After choosing to leave, they regretted it.

"I……"

Boris pressed his fat chest and tried his best to calm himself down a little.

Then he put on a slightly forced smile and answered hesitantly:

"How can it be true? Lord Aize is such a joke... This is all slander, blatant slander. I wonder where Lord Aize heard this from?"

"I investigated this myself from the documents you sent me."

Aize told the truth expressionlessly.

Unfortunately, Boris didn't believe it at all.

Investigate? From that mountain of paper?

What a liar.

Even if there really was some fatal content left in there, it would be impossible for him to find it in just one night.

This is simply not something that humans, including heroes, can do.

So, there really is a traitor!

Someone wants to take this opportunity to mess with me!

Boris confirmed his guess again.

Boom! ! !

It was at this moment that the door of the study was suddenly kicked open.

Hecate, a half-breed with gray hair and a missing horn, walked into the room.

There were also two people, one on each side, dragging two humans who were beaten beyond recognition and throwing them next to Aize's desk.

"As you ordered, they have been captured."

The half-breed said this expressionlessly.

When Boris saw the two men's miserable faces, he skipped the stage of cold sweat and went straight into a state of sweating profusely.

Chapter 71 Information Gap

Ai Ze glanced at the two people who were dragged in like dogs, frowned, put on a very unhappy expression, and said in a blaming tone:

"How did it become like this?"

Hecate shrugged.

"They were the ones who resisted, so I was a little rough. Don't worry, it's just a few broken bones. It won't affect the interrogation."

"Really? How am I going to explain this to Mr. Boris?"

As he spoke, Aize glanced at the petrified Boris next to him, put on a fake smile, pointed at the two of them and said:

"I'm truly sorry for arresting members of the Adventurer's Guild without any prior notice, Mr. Boris."

"Ah... uh—"

Boris was stuttering a little and kept wiping the sweat from his face with a handkerchief.

"Well, they are indeed high-ranking adventurers of the guild, but... no, I wonder why Lord Aize ordered their arrest?"

Aize stood up and walked to the two people who were lying on the ground and had lost consciousness. He squatted down and pretended to check their conditions with an expressionless face.

Then he stood up calmly and answered:

"These two individuals are connected to the assassination of a noble last year. It involves the death of a marquisate heir. This is a serious matter, so of course we must conduct a thorough investigation."

As he spoke, he leaned over to Boris's fat and big-eared body, leaned over, gently pressed his shoulder, and then said in a low voice:

"What's wrong? Why is Mr. Boris reacting so strongly? Could it be that he knows something? From what I understand, these two adventurers seem to have a very close relationship with you, right?"

"No, no, no, how could that be?"

At this point, Boris no longer cared about friendship and almost subconsciously distanced himself from the matter.

"This is the first time I've heard of such a horrifying thing. How could such a thing happen... Hehe..."

Excuses aside, he certainly knew the accusations made by Aize.

Don't know too much.

As mentioned before, the Adventurer's Guild openly accepts a variety of basic commissions such as basic monster subjugation, personnel protection, and material collection.

In private, since they have gathered a group of desperate criminals who are very good at fighting and have outstanding personal abilities, they naturally do a lot of dirty work for the big guys.

The lower-level ones, like the Tafia Adventurer Branch, raise a group of desperate criminals to kidnap non-important targets.

The more advanced ones involve disputes within the nobility, or even vendettas.

These commissions naturally cannot be carried out through the normal system of the guild, but are more based on personal relationships.

That is, the guild's top leaders assign their trusted adventurers to work for the nobles with whom they have a cooperative relationship.

So every time this matter is brought up, the guild will only say that it is an individual behavior, an isolated case, and has nothing to do with the guild itself.

Therefore, even if things were occasionally exposed, they would just kill a few people and the guild would remain strong.

In the incident that Aize mentioned, the client was the victim's younger brother, and he did this so that he, the substitute, could take the throne.

The person in charge is Boris.

The actual executors were the two high-level adventurers lying on the ground.

Of course, this is top secret.

No written records were left during the entire process, and the delivery of the commission was carried out in the form of objects, disguised as the delivery of goods.

