Chapter 552: Game

Ian Chandler, having understood Nina Jacobs’s line of thought, immediately began to help with the investigation.

Eventually, they identified all the suspects. Currently, only over eighty people met all her criteria simultaneously. These eighty-plus individuals belonged to six different Psionics Units.

"Impressive..." Ian sighed in awe. The scope of the investigation had been narrowed down so drastically.

"It’s only at the suspicion stage. They could all be wrong," Nina said, looking at the list in her hands. One of the teams, named "Argent," resided in Townhouse 280 in the villa district. This villa was located right opposite where Ianna Jacobs and her group lived. And the Veridia language she had accidentally overheard last time using her Five Senses Enhancement had come from there. An imperceptible smile crept onto Nina’s lips. Whether Argent was related to Caleb Carter’s incident or not, they would have to undergo investigation by the base.

"Nina, how about you leave this to me? Let me help you," Ian volunteered.

Seeing Nina’s apparent hesitation, Myra Lawson also strongly recommended her son. "Ian is definitely up to the task. He can mobilize the various departments in the base. If you need any coordination, just come to me. The base must investigate this thoroughly. We absolutely will not allow any scum who harm our own people to exist."

Since Myra had spoken, Nina agreed.

Before Nina left, Adrian Paige called out to stop her. "Amelia Vance will very likely seek you out again later. You don’t need to worry about anything. If you want to refuse, just refuse outright, and there’s no need to return his gifts," Adrian said.

Gifts? It seemed Adrian knew about Amelia sending gifts to Stella a few days ago? However, he seemed to have misunderstood. She hadn’t accepted Amelia’s things for no reason. That was "hush money" he had given her.

"Do you know why he wants to see me?" Nina asked.

Adrian paused, then replied, "Yes, most likely he wants to do business with you."

Doing business? If it had been anything else, Nina wouldn’t have been interested. But since it was about doing business, she was rather curious.

"I understand. Thanks for the heads-up. By the way, is Amelia married?" Nina asked casually, as if remembering something.

In her past life, the reason Amelia had managed to become a supply tycoon in City A was reportedly because he was the biggest beneficiary of a certain marriage. Conversely, the bride’s family had inexplicably suffered deaths and injuries, ending up with a miserable fate. All the supplies and networks acquired by the bride’s family had fallen into Amelia’s pockets, which allowed him to amass such vast resources...

"He... hasn’t. But he has a fiancée surnamed Luo." Adrian seemed surprised that Nina would ask this.

Upon hearing his answer, Nina’s expression noticeably relaxed. At this time, Amelia was probably just a minor merchant with a little bit of backing.

"Thanks." Having obtained the information she wanted, Nina took her leave.

With Ian joining the effort, the photos and information of the members from the six Psionics Units were quickly gathered. However, after Caleb and Fern Spencer tried to identify them at the hospital, they couldn’t recognize anyone from the batch.

"Caleb and the others said those people were wearing hats and masks at the time, making it hard to see their faces clearly," Ian said. He had just rushed over from the hospital, having heard that Nina had started her investigation days ago. Currently, Nina was sitting at the table in Stella’s living room, holding a few colored cards in her hands. Chase Gallagher, Holden Shaw, and Jessica Vance were beside her.

"Have you played this kind of game before?" Nina didn’t react to Ian’s words but focused intently on dealing the cards.

"Is this a board game? I saw my classmates play it before. I think the first person to get rid of all their cards wins?" Ian replied.

"Yes and no." As the round ended, Nina was the first to play her final card.

Holden stared at the extra pile of cards in front of him, his eyes filled with disbelief. "How did I... lose?" He had clearly been on the verge of winning just a moment ago.

"The core strategy of this game can be summed up in three words: sabotage your teammates," Nina said, pulling out three different colored cards. "How to keep the opportunities for yourself and leave the penalties for your teammates—that is the survival strategy."

Nina then pointed at the red card and continued, "Using the game as an example, it’s highly likely that Caleb and his team were unknowingly sabotaged. Before that happened, someone else had already snatched the opportunity."

Ian looked thoughtful and asked, "If ’opportunity’ represents the supplies, and ’penalty’ represents being sabotaged... Does that mean someone else took the opportunity?!"

Nina nodded. "Exactly. Someone told Caleb about the supply point, but when they got there, they found that the items were completely different from what that person had described. That was where things started to go wrong."

The others around the table seemed to realize something. "That dying person in the hospital lied to Caleb?" Holden asked. But how had Nina figured that out?

At this moment, Chase looked at Nina, finally understanding her intention in playing this round of the game. He took out a few documents, placed them on the table, and said, "These past few days, the captain asked me to investigate these individuals. The person Caleb saved is named Cassia Quinnie. Cassia is thirty-six years old with no superpowers. She has a younger brother in the base, and the two siblings were still living in the base’s relief zone over a month ago.

"A month ago, Cassia joined a Psionics Unit named ’Ignis.’ This team has about twelve members, all of whom are Superpower Users."

At this point in Chase’s explanation, Ian had already sensed something amiss. "Cassia is an ordinary person without a superpower, yet she suddenly joined a team made up entirely of Superpower Users?"

Chase replied, "Exactly. Cassia’s induction sparked dissatisfaction among several team members. After a massive argument, two of them left Ignis. Their departure certificates can still be found in the base’s records." City D Base’s Superpower User Management Center kept track of everyone’s departure certificates to make it easier for Superpower Users to form teams with one another.

Chase continued, "Not long after, the Ignis Squad encountered a disaster while out on a mission, and only Cassia was saved by Caleb. After informing Caleb about that matter, Cassia died. Two days later, her younger brother moved out of the relief zone and into the base’s villa district. I also found out that he exchanged a sum of Crystal Cores for a massive amount of points and deposited them into a points card."

Every one of Chase’s findings was backed by evidence, including a record of the points card exchange.

"In other words, someone made Cassia deliberately lie to Caleb, and the reward was proper resettlement for her younger brother?" Jessica analyzed, her brows furrowed.

"But why? What’s the benefit of deceiving Caleb?" By now, all the members of Stella had gathered around the table, their expressions filled with confusion over what Chase had uncovered.

Nina then brought out the three-color cards and said, "Suppose the red card represents Caleb, the yellow card represents Cassia, and the gray card represents those who kidnapped Soul Slayer’s Space Superpower User. Why did the Gray Cards kidnap their Space Superpower User? It could only be for the supplies. But Caleb didn’t find any supplies. Where do you think the supplies actually were?"

Where the supplies actually were... Looking at the three-color cards, everyone had mostly figured it out.

Ian replied, "They could only be with the Yellow Card! Furthermore, the Yellow Card made the Gray Cards believe that Caleb and his team went and collected the supplies. That’s why the Gray Cards went and kidnapped their Space Superpower User."

In other words, in this incident, Caleb’s team had been secretly sabotaged by two different groups.