After choosing to leave, they regretted it.

It can be said that the indirect losses caused by this round of turmoil are far more shocking than their direct damage.

But this is also an unavoidable cost.

Judging from this experience, it is necessary to significantly update the strategy for dealing with the Faceless Men here. Otherwise, if they happen a few more times, the collateral damage alone will be unbearable.

Aize thought so.

Rosaline, who was the target of assassination, as well as the prince, Aize and other guests were all stuffed into the safe house in the castle afterwards to prevent them from being taken advantage of in the chaos.

Due to a series of troubles, the dinner that was supposed to start after sunset was delayed until after 10 o'clock in the evening.

The beginning.

"On behalf of the Karlsade family and the imperial soldiers stationed here, I welcome His Royal Highness, the Brave Lady Rosalin, and Mr. Aize."

Standing at the end of the long banquet table, the Earl raised his glass and said this with a stiff smile.

"Due to my negligence, the demonic villains took advantage of the situation and disturbed everyone. I am deeply sorry and would like to apologize to you all. Please forgive me."

The prince, the chief guest, smiled and responded:

"Your Excellency, you are too polite. The demons are cunning and hard to guard against. We were able to discover and stop their intentions in time, and saved everyone, including myself, from harm. That's enough. Why do you need to apologize for so much?"

She has quite a nice social manner.

This guy was completely in the dark about the previous incident, and no one told him what happened. They just threw him into a safe house for protection, and only told him the whole story after everything was settled.

For this reason, he even got angry at Aize who entered the safe house later.

"I am the dignified prince of the Empire, the next Emperor of the Empire. Why didn't you tell me about such an important matter? Do you look down on me and think I'm a burden? Or do you think I can't find anything and can't help? What gives you the right to-"

——He kept on complaining about this and that for a long time.

In fact, it is not much different from a child asking "Why don't you take me to play", so Aize just laughed it off and didn't take it too seriously.

It's just that now when I see his serious look, I find it a little funny.

"Haha, Your Highness is right. If it weren't for the efforts of the Earl and Aize, I would have died by now at the hands of the Faceless Men. Your Excellency, please don't mind this."

Rosalyn responded with a smile and a toast. After a series of crisp clinking sounds, the dinner began.

The prince almost immediately spoke to Rosaline:

"I heard that Lady Rosalin brought a whole contingent of the Church's Crusade Army with her, and that they will all participate in this expedition?"

"Yes, the Holy War Knights and the Holy War Army, with a total number of over 3000 people, are now stationed in Cheng. On behalf of the Church and the Goddess, we are willing to contribute our humble efforts to this expedition and to save the believers in suffering."

The Pure White Saint responded with a smile.

This is how she usually speaks, so unlike Aize, she feels no pressure at all when dealing with such a situation.

Her almost holy smile and kind attitude easily make those who don't know her think she is easy to talk to.

That's what His Royal Highness the Prince is like.

He was so proud of himself that he thought his plan could be successfully implemented that he even completely ignored Aize's warning during the day and raised his glass with great satisfaction.

"Thank you to the Church and Lady Rosalyn for your generosity. Come, let's toast to the smooth progress of the upcoming expedition!"

"Well, cheers!"

While clinking glasses, he even gave Aize a smug look.

Of course, Aize completely ignored him.

At this moment, he neither chatted with other guests nor enjoyed the wine and food. He just kept rubbing the edge of the plate gently with his dinner knife.

His brows were furrowed, as if he was thinking about something.

"Aize."

"Um?"

Seeing him like this, Chris touched him with her arm and asked with concern:

"You don't want to eat? Is the food not to your taste? I'm sorry, but the dishes we prepared earlier were repeatedly checked during the search and are now completely inedible. These are newly made, so the quality may be lower..."

"No, no, no, that's not the problem. I was so hungry in the safe house just now that I ate a lot of cookies. Now I have no appetite at all."

It is called a dinner party, but in fact it is more like a midnight snack by definition.

It's just that the Earl is too concerned about his reputation and doesn't want the demons to overly affect his plans, so he insisted on holding a symbolic event tonight.

The more formal event has actually been postponed to tomorrow.

Aize was extremely hungry before, and he ate whatever he saw. Of course, he had no appetite now.

"and……"

Aize gently fiddled with the steak on the plate with a fork, while his eyes quickly swept across the entire banquet hall.

"...Do you think it's really over?"

The blue-haired girl blinked. She had been relaxed at first, but suddenly became nervous because of this sentence:

"Isn't it over yet? But...but the castle has just been searched thoroughly, and nothing was found. How about I talk to father?"

Chris, who always believed in Aize's words, almost stood up and started to act immediately.

Then Aize kicked him lightly under the table.

"Don't move, this is just my intuition, it hasn't come to that yet."

After thinking for a moment, he added:

"In a moment, no matter what happens to me, no matter what I do, you must stay here and ensure the safety of His Royal Highness. Do you understand?"

Everyone who had anything to do with Rosaline was inexplicably assassinated one after another, and if they didn't die, they were half-crippled. No one could guarantee that His Royal Highness the Prince wouldn't be the next.

It's always good to be careful.

