Refer to the exhibit. Which device should be used to interconnect the hosts?

A load balancer distributes incoming network traffic across multiple servers, which is not the primary function for simply interconnecting hosts.

A VPN gateway establishes secure tunnels over public networks, which is unrelated to directly connecting hosts on a local network segment.

A Layer 2 switch operates at the data link layer to forward frames between devices on the same local area network based on their MAC addresses, effectively interconnecting hosts in a single broadcast domain. This allows devices to communicate directly without needing routing capabilities.

A Layer 3 switch performs routing functions between different IP subnets, which is not required for interconnecting hosts within the same subnet.