"What achievements did he have?"
Sengoku asked skeptically. He had picked up the file and flipped through it while Brannew was showing the photograph, but there was nothing noteworthy in it.
Besides the one Smoker had submitted, Brannew had another report. He read from it as he spoke:
"Colonel Smoker's report stated that he was once ambushed by the other party using Seastone Bullets."
"That's it?" Sengoku's expression turned strange. He was not referring to the Seastone Bullet ambush, but asking why the report was only one sentence long.
"N-No, that's all." Brannew hurriedly explained, "You know how vague Colonel Smoker's reports always are.
"But I specifically looked through the archives and discovered that at the 153rd Branch, he shot and killed branch colonel Morgan.
".It was also an ambush."
"He killed a colonel? Why haven't I seen that report?" Sengoku casually asked.
Brannew explained, ".Someone covered it up."
A branch colonel dying in battle was hardly unusual, but Headquarters would still review the report regardless.
However, the report submitted by the branch had been extremely vague about the incident. Instead, it was packed full of Morgan's brutal rule and exploitation.
That alone showed that Morgan's conduct in the area had provoked universal outrage.
As the report was passed upward layer by layer, before it reached Sengoku's hands, it was intercepted by a certain officer responsible for East Blue affairs.
To avoid being held accountable by association, he had directly sealed it away in the archives.
Brannew had only discovered it after reading Smoker's report and specifically searching through the records while preparing materials for this meeting.
"Mm, I understand." After hearing Brannew's explanation, Sengoku more or less understood why Smoker had made a point of mentioning it.
Being able to obtain Seastone Bullets in East Blue meant this guy