Refer to the exhibit. When PC-A sends traffic to PC-B, which network component is in charge of receiving the packet from PC-A verifying the IP addresses, and forwarding the packet to PC-B?

A Layer 2 switch forwards frames based on MAC addresses within the same broadcast domain (VLAN/subnet) and does not inspect or forward traffic based on IP addresses between different subnets.

A router operates at Layer 3 (the Network Layer) of the OSI model and is specifically designed to forward packets between different IP networks or subnets. It receives packets, examines their destination IP addresses, and uses its routing table to determine the optimal path to the destination, then forwards the packet accordingly.

A load balancer distributes incoming traffic among multiple servers to optimize resource utilization and is not primarily responsible for basic inter-subnet packet forwarding between client devices.

A firewall filters traffic based on security rules, but its primary function is not to perform the fundamental forwarding of packets between different IP subnets.