Asura in Arknights

Fortunately, at the last moment, Sona managed to hold back.

If she had drawn her weapon in this situation, she would definitely have been taken away and imprisoned by the Knights. Sona herself would have been safe, but her friends would certainly not have survived.

Of course, Sona didn't intend to obediently do as Lucifer said.

The best course of action is to find the secret laboratory, find what Lucifer wants, and use that as leverage to threaten Lucifer into releasing the prisoners.

“I was startled by you too… I just came to say hello, I didn’t expect such a big reaction.”

Li Ang answered with an innocent look on his face.

Li Ang had intended to call Sona, but the call couldn't get through, so he had to come over in person to say hello.

Sona's reaction was so intense that even Li Ang was startled.

This also shows that she has something to hide, otherwise why would she suddenly become so agitated?

"How can you greet people like that?" Sona retorted angrily. "Don't you make any noise when you walk?"

Having survived the perilous environment of the underground arena, Sona's sense of crisis cannot be described simply as "okay".

Even so, Sona was still on high alert when someone sneaked up behind her.

The fact that Sona managed to refrain from striking Li Ang with her sword is already a testament to her considerable restraint.

"Were you too focused to hear me? I just came over to say hello, why did you have to hide your footsteps?"

Li Ang was simply lying through his teeth. He did use some tricks to get close to Sona silently.

Faced with such an obvious lie, Sona hesitated for a moment before choosing to believe it.

“Let’s not talk about this,” Sona shook her head and quickly changed the subject. “Why are you here? Investigating another case?”

Sona remembered the identity that Li Ang had told her before—a private investigator hired by Pol Pharmaceuticals.

This person had given her a business card, saying he was willing to help her.

But by then it was too late. Lucifer had already set his sights on them, and it would be pointless to ask anyone for help.

Now, the two sides are clearly on completely opposite sides, and what Sona is about to do next is something that Li Ang must not know.

Although Sona wanted to get rid of this trouble as soon as possible, in order not to change her attitude too abruptly, she patiently asked, "If you're investigating a case, do you want my help again?"

If you were to answer at this point, "Congratulations, you got it right. I do need your help with a few small things," you would likely see a rather amusing expression on Sona's face.

However, Li Ang didn't have that kind of wicked sense of humor, so he simply replied, "I'm also infected. I came to the hospital for a check-up, but I didn't expect to run into you."

“I was planning to contact you a few days ago, but I couldn’t get through to you. I just happened to run into you this time and came to ask about the situation.”

"...It's nothing, it's just that the shop is being renovated and there's a lot of work to do, so I probably didn't hear your call." Sona subconsciously avoided eye contact and said vaguely, "Is there something you want to ask? If it's not too troublesome, I can answer it for you now."

"The problem has been solved, so I won't trouble you this time."

Everything Sona said just now was a lie.

Li Ang kept an eye on the Red Pine Bakery every day, but it remained exactly as it had been when the thugs destroyed it, without even a trace of human presence, let alone any repairs.

It is now almost certain that Sona was coerced by a certain force, and her missing friends were used as tools to threaten her.

Using his senses to probe Sona, Li Ang indeed discovered several suspicious things. Someone was using a device hidden on her body to monitor everything happening here.

After spending so much effort, all they managed to catch was Sona, and she was just a pawn being coerced. Naturally, Li Ang was very dissatisfied.

As for the person threatening her... it should be the Radom Hometown Association, whose intentions are unclear.

Trevor and Ferdinand have clear objectives; if they were to meet, Leon wouldn't need to worry about them at all—they would start fighting on their own.

"If there's nothing else, could you please move aside? I'm in a hurry to get my check-up done."

As she spoke, Sona waved the examination report in her hand at Li Ang.

"Excuse me, I'm sorry to bother you."

After a moment's thought, Li Ang stepped aside.

Capturing Sona now would be pointless, as her friends are likely still in their hands. Even if Li Ang revealed his identity to Sona, she certainly wouldn't disclose any information for her friends' safety.

So it's better to let her go for now and see if we can lure out the people hiding behind her.

"Let's talk another time. I'm quite busy right now, sorry."

After whispering an apology, Sona bypassed Li Ang and hurried toward the blood collection window.

Looking back, and confirming that Li Ang's figure had been completely swallowed up by the crowds coming and going at the hospital, Sona finally breathed a sigh of relief.

