Watching Kinuhata Saiai expertly navigate the Talent Workshop's corridors and knock the researchers on standby unconscious with sharp, efficient movements, Roland's lips slowly curled upward.
She knew the layout of the highly classified Talent Workshop inside out and had no intention of obtaining information about the facility's current defenses or personnel from its researchers.
Moreover, although the young girl appeared to be alone, after she destroyed the scanning equipment at the entrance, Roland sensed new signs of life emerging off to the side.
Clearly, that level of discipline marked this as a premeditated incursion.
And in Academy City, only the Dark Side Organizations could pull that off.
Although Judgment openly protected Academy City, its upstanding nature and disadvantage against espers made it ill-suited to staffing and protecting many research institutions and related facilities.
On top of that, Academy City's leaders all harbored their own schemes, vying for power and profit at every turn.
Thus, espers chasing fame and fortune, along with powerful scum, gradually filled the gaps in security and personal interests in the form of Dark Side Organizations.
By now, the dark side had become the embodiment of this city's darkness.
They answered directly to the Board of Directors, obeying orders from above to carry out dirty work such as assassination, sabotage, intelligence gathering, and even silencing witnesses.
As Academy City grew in scale, becoming a major pillar of the science side despite being only a single city, the Dark Side Organizations deeply rooted within it also developed considerably.
Even the classified files available to the Talent Workshop were vague about their specific composition and details.
To Roland, however, none of that qualified as a secret.
The phone Aleister had given him allowed him to freely browse the secrets buried deep within Academy City, without concealing even the backgrounds