Chapter 196 – Let's Go For a New Prey

“No dogkins are attending the academy?”

Alice felt her head aching when she looked through the roster for beastkin students Luna had handed to her.

Many beastkin students attended the March Academy.
The beastkins had long since acclimatized themselves with human culture, so they weren't against sending their elites to attend human academies.
As evidence, catkins, foxkins, cowkins, rabbitkins, etc., could be seen listed in the student roster Alice held.
There was even one international student from the crocodilekins, a beastkin race with a very small population.
Yet, for some reason, the dogkins, which were one of the more populated races among beastkins, did not have even a single student attending the March Academy.

Of course, that wasn't to say that the dogkins were dissatisfied with human academies.
At the very least, according to Alice's knowledge, several dogkins students had graduated from the March Academy last year.
So, Alice was just unlucky that no new dogkin students had enrolled in the March Academy these past three years.

However, this wasn't good news for Alice.
After all, this meant that it would become much more troublesome for her to borrow the dogkins' chief totem.

Although the dogkins auxiliary totems also had the search function, they could only be used to search for simple items.
If she wanted to search for something on the level of the Demon King's Power, she needed to use the dogkins' chief totem.

However, while most beastkins had already adapted to human culture, it didn't mean that they had fully integrated with human society.
So, beastkins still placed great importance over their chief totems, and even human kings couldn't touch the beastkins' chief totems.
Moreover, some of the energy accumulated within the chief totem would be consumed whenever it was used.

If Alice contacted the dogkins with her identity as the princess, she might be able to borrow one of their auxiliary totems for her own use.
However, she definitely couldn't persuade them to lend her their chief totem.
Alice also dared not recklessly get Hatter to help her with this matter.
If handled poorly, it might lead to Hatter's actions being judged as racial discrimination.

This problem exists in every world…

Alice sighed as she closed the student roster.
Personally, she preferred to avoid troubling Hatter as much as possible.
After all, Hatter had already provided her with plenty of help.
He also looked like he was constantly overworked.
So, Alice truly couldn't bear to keep on squeezing Hatter for all he was worth.

Although part of the reason Hatter was helping Alice was so that he could bring more development opportunities for the Gryffin Kingdom in the future, Alice could also see that Hatter was earnestly trying to assist her.
After all, the man had gone as far as to forsake his reputation as a pure virgin and shoulder the name of a womanizer to help her.

But if I don't get Hatter's help, how am I supposed to borrow the dogkins' chief totem?

Alice felt a little conflicted over this situation.
Although she could replicate the plan she used with the elves and secretly use the dogkins' chief totem, there were two problems with this plan.

Firstly, the cost.
When Alice secretly learned the elves' taboos, it didn't cause any actual harm to the elves.
If she handled things correctly, the elves wouldn't even notice that someone had secretly studied their taboos before.
So, Alice had gone ahead with her plan without a guilty conscience at the time.

However, the dogkins' chief totem would lose some of its accumulated energy with every use.
This was a special energy that was accumulated through the dogkins' faith, so it would take a long time to replenish the lost energy.
Hence, every use of the chief totem would cause the dogkins to incur a substantial loss.

Secondly, the chief totem's activation method.
Alice wasn't a beastkin, so she wasn't particularly knowledgeable about the beastkin totems.
Although some of a totem's basic functions could be accessed just by having the totem near one's body, its special abilities required a specific activation method.
Meanwhile, Alice had no clue what the activation method for the dogkins' chief totem was.

Although Alice had tried asking Ciel for the activation method, Ciel answered that every beastkin tribe's totems had different activation methods.
So, the activation method for the catkins' totems couldn't necessarily be used for the dogkins' totems.
In other words, even if Alice could come up with suitable compensation for the dogkins and secretly gain access to the dogkins' chief totem, she wouldn't be able to use the chief totem.

However, Alice was also reluctant to give up so easily.
After all, this was currently the only known method she could use to locate the Demon King's Power.

Since there were no dogkins in the academy, Alice currently lacked the means to initiate contact with the dogkin tribes.
Although she could approach a dogkin tribe directly and initiate contact with the tribe's leader, such direct communication wouldn't be as effective as getting a dogkin to help her communicate her intent.

For example, if Alice had personally gone up to the elven patriarch and asked him for a Seed of Nature, the elven patriarch would've most likely rejected her request on the spot.
However, the effect would be different if she had Lalu, who was also an elve, make the request on her behalf.

The only problem now was where Alice should go to find dogkins.
The March Academy obviously wasn't a viable option.
Alice had even asked Frosette, the self-proclaimed “Academy Know-It-All,” and verified that there were indeed no dogkins in the academy.
Even the nobles in Class Group A did not have any dogkin attendants serving them.

In that case, did she have any acquaintances who would possess a range of contacts so wide that they might be acquainted with the dogkins?

…

“Who is it?”

Upon hearing the sound of urgent knocking coming from the door, Rosa, who was in her pajamas right now, rubbed her sleepy eyes and yawned as she climbed out of bed.

After arriving in Hall City, Rosa had found herself a job as an assistant for a private investigator.
As a former thief, Rosa was incredibly skilled at concealment, so this was a relatively suitable job for her.
She had also received only positive responses from her customers thus far, so she was very satisfied with her current job.

Meanwhile, she had been busy helping a noblewoman investigate her cheating husband last night, and she had to follow her target throughout the entire night.
Hence, she was still sleepy even though it was already afternoon.

After walking to the door, Rosa looked through the cat's eye to see who was looking for her.
However, she failed to see anybody at the door.
Then, just when she thought that the other party had already left, knocking sounds started coming from the door again.

What the… I can't see anybody outside the door, so why can I still hear knocking? Am I being haunted?

Rosa frowned when she thought of this possibility.
Immediately, she retrieved a magic stone from the nearby cabinet.
There was some light mana stored in the magic stone, and it was incredibly potent against the undead.
If the other party was an undead, all she needed to do was crush this magic stone, and the other party was bound to suffer.

While holding such precautions in mind, Rosa opened the door.
Then, she promptly realized why she couldn't see the other party through the cat's eye.

This was because the cat's eye's height had already exceeded the other party's height!

“Yo, Rosa.” Standing outside the door, Alice greeted Rosa with a smile.
“Long time no see.”

“L-Long time no see…”

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At this moment, Rosa thought that it might be better if she had met an undead.