Chapter 3083: Mercury Chronicles (33)

After deducing, Shiller continued to speak.

"I must admit that without any examination of this alien weapon, I cannot infer its more specific abilities. Therefore, I assumed the most difficult scenario."

"That is, the Blue Beetle does not have the ability to become invisible nor can it pass through metal walls with special materials, and it cannot directly modify the memories of those who are aware of it, nor can it control the actions of people."

"If it didn't have these limitations, accomplishing this case would be much easier. For example, if it could become invisible, there would be no need to consider blind spots in surveillance; if it could pass through walls at will, there would be no need to make an arduous escape; if it could control others at will, there would be no need for any projection, it could simply manipulate Zan to carry out the task, and afterward, it could delete or modify his memory."

The other students naturally understood that now, with the truth being a black box, they could only make guesses; Shiller was clearly assuming the weakest scenario for the Blue Beetle.

If he emphasized that it could control people and modify memories, it was possible that Zan didn't actually faint in the storage room but was instead controlled by it throughout the entire process and then had his memory altered.

In other words, while the projection seemed indeed magical, it was already the method it would adopt under the assumption that the Blue Beetle was on the weaker side.

But regardless of the scenario, the logic was relatively sound.

Still, there were students with questions, one of whom looked at Shiller and asked, "Professor, I can understand why the Blue Beetle needed a scapegoat to divert everyone's attention so it wouldn't be noticed, but why Zan?"

Many people had this question. Logically speaking, it would be much simpler to frame Claude or Gonzalez since they were the last witnesses and had both been in the small classroom with Bono twice. There was no need for such trouble; why would the Blue Beetle go out of its way?

This was indeed Shiller's specialty, and he said, "You have only seen the case itself but failed to see beyond the case."

"Zan's ability is to turn into water, and Bono happens to be best at controlling water. Without knowing the truth, what kind of relationship do you think they would have?"

The students immediately understood.

Bono's ability actually perfectly countered Zan. According to Zan himself, that was the case; without someone else intervening, Zan would have been completely controlled by Bono without any power to fight back.

Moreover, this kind of restraint was unrelated to effort; it was purely an existential issue. In other words, no matter how hard you try, there are natural enemies in this world that you could never overcome, similar to a mouse facing a cat. To these genius students, that was quite hopeless.

Bearing this fact in mind, it was natural to think that the relationship between the two could not be harmonious and that perhaps Zan might kill to eliminate his natural enemy.

The others didn't have such a strong conflict of interest with Bono. Even if there were some minor verbal skirmishes in daily life, they didn't involve fundamental benefits, and the correlation was not as strong as with Zan.

Even though Shiller's analysis was already coherent, when it came to this point, the students still had doubts about Zan.

Because Bono's very existence was a threat to Zan's life safety, anyone would harbor doubts in their heart; it was an irreconcilable conflict, and the motive to act was indeed sufficient.

So, it was understandable that the Blue Beetle would choose Zan for framing; this showed that it also had a strong ability to collect information, being aware of most students' abilities.

Naturally, there were students who raised questions, "After the act, why didn't the Blue Beetle just leave? It is an alien creature and not unsuited to space. It could have just flown to another planet, and nobody could have done anything about it."

Shiller explained, "Then why would the Blue Beetle act against Bono? Bono's trajectory of growth in Atlantis is clear and traceable, and she has no secrets. What would make an alien weapon act against her and then flee far away?"

Shiller was quite clear, and the students nearly understood immediately. Someone spoke up, "So actually, Bono isn't the key. She might just be unlucky. Whoever came here today would be the same; the Blue Beetle was here to create chaos."

"But that doesn't explain why it stayed." Someone immediately countered, "Wouldn't failing to catch the culprit cause even greater chaos?"

"This proves that the Blue Beetle was being used too." A student immediately said, "And whoever used it must know about its relationship with Ted, knowing that if the Blue Beetle stayed, there would be the possibility to dismantle the Blue Beetle and uncover the truth, the investigators would likely act, leading to conflict between Ted and the investigators."

"A conflict among students wouldn't affect much, but a sharp conflict between students and a teacher could cause the greatest chaos, possibly even leading to the school falling apart."

Shiller couldn't help but sigh, "These students are indeed very smart, grasping the point almost instantly."

At this time, Arthur also raised doubts, saying, "Although it makes sense, after all, there is no evidence, and I need to provide an answer to Atlantis."

"Then let's ask the world's greatest detective," Shiller turned and looked to Bruce.

Bruce said, "There's no evidence, but there is a life at stake."

Before Arthur's brow could furrow, the door was pushed open, and in walked Bono.

