The Tale of Hero Alice’s Social Death

Chapter 131: True Hero's Privilege

On that same evening, the package from the Ymir Kingdom arrived at the March Academy on time, and Luna retrieved it from the academy's parcel holding room for Alice.

"The compression on this thing sure is amazing," Alice exclaimed as she looked at the fingernail-sized pendant in her hand. She couldn't help but acknowledge the craftsmanship of the dwarves. Even the weapon storage box they made had such exquisite quality, and it looked no different than a normal pendant at first glance. In terms of aesthetics, it was leagues ahead of the humble storage box Alice used to store the Hero's Sword.

Naturally, the object stored inside the pendant was Alice's customized power armor. So long as she injected mana into the pendant in a specific way, the pendant would release the item stored within it.

After receiving this pendant, Alice promptly left the campus with Luna for the evening. The academy didn't have a strict curfew, and students could enter and leave the academy at any time. This was also why Alice could leave the academy to search for Rosa previously.

After leaving the campus with Luna, Alice searched for a place to test her new power armor. They had already made a mess of the academy's rear mountains and alerted the academy's staff, so it wasn't safe to conduct their experiments on campus anymore.

Fortunately, this world's technological development was highly dependent on the resource known as mana, and many magical constructs also required the organs and body parts of magical creatures. Thus, this world's civilization placed significant importance on maintaining the natural environment. To prove this point, one could find many lush forests surrounding even Holl City, the Gryffin Kingdom's prosperous capital, these forests serving as valuable resource generators and a training ground for mercenaries.

Meanwhile, Alice and Luna didn't have to go very far before finding a deserted forest. Then, after making sure that no lustful males and females were carrying out reproductive acts nearby, they promptly started preparing to test the power armor made by the Ymir Kingdom's Dwarven Technical Unit.

The power armor was by no means cheap, costing most of Alice's allowance this month to build. Although Hatter was put under immense pressure because he had suddenly gained a Hero Daughter, he didn't skimp on giving her an allowance. Alice estimated that the monthly allowance she received was even more exaggerated than the noble students studying in the March Academy.

Yet, even then, she still had over half of her allowance for the power armor. It was no wonder the power armor had not been put into mass production yet. If a country were to mass-produce such expensive weaponry during peacetime, the country must be overflowing with money.

Currently, Alice had worn the pendant holding the power armor on her neck. The pendant was quite beautiful, so Alice decided to just wear it like a normal pendant.

Meanwhile, after finding a suitable spot to conduct their experiments, Alice grabbed the pendant with her right hand and injected varying attributes of mana into the necklace in a specific pattern as if she were entering a passcode. As soon as Alice finished, the pendant suddenly started giving off a soft glow, and a pile of complex mechanical parts appeared before her. Then, under Luna's gaze, these mechanical parts started covering Alice's body and assembled themselves.

Although Alice couldn't observe the process from a third-person's perspective, she could still feel what was going on, and she couldn't help but find this process similar to how Iron Man suited up.

The suit of power armor covered in simulated skin was assembled in no time at all, and Alice immediately felt as if her five senses were tied together with the power armor. It didn't feel like she had just donned a suit of armor.

"It feels nice."

When Alice tried moving her body, she found that the power armor moved relatively with her movements. Although there was still some slight stiffness and delays, it wasn't too big of a concern. Moreover, when Alice looked down at her "hands," she found herself looking at a man's wide and muscular hands. It didn't look like she was wearing armor at all.

"Apart from some slight stiffness, I can't see any major issues," Luna said as she took out the headgear she had prepared.

Alice did not ask the dwarves to construct a helmet for her power armor. Instead, she had Luna craft a realistic headgear that had the facial appearance of a pretty boy.

Luna had previously worked for the Gryffin Kingdom's intelligence department, so she was rather skilled in the art of disguise. If people on Earth could turn a young girl into an old man using makeup, crafting a realistic disguise naturally wouldn't be a problem in a world where magic existed.

"How do I look?" Alice asked after Luan was done adjusting the headgear for her. Although her face felt uncomfortable when wearing the headgear, she decided to bear with it considering she only needed it to exchange a few taboos with Luna.

"It's not a bad disguise. I don't think anybody will notice it," Luna said, nodding in approval. Even with her experience working with the Gryffin Kingdom's intelligence department, she had to admit that Alice's disguise was believable.

"That's good, then." Alice nodded in satisfaction. Although she couldn't make any expressions with her "pretty face," it worked in her favor to create the image of a cool Hero. "The mana conductivity is great as well. There's almost no difference in mana output compared to my usual state. Casting taboos with this thing shouldn't be a problem."

After verifying the power armor's usability, Alice injected some mana to shut it off. Then, under her manipulation, the power armor quickly disassembled itself into innumerable parts that flowed back into the pendant on Alice's neck. With this power armor, she could have the Hero and the Demon King appear in the same location at the same time and have them engage in an exchange of taboos.

On the one hand, this play would serve to dismiss any possibilities of people thinking that Hero and the Demon King were actually the same personthough nobody had yet to make such a conjecture even until now. On the other hand, this play would let everyone witness exactly how powerful the Hero and the Demon King were in combat, which would, in turn, increase the authority these two identities held.

Nowadays, while many people still revered the Hero and feared the Demon King, a significant portion of the world's population had already started to doubt the strength of these two extraordinary existences. After all, it had already been three centuries since anybody had seen a clash between the Hero and the Demon King, and the internet still didn't exist back then. So, there existed only text records of fights between the Hero and the Demon King, and many people couldn't help but wonder if these records were accurate descriptions or exaggerations.

However, once she and Luna launched a few taboos at each other, everyone would come to understand the might of the Hero and the Demon King.

This was the first time Alice was doing something so sneaky in her life, so she couldn't help but look forward to the school trip the day after tomorrow. Moreover, once she arrived in the Elven Forest, she would even be relying on a certain elven spy to sneak into the elves' Nature Shrine and read their taboos. Just thinking about doing all these things excited her.

Alice didn't feel particularly guilty for what she was about to do, either. After all, what she would be doing wouldn't cause any actual harm to the elves. Moreover, so long as she was careful, the elves might never even realize that someone had snuck into their Nature Shrine.

Not to mention, wasn't it normal for the Hero to snoop around in others' houses and sequester their belongings in the name of justice?