Seeing Asagiri's eager anticipation and overt excitement, Asuna first shook her head, then the corners of her lips curved upwards. Although her tone seemed a bit helpless, it carried a gentle smile.
"Ah, you really are something. People like you who genuinely play this game as a game, who even look forward to danger for the sake of enjoyment, are probably very rare among the Player group. But there's nothing for it, since you're the Leader. Since that's the case, let's see together who the mastermind behind turning this city into this state really is."
Hearing Asuna's words, Asagiri shook his head. "No, you leave first."
"Me leave first? But..."
"Don't push yourself." Asagiri pointed to Asuna's right hand holding the Exorcist Longsword, speaking calmly.
"For the past few hours, you've been killing ordinary infected, as well as the occasional special infected. Your stamina must have reached its limit long ago, right?"
"I..." Before Asuna could speak, Asagiri walked up to her, reached out and gently stroked Asuna's long hair, and said with a smile,
"Don't worry, I have the 'Reverse Hourglass'. If things really go wrong, I can definitely still clear the dungeon and leave. Besides, your current condition is very poor; you can't exert your original combat power. Leave the matter of gathering information on the mastermind to me. After leaving the dungeon, I can just relay it to you, right?"
"Then... alright." Although Asuna had a personality that disliked admitting defeat and had strong self-esteem, she also knew that Asagiri was right. At this moment, let alone fighting, she might even become a burden to the other party.
"Then..." Asuna raised her head, pursed her lips, her eyes revealing deep worry, and looked at Asagiri. "You must be careful, please be extremely cautious, okay?"
Asagiri nodded, saying bluntly, "Then give me a kiss."
"Look at the time, and you're still thinking about taking advantage?" Asuna first said this with a blushing face and feigned anger, then hesitated slightly, still stood on her tiptoes, and lightly kissed Asagiri's cheek, immediately afterwards saying in a voice as soft as a mosquito's hum, "After you return safely, then you can kiss other places..."
Asagiri said with a sincere expression, "So, if I say kiss here, you'll kiss here?"
"You..." Asuna wasn't an overly naive girl; she immediately understood that Asagiri was making a lewd joke. She couldn't help but clench her fist and lightly hit his shoulder, then said, both shy and angry,
"Anyway, if you die, I... I won't be done with you!"
The next second, after clicking confirm submission in the mobile app, Asuna's figure gradually disappeared.
"Haha, if I'm dead, how can you not be done with me? It's not like I can play a resurrection match." Asagiri first said this, then the smile on his face disappeared. He put the "Ever-changing Mask" back on his face, looked out at the completely dark night sky outside the window, and muttered to himself,
"The mastermind... will it really be those guys, just as I suspected..."
-----------------
Ten minutes later, at the main entrance of Mochizuki Hospital.
In the shadows of the dark night, many small points of blue light suddenly appeared. Following them were more than a dozen mysterious people, dressed in full black combat suits, wearing optical sights and gas masks, full-fingered tactical gloves on their hands, holding black rifles, with not an inch of skin exposed anywhere on their bodies. They advanced slowly in a standard combat squad formation, like special forces.
Among this group, there was only one whose tactical jacket and protective gear were also black, but the lining inside was white. The person wearing the white combat suit raised their left arm. On their forearm armor, there was an LCD screen, which currently displayed nearly twenty red dots located within the administrative office building of Mochizuki Hospital.
"Fifty meters to the target location, continue advancing." After the commander-like person gave the order, this squad completely ignored the corpses of ordinary infected scattered throughout the hospital and continued to advance towards the administrative office building.
A few minutes later, the squad entered the first-floor lobby of the administrative office building. Upon entering, they saw a transparent plastic bag placed by the elevators. Inside were nearly twenty implantable locators, representing the red dots on the screen.
"Hmm?" After the squad slowly approached, one team member cautiously stepped forward, examined it carefully, and then reported to the commander, "There doesn't seem to be a trap. Someone intentionally collected the locators and placed them here."