All the students let out terrified screams, chattering loudly as they retreated, and Shiller was almost squeezed against the wall by them.

"Quiet! Quiet, don't panic! She's not a ghost!" Clark shouted at the top of his lungs.

"That's right, she's not a ghost, she's been revived from death," Bruce said.

The students screamed even louder.

Diana gave Bruce a stern look and, together with Clark, took great effort to calm the students down.

Bruce, with his arms crossed, said, "After all, I am supposed to be the 'Angel' in making; how could I possibly watch someone die before my eyes? So, I summoned her soul and stuffed it back into her body. Fortunately, you Atlanteans are made of water; otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to stitch such a shattered heart back together."

Arthur pulled Bono over to check, and saw that although her clothes on her chest were still torn, her skin and internal organs were fine. It was clear the healing had not been done through surgery, but it was an automatic healing process using Water Magic.

Now that the victim had been revived, what more evidence was needed? Couldn't they just listen to her own account of events?

However, Bono's account of what happened to her was almost identical to what Shiller had described. The only problem was she also had not seen what attacked her.

She could only feel she had been attacked, then controlled and rendered immobile, before finally being pierced through the chest by a stream of water. As for what exactly it was, if she had been able to find it, she wouldn't have met such a tragic end.

In other words, even with the resurrection of the victim, there wasn't enough evidence to pin the crime on the Blue Beetle. Its methods were clean indeed.

But at this point, Shiller posed a question, how did the surveillance camera in the small classroom come to be destroyed?

The rooms on each side of the corridor were symmetrical, the only difference being there were no cameras in the storerooms, but the camera in the small classroom had broken an hour before.

From the content of the surveillance camera, it suddenly went dark, and upon examining the camera, it was found that an internal circuitry had short-circuited. It was unclear how exactly the short-circuit had occurred.

Regardless of how the short-circuit happened, reaching out to sabotage this particular surveillance camera must have left some traces, especially since cameras were installed every few steps in this base.

That meant the case that might expose the perpetrator's misstep wasn't Bono's death, but the destruction of the surveillance camera.

It's even possible that since destroying a camera is much simpler than killing a person, the perpetrator's plan might not be as careful, leaving behind more traces.

Sure enough, after a comprehensive analysis of the surveillance videos from 24 hours up to two days before the camera was destroyed, the smart butler and students found key evidence.

It started with Diana creating physical exercise plans for everyone, and knowing that Ted couldn't control the Blue Beetle, she designed Ted's plan according to human standards.

But this standard was something that most professional athletes couldn't sustain, and Ted was trained to the point of exhaustion.

Ted likely had a gym class last night, sweated profusely, and, being somewhat clean-freakish, didn't wait to get back to his dorm to shower but went straight to the gym's adjacent shower room.

This shower room was public, with clothes locked in lockers outside, and people entered naked.

There was no need for Ted to take the Blue Beetle into the shower with him, so he locked it in a locker with his clothes and went to shower.

This locker room was actually converted from other rooms, so it too had cameras. However, since the Blue Beetle was kept inside a locker, the outside cameras should not have captured it, and reviewing the locker room surveillance revealed no trace of the Blue Beetle.

Therefore, with no footage of the Blue Beetle moving in or out, it was assumed to have stayed in the locker. The Blue Beetle took advantage of this, using its projection functionality to move through the locker partitions, shifting from locker to locker until it reached a blind spot outside the camera's view, ultimately disappearing unnoticed.

Ironically, at that time, Clark happened to be taking a shower and, of course, he wasn't paying attention to the Blue Beetle, so he had no idea it was darting about in the lockers.

But his clothes had a camera planted on them by Bruce.

The Blue Beetle thought it was undiscovered beneath the locker surface, moving freely in its blind spot, only to be inadvertently filmed by the camera on Clark's discarded clothes.

Of course, footage of its erratic movements in the lockers wasn't conclusive in itself. The key was that the Beetle's motions caused the camera to short-circuit, a malfunction identical to what happened to the camera in the small classroom.

This proved that the Blue Beetle could interfere with cameras or at least carried something that could short-circuit surveillance devices.

While still not direct evidence, it was enough to persuade Ted to hand the Blue Beetle over for inspection. This time, not to crack any program but to clear up what was used to short-circuit the cameras.

According to Bruce's expert assessment, this object would likely be external and something that the Blue Beetle couldn't control well—otherwise, it could have activated upon reaching its destination rather than being left on throughout.

Indeed, underneath the abdomen of the Blue Beetle, they found a purple cube no larger than the tip of a finger.

Even if the energy within was depleted, Shiller could feel that the power that once resided inside it shared the same origin with the Curse on his body—the Witch Circe.