Even within the guild, almost no one else knew about it.

How did this guy get such accurate information?

Even the executors have been caught?

——It can only be an insider.

Someone in the guild wants to harm me... No, it's not harming me, it's trying to kill me completely.

Otherwise, the guild has done so many dirty jobs, why would they single out me and my closest associates for the taking?

It's clearly targeted.

After some panicky thinking, Boris once again verified and even further strengthened his previous guess.

That's why I'm so nervous.

Corruption within the guild is dealt with by the guild as nothing more than a fine of three cups of wine, which is insignificant.

But being suspected of murdering a noble is something completely different.

Even if everyone is doing it, no one dares to admit it, including the noble who hired them.

Therefore, once the matter was exposed, he would inevitably be made a scapegoat and bear all the responsibility for the murder of the nobles.

By then, not to mention my life, even my body would probably be torn into pieces.

How to do?

Boris looked at Aize with a smile on his face, and instantly understood what he meant. He also felt so angry that his teeth were itching.

Why drag him here in front of me?

Even beaten like this?

Isn't it just putting pressure on yourself, forcing yourself to have no choice but to become a tainted witness and confess everything?

Aize really thought so.

Aize also knew that Boris knew what he was thinking.

At this point, Aize's true intentions were finally revealed.

First of all, because of the guild's abnormal behavior and the strange vampire assassin before, he suspected that they were related to this incident.

Therefore, they use the existing ambiguous evidence to put pressure on the other party and force them to hand over a large amount of documents to prove their innocence.

At this time, the other party's attention must have been all on the evidence related to the royal capital incident. After hastily eliminating it, the rest was thrown to Aize.

Aize then used his superb intelligence analysis ability to filter out letters that he had no way of knowing.

Then, using Boris, a marginal figure in the guild's upper echelons, as a breakthrough point, they exerted high-intensity pressure.

There is only one goal, which is to create as much discord as possible, make him doubt the source of Aize's information, and then firmly believe that someone on the inside wants to harm him.

After the rift has formed, this final dose of drastic medicine is administered.

Aize obtained information about the noble assassination through his own intelligence network and knew about it long before the incident happened.

However, he didn't have time to deal with these trivial matters at that time, so he put them aside for the time being.

I didn't expect it to be used now.

The key to the entire plan is to make the guild think that they are in control of the situation and have cut off Aize's source of intelligence.

Then maximize the use of information gap and induce the other party to draw the conclusion that Aize wants.

This is the situation we have now.

That is, Boris firmly believed that someone within the guild wanted to take advantage of this opportunity to harm him.

What’s interesting is that apart from the most critical source of information, the rest of the information is actually known to both Aize and Boris.

This is the so-called open-card game, which means that he has almost no room to maneuver.

However, it is impossible for Boris to give in so easily.

Since it concerns his own life and property, of course he has to struggle again.

"Lord Aize, this..."

"Oh, right."

Without giving him a chance to speak, Aize interrupted him and looked up at the clock on the wall.

"Time is almost up. I still have a few guild leaders to talk to, and I have to go visit the princess soon. Let's call it a day for today."

As he said this, he straightened up, smiled and made a gesture of invitation to sit down.

Boris could hardly believe his ears.

"So far, you mean... I can leave?"

"Yes, what else? Today is just a conversation, not an interrogation or arrest. Why can't you leave?"

Aize smiled.

"However, there are some things I still hope you can consider carefully before we meet next time. Okay, goodbye."

Not knowing what Aize was up to, Boris slowly stood up and walked towards the door while staring at Aize.

It was as if he was afraid that if he turned around, the other party would pounce on him like a ferocious beast and tear him to pieces.

Of course, that didn't happen.

He walked out of the study smoothly and closed the door.

The show is over.

Hecate looked at the other person's back as he left, sighed softly, and crossed his arms.

asked:

"Why did you let him leave?"

"Um?"

"It's already come to that. Isn't it okay to take this opportunity to force him to tell everything?"

Aize shook his head.

"No, that won't work. The core of this strategy is to exploit information asymmetry to create maximum pressure and conflict. Neither of these two elements is in place yet. So, it's not time for a showdown yet."