8 p.m.
Kamijo Hospital.
Luo Shu led Touka Kirishima straight to the staff elevator without a care for anyone watching and pressed the basement level two button three times.
Buzz!
With a faint shudder, the elevator began descending toward basement level six.
Watching the display beside her show basement levels three and four, floors that did not appear among the buttons, Touka Kirishima could not help twitching her lips.
"You actually hid it in plain sight inside a private hospital."
"Where else? Hidden deep in some remote mountain forest?"
With a smile, Luo Shu teased her.
"Forget it. Never mind the cost of building a research base deep in the mountains. Even in terms of concealment, that kind of secret base is terrible."
"A supply truck keeps visiting a remote mountain that normally sees hardly any traffic. Isn't that practically announcing that something's wrong there?"
"So that's why the Research Base was built inside a private hospital in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward?"
Touka Kirishima wore an expression that said she had learned something new.
"The base itself is out in the open, but I never said other people knew it was a 'research base.'"
As the elevator reached basement level six, Luo Shu stepped out first and said,
"In fact, as far as the other authorities are concerned, this is a Special Medical Base. Some of our partners even occasionally send difficult patients here for treatment."
"Put the suspicious place out in the open, and other people will think there's 'nothing suspicious' about it."
As he spoke, Luo Shu led Touka Kirishima to a metal door and pressed his palm against the LCD screen beside it.
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The black LCD screen sank inward, revealing
"They updated the method this