Chapter 160

"What is going on here? What do you people think you are doing, gathering around our Eastern Alliance's conference room?" The person who arrived was the elderly gentleman of the Eastern Alliance. Theoretically, in any nation, the older one is, the higher their seniority and qualifications.

"Hello, esteemed steward of the Eastern Alliance. Was it young master Okita who sent you back?" With such an incident occurring inside the Eastern Alliance's conference room, Europa had naturally dispatched someone to notify the Eastern Alliance's delegation. Yet, the one who returned was the person whose status appeared to be the lowest.

"Yes. So, what on earth has happened?" Having not yet looked inside the room, the man who had returned, claiming to be the steward, had no inkling of what had transpired within.

"Hello, I am Roland of Europa, and this is Cole of the United Kingdom." Before explaining the situation, Roland introduced himself and his companion, even extending his right hand.

"The United Kingdom? Then why is he with you people from Europa?" Although he shook hands with Roland, the self-proclaimed steward remained curious as to why the United Kingdom was aligned with Europa. However, as the "steward" prepared to shake hands with Cole, Cole instead bowed to him in the traditional Yamato manner: "Hello, Uncle Okita. Do you still remember me?"

This sudden display of familiarity caught both individuals slightly off guard. After a brief moment of thought, the steward's expression suddenly shifted into one of absolute shock. "Cole? Could it be... the scientist Cole?" In this day and age, anyone whose first name was spoken without a family name was either uniquely exceptional or extremely close to the speaker.

"I never imagined that the young student who once studied abroad and stayed at your household would have grown up so much." Upon seeing the "steward," Cole was also slightly stirred with emotion. Seeing the two exchanging greetings, Roland seemed to piece something together. "It turns out you two have known each other for a long time. I'll leave the explanation to you, then. I need to go deal with the communication signal issue." Considering that leaving Cole here would help gain the Eastern Alliance's trust, Roland simply walked away.

"Well, would you like to come in and take a look? After all, this is one of your people from the Eastern Alliance." Even though someone had died in the conference room, Cole still consulted the man before him. "Mm, then please tell me what happened." With that, the two entered the Eastern Alliance's conference room.

"Uncle Okita, I never expected you to deliberately conceal your identity and come here. How is she?" Once outsiders were gone, Cole instantly raised his form of address by a notch, and his tone became noticeably warmer.

"She is doing well. She has also joined the military now and is handling logistics on the front lines." For the man who called himself a steward, Cole held a very special status as well. "I simply never expected that you would have grown to this extent. You actually have the qualifications to attend a meeting of this scale."

"Haha, Uncle Okita, you flatter me." Roland could never have guessed that the relationship between these two was far from ordinary. "What do you think? After all, this war has extensively involved the technologies I control. As the foremost figure in the scientific world, of course I am qualified to attend this meeting." This statement was by no means an empty boast; Cole's capability was universally acknowledged by the world. Though that was from two years ago, even now, no one dared claim to surpass him and the Titan professor who preceded him.

"So, can you tell me what happened in this room? And also, if it is convenient, might you reveal some matters concerning the United Kingdom to me?" The casual chat concluded, and they prepared to broach the official topic.

"That's a long story. Let me first tell you about this room." With that, Cole led the "steward" over to the sofa. "The deceased is Fan Weis, your Eastern Alliance's logistics officer, correct? Through a simple test, his cause of death is cyanide poisoning. However, aside from detecting the drug within his body, not the slightest trace of it could be found anywhere else at the scene. There was no capsule-like object in his mouth, but there were some soda cracker crumbs in his stomach. Let me ask first, did he have a habit of snacking?"

"Indeed, while we were still in the middle of the meeting, he ate a lot." The "steward" corroborated this fact. "The poison acts very quickly, which means it is absolutely impossible that he was poisoned by eating cyanide-tainted crackers during the meeting. Yet, since there was no excessive cyanic gas in his lungs, he must have been poisoned by ingesting cyanide. The culprit was truly lazy, using such primitive poison just to avoid suspicion."

"Give me some useful clues!"

"If I told you the culprit is one of your own people from the Eastern Alliance, would you believe it?" Cole dropped a bombshell straight away. The revelation that the culprit was an insider left the gentleman rather astounded.

"How is that possible? Aside from the fact that he just said he was coming back to grab something, the others—"

"I didn't say it was someone from your delegation." Although Cole beat around the bush a little as he revealed the identity of the perpetrator, each piece of news was more shocking than the last. "Do you recall this person? Back when I was still in the Eastern Alliance, the news once reported on an Eastern Alliance official who was sentenced to death for suspected leaks of state secrets. But as luck would have it, prior to the execution, he died in an entirely different manner."

"You mean..."

"That's right. I detected a special fingerprint at the scene—his fingerprint. I cross-referenced it against the fingerprints of every single person in the world, and not a single match could be found, save for this fellow whose records were erased."

This revelation was truly shocking, but since the information came from Cole, the "steward" had no choice but to believe it.

"You mean his death back then was staged? And when the body was being disposed of, the person handling it swapped him out, allowing him to live on under a different identity?" The "steward" grasped the situation quickly, which saved Cole some time on explanations.

"There indeed exists such a technology nowadays that can alter a person's fingerprints. As for the technique itself, it first involves erasing the original fingerprints and then artificially carving a new set through tissue implantation." As the premier figure in the scientific world, Cole was naturally aware of such technology, and he was even capable of executing it himself. "However, the nation that possesses this technology is the United States. And due to a certain incident, that technology eventually leaked into the black market."

"Are you implying..."

"Pardon me, but I truly cannot guarantee that. However, there are some things I will slowly reveal to you in time."