However, this chance encounter also stirred a faint sense of crisis in her heart; finding her target within two hours was indeed not an easy task.

"Damn it..."

Sona muttered a curse under her breath, realizing she had been too optimistic.

After discreetly observing her surroundings and confirming that no one was paying attention to her, Sona quietly left the line in front of the blood collection window and returned to the first floor.

A certain amount of risk must be taken...

Sona suddenly felt somewhat grateful for her smaller stature. Although the difference in physique brought her many disadvantages in the arena, it could also play a significant role at times.

Now, she can stand behind anyone and no one can see her. If she were a few centimeters taller, it wouldn't be so easy for her to hide. This really made Sona's feelings a little complicated.

Soon, Sona put these unnecessary emotions aside, her eyes darting around as she silently calculated the length, width, and height of the room in her mind.

The simplest way to find a hidden space is to calculate whether there is a difference in length between the inside and outside of the room. A difference of a few centimeters to a dozen centimeters is normal and may be due to errors caused by various factors. Visual estimation itself is not very accurate. However, if the difference is more than thirty centimeters, then it is obviously abnormal.

Sona did this many times in order to escape from the underground arena. She spent several months observing its structure and finally discovered a secret passage used by important figures. Taking advantage of the commotion caused by the natural disaster, she escaped from there in one fell swoop.

Now, this kind of thing is quite easy for her. Sona skillfully weaves through the crowd, taking a few quick glances inside each consultation room as patients open them, noting down the general layout, and then calculating the area of ​​the entire room based on the size of some common furnishings.

Soon, a rough outline of the hospital's structure gradually took shape in Sona's mind.

Just as Sona had almost finished looking at the structure of the entire floor, the discussion among some patients around her suddenly made her prick up her ears.

"What? They're actually using infected people for experiments?"

"It wasn't done by the same group of people, why are you panicking, you idiot."

"Huh? Aren't they all Boer Pharmaceuticals? Is there some difference?"

"...With your intelligence, it's difficult for me to explain this to you."

Infected? Experiment? These two keywords immediately caught Sona's attention.

Sona looked in the direction the sound came from. There were two large screens in the hospital lobby, which usually played promotional materials for the hospital and Plot Zero. No one would be interested in these advertisements at all.

But now the place is packed with people, and even some of the training knights responsible for maintaining order have been drawn in, their eyes glued to the two large screens, their faces gradually showing expressions of astonishment and complexity.

With just one glance, Sona realized that the screen was showing live footage.

"Is this... the press conference they were talking about?"

Sona remembered that it was because Pol Pharmaceuticals was going to hold a large press conference that would attract a lot of attention that Lucifer planned to take advantage of the opportunity to make his move.

But he probably didn't expect that the press conference would be about this kind of thing.

On the screen, a white-haired man with a stern face read out a series of particularly heinous crimes committed by the former chairman and the chief researcher. As if to confirm his account, some heavily pixelated images began to appear on the screen. Even so, people could still discern how cruel the images were from the blurry patches.

"Are we going to be used for experiments too?"

This man's words caused a stir, but soon someone stepped forward to refute his statement.

"If they wanted to do this, why would they reveal these things? Wouldn't it have been better to keep it a secret?"

"You have such a worthless life, what are you afraid of others coveting?"

Before long, the two groups with differing opinions started arguing. However, public opinion generally leaned towards Boer Pharmaceuticals. After all, logically speaking, this kind of thing was not suitable to be publicized, let alone promoted on television.

The audience for this press conference was not limited to the infected in Plot Zero, but also included countless ordinary people living in the Great Knight Territory.

If Adams and Ayin only experimented on infected people, it would be perfectly fine, and many people would even applaud them. The status of infected people is not even comparable to that of some domestic pets, and many people would rather these people die.

But the problem is that those two are indiscriminate when it comes to choosing test subjects. No matter who you are, once they've set their sights on you, they'll use any method to bring you to the lab.

When choosing to disclose this information, Li Ang specifically selected some representative cases, such as... a director of a business association whose relatives fell into the hands of those two people, although the disappearance case was ultimately classified as 'being attacked by infected people'.

Whether Paul Pharmaceuticals itself is dead or not is unknown, but its competitors will definitely suffer the same fate as it.