"...Okay, leave it to me."

After a brief hesitation, the blue-haired girl in an evening gown nodded.

then--

“抱歉，伯爵大人。”

Aize stood up.

"It's time. I have to go back to my room and take some medicine."

The Earl, who was about to join in the chat between the prince and Rosaline, frowned and looked at him.

"medicine?"

"Well, I was hit by a witch's curse during a battle and it can't be lifted. I have to take medicine at a fixed time every day to suppress it. The time is almost up."

Given the Marquis's personality, he would inevitably use this matter to disgust Aize.

But after all, he had just been helped a lot, and it would be a bit too ungrateful to do this now, so he nodded simply:

"Okay, do you need anything from me?"

"No, my maid is ready. I'll be back soon. Bye."

After saying that, without stopping for long, he walked directly through the door of the banquet hall and disappeared from everyone's sight.

This also caused the smile on Rosaline's face, who was ignored and not even spoken to, to waver slightly.

----------

As the dinner progressed, servants came and went, and dishes were served to the guests in a carefully designed order.

Although it was late, the sound of tableware clattering, mixed with laughter, continued.

In this atmosphere, a figure walked through the corridor of the mansion.

No one stopped him, or no one dared to stop him. Every guard and servant who passed by bowed and saluted the figure.

The other party climbed up the protective wall on one side of the castle without any hindrance.

Just go down from here and you can easily leave here.

For the strong people in this world, this height is nothing.

This figure seemed to want to do the same.

He slowly approached the edge.

Immediately afterwards——

"I've been thinking about a question."

"!!?"

Someone's voice suddenly rang out in the darkness. The black shadow was obviously startled and subconsciously looked in the direction of the voice in panic.

"Why would the Faceless Men carry out such seemingly sophisticated, yet in reality illogical, assassinations? It's laborious, requiring large-scale infiltration and orchestrating long-range attacks. And yet, a fake maid could have done the job. It's completely illogical."

Accompanied by a leisurely voice, Aize, who was supposed to go back to his room, walked out from the darkness with his hands in his pockets and slowly came to the front of the figure.

"I've thought about this for a long time, from sunset to now, and there's only one answer I can come up with."

"The Faceless Men who carried out the assassination were a disguise. The assassination itself was a disguise. Even the fate of the target, Rosaline, is irrelevant. The key point is that the Faceless Men were assassinating the Chosen Hero, and someone was cooperating with them."

After stopping, Aize raised his head with a smile:

"Am I right, Countess of Karside?"

In the dim moonlight, you can see the other person's long blue hair and the evening dress she is wearing.

There is no doubt that it was Countess of Carside, Chrissie's mother herself, who had protected Rosaline from the assassin during the day.

Faced with Aize's accusation, the Countess was stunned for a moment, then smiled:

"Aize, what are you talking about? What do you mean someone cooperated with them?"

Aize touched his nose, exhaled lightly, and continued slowly:

"Imagine if the Faceless Man's own plan to kill him failed today, and you were the one to deliver the final blow, what would have happened?"

"The Empire's nobles colluded with the Faceless Men to assassinate the Church's chosen hero. Considering Rosaline's current influence in the Church, how much chaos would this cause?"

After what happened before, Rosaline's current prestige and power are even greater than that of the Pope.

Every high-ranking member of the church would be happy to see her death. If they heard that she was assassinated by the demons, they would probably laugh so hard that their faces would break, and they would worship the Faceless Man as their ancestor for eight generations.

But on the surface, in order to give an explanation to the church believers and for the so-called divine world and the dignity of the church, they will still strictly investigate the matter.

At that time, the Countess, who assassinated Rosaline in public, would have no way to defend herself.

Even in further investigations, as to how more than a dozen Faceless Men sneaked into the castle, this responsibility would naturally be attributed to her.

By then, the expedition will be aborted, the Karside family that has guarded the border for many years will be completely destroyed, and even the princes who have had deep cooperation with them will be implicated.

The empire could change overnight.

This is the real plan.

In response, the Countess smiled bitterly and shook her head:

"No, what are you talking about? If they wanted to assassinate Lady Rosalyn, wouldn't I have plenty of opportunities today? Why should I protect her? Besides, I was also checked during the previous castle search. I'm not a Faceless Man..."

"That's the problem."

"……what?"

Aize shrugged:

"Judging from the Countess's record, I don't think she's likely to rebel. As for you now... have you somehow evaded the scans, or are you using mental manipulation to control her body? I can't say. But there's no doubt that this is something only a Faceless Man of considerable rank could achieve."

"If the Faceless Men's telepathic abilities become strong enough, they can not only transmit their own thoughts to others, but also use them as a mind-reading technique to read other people's thoughts. This is what a demon friend of mine told me."

Having said that, Aize stopped, put away his faint smile, turned around and pointed directly at the other person's nose:

"Tell me! What did you read in Rosalyn's mind that made you change your original plan and let her go? And how did you find out about her Crusade Army when even I couldn't figure it out?!"

"..."

The Countess remained silent.

After looking at Aize in the moonlight for a while, she suddenly smiled strangely.

—You are afraid—

“…Tsk, what?”