"A trap, huh..." Just as the commander was about to issue an order, a faint sound of footsteps suddenly echoed in the originally dead-silent lobby. The moment they heard the footsteps, all squad members simultaneously turned their rifles towards the direction of the sound. However, in the scene they saw through their night vision goggles, which was as bright as day, there was actually a...
"A little girl? Human? How could she be here?" Just as they were feeling puzzled, wondering why such a blonde, blue-eyed little girl holding a teddy bear would appear in this city, the commander looked at the little girl approaching step by step and issued an order.
"Open fire, shoot her."
Facing such an inhumane order, the team members showed no sign of objection. One of them had already aimed the muzzle of his gun at the little girl's forehead, but before he could pull the trigger, the little girl suddenly spoke in a sweet, soft voice.
"Can you..."
"Please die for me?"
The moment the little girl's words fell, four squad members wearing black combat suits suddenly fell straight to the ground, instantly losing their breath.
"Open fire!" Noticing their teammates dying in such a bizarre manner, the remaining squad members showed no panic. Instead, they aimed at the little girl standing there and pulled the trigger. The muzzle flashes illuminated the originally dim hospital lobby. But before they could shoot, the blonde, blue-eyed little girl vanished instantly, as if she had never been there.
"She disappeared... Could it be a bizarre creature?" The commander in the white combat suit did not panic. Instead, he raised his hand, pressed the communication button, and then spoke.
"Report: Team A encountered a bizarre incident, requesting dispatch of support..."
Just as he was halfway through speaking, another voice echoed from not far away.
"Persona..."
"Human Asura."
The moment this voice sounded, a tall black shadow, slightly over two meters tall, appeared in the first-floor lobby. The moment it appeared, it approached at an extremely fast speed, directly grabbing a team member in a black combat suit with both hands and tearing the person's body in two from the waist.
Bang bang bang!
Even seeing the bloody scene of the team member's body being torn apart, the remaining special forces members did not hesitate at all. Instead, they immediately turned their rifles and pulled the trigger on the tall black shadow. The dense rifle bullets instantly tore the tall black shadow's body into pieces, and it then disappeared into the air.
Immediately after, the squad members quickly advanced in the direction from which the voice had just come. After turning the corner, they found that there was no one there.
"That voice just now..." The commander looked at the empty corridor and muttered to himself. "Not a bizarre incident... but man-made? Who on earth could pass through our monitored outer areas and secretly infiltrate this city..."
-----------------------
[Congratulations, "Player" Asagiri Utsunomiya, you have cleared this dungeon]
[Human Asura characteristic "Regeneration of the End" activated, bullet resistance increased]
[In this dungeon, your special bonus actions were: deducing part of the truth of the "disaster", killing special infected, meeting and engaging the mastermind behind the "disaster", successfully killing five of their members]
[This dungeon clear rating is: S+]
[Please begin customizing the quantity and type of clear rewards you wish to obtain]
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"Asagiri, you're back!" Seeing Asagiri appear on the sofa, Kotoko and Megumi, who had woken up after sleeping, and Asuna, who had just left not long ago and had been worried, immediately rushed over to him.
"You... your condition..."
Asagiri waved his hand. Although his face looked very tired, he replied in a relaxed, smiling tone, "It's nothing, just some consumption from summoning Persona. I didn't get hurt at all."
"That's good." Hearing Asagiri's words, Asuna breathed a sigh of relief, then tentatively asked,
"You said you summoned Persona, which means..."
"Yes." Asagiri nodded, looked at Asuna, Kotoko, and Megumi in front of him, and slowly began to speak,
"I encountered the mastermind behind the city's disaster, and I fought them. It was just as I thought; the people in black clothes that Alice once mentioned, and the army the ghostly man in the hospital spoke of, are actually all personnel belonging to a single military organization."
"Personnel from the same organization?" Hearing this, Kotoko couldn't help but frown slightly. The person who had entered that strange Hotel but didn't deal with the Floating Corpse Evil Spirit's main body, and the person who injected survivors with the virus and planted implantable trackers on special infected during this dungeon, essentially experimenting on an entire city – could they really be from the same organization?
"That's right." Asagiri paused briefly after saying this, then spoke softly. "The name of that mysterious organization they belong to is..."
"Black Watch."