This is how a crisis of trust is born.

It is foreseeable that a long-lasting witch hunt will take place in the future Great Knight Territory.

If even the former industry leaders are doing these kinds of shady things, what about you? Other pharmaceutical companies haven't undergone the major restructuring and bankruptcy process, so they are far more suspicious than the current BOLL Pharmaceuticals.

To say that a pharmaceutical company has never conducted illegal human experiments... such a conscientious company is rarer than gold.

Of course, all of this had nothing to do with Sona now. She realized that when everyone's attention was focused on the press conference, it was her best opportunity to act.

After silently glancing at the man on the television one last time, Sona turned around without hesitation and continued investigating the part she hadn't found before.

That woman named 'Monique' is definitely somewhere else working with her. What Sona needs to do now is to find the entrance to the underground secret laboratory before that woman does.

When the structural diagram of the first layer appeared in Sona's mind, she indeed noticed a few things that were not right.

The hospital has an L-shaped structure. Excluding a few errors caused by measurement mistakes, there is a very inconspicuous gap at the connection between the main building and the annex.

The empty area is not large, only about 1.5m in length and width. It is also thoughtfully covered with tall trees to conceal it. If you don't measure carefully, it is almost impossible to find that it exists.

But this area is large enough to fit a small elevator.

Sona spent a long time observing this deliberately chosen spot, but she couldn't find a place to go in.

Because she was worried about the presence of other surveillance equipment, Sona didn't dare to go up and check the situation rashly. She could only go in and out of the hospital, quietly observing the area.

Is the entrance upstairs?

This means she has to continue checking each floor...

The second floor... the third floor... the fourth floor... Sona searched all the way upstairs, but couldn't find a way to enter this hidden area.

If Sona still can't find a way in from the top floor, she'll have to consider using Lucifer's method to forcefully break through the wall in front of her.

However, when Sona arrived at the same spot on the top floor, she was astonished to find that what appeared there was not a solid carbon brick wall, but rather—

Dean's Office.

Chapter Eighty-Seven: You Lackey!

The dean's office... I see.

Sona understood everything instantly.

Building the entrance to the underground secret laboratory in such a place is somewhat inconvenient, but Sona clearly forgot another possibility—no one stipulates that there can only be one secret passage.

One of the secret passages leads directly to the dean's office. Ordinary people would never be able to enter such a place, so the security is top-notch. Moreover, the height of the six-story building itself can prevent many accidents from happening.

If Sona hadn't resisted and tried to forcefully break open a passage from downstairs, there would probably be other protective measures hidden behind the seemingly fragile carbon bricks. If she wanted to get in, she probably would have had to start from the dean's office right in front of her.

The director of the Central Hospital... Just thinking about that expressionless, white-haired Sarkaz sent chills down Sona's spine.

Sona had initially changed her opinion of the Sarkaz because of her, but she never expected her to be secretly doing something like this...

However, even now that the investigation has reached its final stage, Sona is still at a loss as to what to do with the locked director's office.

Such an important place was naturally guarded, and it was not a place for medical treatment. Sona had only stayed for less than two minutes when the guards standing nearby became suspicious of her and quietly reached for the weapon at their waists.

To leave or to stay?

Sona is now facing a difficult choice. If she hesitates for even a few more seconds, the two guards will definitely surround her.

Or... how about we try taking them both out first?

After comparing their strengths and weaknesses, even though her opponent was wearing full combat gear while Sona only had a short sword that was easy to carry, Sona still felt that she had a good chance of winning.

However, just as she had concealed the dagger in her sleeve and was about to rush forward to knock out the two guards, an unexpected incident occurred.

"boom--!!"

A loud bang drew the attention of the two guards. In that instant, Sona rushed forward like lightning and slammed her sword sheath heavily into the side of the guards' necks.

Along with the loud bang came a roar: "I've put up with you for too long! How exactly do you intend to ruin my dream?!"

Then something shiny flashed past on the horizon.

"What the heck?" Sona, who was standing by the balcony in the corridor, was clearly taken aback.

The thing that just flew by was so fast that even with Sona's reaction speed, she almost didn't react in time.

"That looks like...a person?"

Who came up with this weird contraption? A flying knight? The Great Knight Territory truly lives up to its reputation as a major city...it has all sorts of strange and unusual things...