Chapter 333

“This is my home.”

“It feels like this phrase is quickly becoming your mantra.”

By the time Rosa had brought Alice to her fourth home, the life in her face had vanished completely. The idea of “I might have already grown used to Alice’s presence” that the bartender had planted in her mind had similarly disappeared.

What the bartender said was utter nonsense. After thinking it over, Rosa would rather she never meet Alice again. She honestly had no idea why God would choose Alice to become the Hero. Alice did not have the spirit of a Hero at all. No matter how Rosa thought about it, the cons of getting involved with Alice vastly outweigh the pros. After all, not only did she not reap any benefits from her connection with Alice, but she even had to worry about getting involved in the Hero’s affairs.

Moreover, it was rumored that the Hero was a trouble magnet as problems would crop up wherever the Hero went. Although Rosa didn’t think much of this rumor in the past, after she got involved with Alice, she finally understood how such a rumor regarding the Hero had come to be.

“What business do you have with me this time?”

Although Rosa felt upset that Alice had come to find her yet again, she dared not show her displeasure on her face. After all was said and done, the Hero remained the human realm’s only hope to defeat the Demon King. The Hero was the most important line of defense against the Demon King. Offending the Hero would not help her in any way. So, despite her reluctance, Rosa had no choice but to ask what kind of help Alice needed from her and hoped she could send this shameless Hero away as soon as possible.

Rosa did not wish to have a life filled with thrills and excitement. She only wished for a peaceful life. It was why she had retired from her thief job in the first place. She never thought that shortly after retiring as a thief, the connections she formed during her time working as a thief would result in the Hero visiting her time and again. At this point, she truly regretted her foolish decision to photograph the Hero. That operation was the beginning of all evil.

“Don’t worry. It’s not anything major. I only need you to provide me with some information this time. You won’t get involved in any fights like last time.”

Alice naturally knew what Rosa was concerned about. After all, Rosa was only an ordinary thief. Although she had a somewhat extraordinary range of connections, she didn’t possess remarkable strength. So, it was understandable that Rosa wasn’t confident that she could survive a fight between the Hero and the Demon King. Hence, the first thing Alice did after entering Rosa’s home was to appease Rosa’s worries.

After saying so, Alice pulled out her phone and swiped her finger across the screen a few times, pulling out a photo album containing photos of the gyaru-cum-thief. Then, she handed her phone to Rosa and said:

“If I’m not mistaken, this person should be a thief. I need you to help me look for this person’s information. For example, what type of business she primarily picks up, which other thieves are working under her, and places she has been to recently.”

“Do you take me for some omniscient thief? There’s no way I can find all this information for you. Every thief will do their best to keep their personal information a secret. The only reason I know Eliadi’s true identity is because she and I are close friends. I don’t know the true identity of every thief,” Rosa said, her mouth twitching a little when she heard Alice’s request. However, despite what she said, she still took a look at the photos shown on Alice’s phone. Then, she continued, “This girl… I don’t recognize her. But it’s simple if you want to get in touch with her.”

“Get in touch with her?” After thinking it over, Alice asked, “Can’t you ask your thief friends? Maybe one of them knows about this girl’s identity?”

“Are you dumb? Thieves care a lot about their privacy. If the thieves in the industry learn that a thief is trying to investigate another thief’s identity, how do you think they will react?” Rosa rolled her eyes at Alice’s suggestion. “It is an unwritten rule that thieves should keep each other’s real identities a secret. Other thieves will treat me as an enemy if I actively break this rule. Once that happens, not only will we not get the information we want, but we will even have our information thoroughly investigated.”

Alice nodded in understanding. What Rosa said made sense. Thieves usually took on jobs that skirted the law, so it was only natural that they wouldn’t wish for others to know about their real identities. If a thief were to casually look into another thief’s identity, it would cause all thieves in the industry to lose their sense of security. This would have a huge impact on the thieving industry.

So, if Alice and Rosa were to try to investigate the gyaru thief, they would be provoking all thieves who wished to keep their identities hidden. Although Alice would remain largely unaffected by the backlash of this situation since the thieves wouldn’t dare to take action against the Hero, Rosa would probably be in for a miserable time.

“Although we cannot investigate this person’s identity directly, there are still ways to contact her,” Rosa said as she returned the phone to Alice. “The Thieves Guild has its own internet that the founders established. Before the founders died, they destroyed the control hub for this internet, so the Thieves Guild’s internet has already become an absolutely private network.”

“Oh? The Thieves Guild’s internet?”

Alice was a little surprised. The internet of this otherworld was essentially a network formed using mana of a specific frequency. It might sound simple on paper, but the creation of the internet was a project that required a terrifying amount of manpower and resources.

The five human kingdoms had to combine their strength to create the internet that existed in the human realm today. As for the demon realm, although the demons got to skip a significant portion of the internet’s research and development since they had stolen the fruits of the humans’ labor, the four demon kingdoms still had to pool their manpower and resources together to create the demon realm’s internet.

So, to hear that the Thieves Guild possessed an internet of its own was truly surprising. Moreover, going by Rosa’s wording, it didn’t seem like the Thieves Guild’s internet was a localized network with very limited coverage like the Royal Magic Tower’s internal network. Instead, it sounded like it was a network that spanned across the human realm. If that were the case, the Thieves Guild should possess an incredible amount of influence and resources.

After learning about the Thieves Guild’s internet, Alice couldn’t help but grow interested in it. Although she wasn’t interested in stealing the control of the Thieves Guild’s internet, she was interested in the spell used to construct it.

There was no question that a spell that required the manpower and resources of several countries to establish would be a taboo among taboos. Even Heroes and Demon Kings would probably have difficulty casting such a spell on their own.

Of course, it wouldn’t really matter even if Alice could cast this “internet” spell and create an internet of her own. Without massive organizations such as the human kingdoms, demon kingdoms, and Thieves Guild using it, the internet she created would only be a waste of resources. It was akin to renting a server but having nobody to use it. She would only be pointlessly wasting her energy and mana.

Rather than creating her own internet, what made Alice interested in the “internet” spell was the possibility of developing other magic with it. For example, maybe she could develop some sort of hacking magic?

There might be hackers in this world, but their main method of hacking was through using computer programs. They were no different from the hackers on Earth. Meanwhile, what Alice aimed to do was to carry out interference on the mana level.

For example, while the typical hacker was invading a certain computer through data, Alice could directly control the flow of electric currents and data transmission of a computer through the internet. The two methods of hacking were on completely different levels.

It might be impossible for the average person to learn the taboo used to create the internet in its entirety, but Alice was different. Her body possessed talent gifted by God, so she might just be able to learn it. Meanwhile, if she could develop a taboo specialized for hacking, she could freely disable devices such as surveillance cameras, phones, and computers and steal data from them.

However, it would be some time before Alice could put this plan into practice. For the time being, she didn’t have any spare time or energy to research such complex magic. Maybe after she was done dealing with the Rhine Kingdom’s matter, she could ask Hatter whether she could research the internet taboo.

“The Thieves Guild’s internet was created with a function that can help you reach specific thieves so long as you can provide their specific information. And because privacy on the Thieves Guild’s internet is absolute, many thieves would upload their private information onto it to facilitate job allocation,” Rosa continued explaining, unaware that her words had given Alice the idea of laying her hands on the internet. “So, all we need to do is upload this photo, and we can get in touch with her directly.”

“That’s a convenient function.” Alice nodded in understanding. “Then, help me contact her. Since it’s inconvenient for you to investigate her through the internet, I’ll investigate her in person.”