile, based on what she found, GPS navigators typically sold for around four silver. The price of 9.15 silver was more than double the average already.

"Why is it so expensive? The quality of this thing doesn't look like it's worth that much," Alice said as she waved the GPS navigator in her hand. The device was roughly the size of a Nintendo Switch Controller. It didn't look very big even in Alice's small hand. "I feel like my Milu Rabbit can break it easily."

"Stop joking around, little girl," the ship employee said, laughing.

He might not be a mercenary, but he still knew about Milu Rabbits. Milu Rabbits might be different from normal rabbits in that they had mana, but the amount of mana they had was so scant that it was negligible. Thus, there weren't any real differences in strength between a Milu Rabbit and a normal rabbit.

Meanwhile, Brilliant Navigator was a big brand known for manufacturing heavy-duty GPS navigators. The brand's navigators could even survive being thrown on the ground by an adult, let alone a Milu Rabbit bumping into it.

"If your Milu Rabbit can break this device, I'll give you a unit for free," the shop employee jokingly said with a smile.

Hearing the employee's words, Alice also smiled a brilliant smile.