Just as Leon was holding a family photo with his sister, pondering how to dig into the secrets of the Aquarius Director to speed up the bureau's investigation of this character, a group of people was holding his file, contemplating how to remove this obstacle from their path.
"Do we really have to take action? Can't we deal with him using ordinary methods?"
After quickly flipping through a few documents in his hand, a short man sitting at the end of the long table couldn't help but speak first,
"His schedule was pretty fixed, leaving from Bridge Street every day to head to work in the municipal area where the police department is located. If we ambush with the right people in advance, we might just need a few bombs..."
A young man sitting across from him shook his head and, biting his teeth, said with a face full of resentment,
"He's with that Purification Bureau, carrying more than one Anomalous Object for protection; ordinary alchemical bombs likely wouldn't kill him."
"Then blow up his house!"
The short man suggested again,
"Even with Anomalous Objects for protection, he might not be able to defend every hour of the day. We could sneak over at night and blow up the entire apartment on Bridge Street!"
A young woman wearing a hat shook her head and quickly said,
"The apartment's view is excellent. The northwest corner's tower could directly oversee the whole street. When I was assassinating the Princess earlier, I had considered making it the first sniper point,
but once I jumped over the fence, I found an intimidatingly strong old man staring at me with giant scissors. I shot at him, and he was fine. He almost killed me with a backward snip.
I later took twenty people over and, in the blink of an eye, they were tied up tightly by an old white-haired lady and thrown into the street corner's garbage station.
While the old man didn't kill me, he held onto the meter-long scissors, snipping at my head for over half an hour. He shaved not just my hair and eyebrows but even cleaned up my nostrils; they haven't grown back since."
Raising her head slightly to show everyone her empty nasal cavity, the young woman sighed and said,
"I later learned that the apartment itself was an Anomalous Object. Both the strong old man and the white-haired old lady had been dead for over ninety years. With these two old ghosts guarding the apartment, we'd need heavily armed troops to forcibly enter and plant bombs.
Oh, by the way, have you ever seen heavy weapons? I snuck into Ryan Armaments Company last month. The heavy weapons ordered by the military were only half-finished, but the report falsely claimed completion; aside from the most critical units, many were not yet deployed. We could exploit this..."
"Alright, Charlotte, your intelligence is very useful, but it's unrelated to this meeting. We're discussing how to solve the problem of Leon Laine."
After interrupting the young woman, the middle-aged man sitting at the main seat spoke,
"Everyone, according to the intelligence returned by Barton, this Purification Bureau employee is not weak. Dealing with someone carrying Anomalous Objects by conventional means has a low probability of success, so we need you to take direct action."
"We have no problem taking action, but what happens after we do?"
Sucking his teeth, a somewhat shabby old man reminded,
"He's with the Purification Bureau. The person who gave us Talents warned us that the Director of the Virgo Branch was incredibly strong. Even if we're all together, it would be a suicide mission.
If Barton were still around, we could have killed him in the Duplicated Space Barton created. But now Barton's gone, and killing him might provoke that woman to step in personally..."
"No, it won't. That woman from the Virgo Branch has her own responsibilities and generally won't intervene personally. Plus, we don't necessarily have to kill him, just erase his Ability and memory."
The middle-aged man at the main seat said this while turning to look at the drowsy child on his right, knocking gently on the table,
"Phoebe, join this mission. You're responsible for making the target forget all our intelligence in his mind and the Ability that allows him to glimpse others' souls. Can you do it?"
Hearing the middle-aged man's question, the drowsy little girl suddenly shivered, then said, with a face full of confusion,
The little girl sniffed and continued to ask, bewildered,
"An employee of the Purification Bureau who exposed Barton's identity and took Samantha's Ability."
"Who is Barton? And who is Samantha?"
Faced with the little girl's repeated inquiries, the middle-aged man wasn't impatient. Instead, he explained patiently,
"They're our comrades. Barton was a spy in the Secret Investigation Bureau, a burly uncle with a scar on his face. Samantha was the aunt with bandages on her hand who could heal others or cause them to rot..."
After reluctantly nodding as if she understood, the little girl rubbed her eyes, then asked again,
Rubbing his temples in frustration, the middle-aged man waved to the seat on the little girl's other side, saying with some helplessness,
"Lucy, your sister's amnesia has flared up again. She's not in a state to discuss. Just infuse the necessary information directly into Phoebe's head!"