He returned his attention back to the hospital. They needed to find supplies for Sophie.

"How do we clear these rooms?" he asked aloud as he stepped through the open doorway.

Jacob followed him immediately, while Sophie lingered in the entranceway. She seemed reluctant to enter, like she wanted to make sure no one else would come in from the other side, so Lance stopped next to her and tried to think of a way he could help without endangering himself any further than he already had.

As before, the two men went into the first room on the left and quickly cleared it of any monsters who might have survived there.

There was a dead one lying on the ground, a grey lump of flesh around the size of a child.

"Do you know what kind of monster this is?" Lance asked aloud still wondering if they were dealing with more than just humans like them—maybe even people who'd had their abilities removed.

Sophie shook her head; she didn't seem too familiar with this particular type of monster: "I don't recognize it." Then she shrugged. "It looks like something that came out of a video game though—like it's some sort of mutant or genetic experiment gone wrong."

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"Oh my God," Grace said upon seeing the corpse. "Was that a kid?"

Both Sophie and Jacob turned towards her at once, clearly confused by his reaction. Before anyone else could say anything, however, the door behind him opened up and someone else entered the building, which drew all three of them' attention immediately. It wasn't immediately hostile; in fact, he seemed to be holding a gun in his hand, but he was looking directly back down the hallway and hadn't yet seen the group of survivors.

the guy was thinking.

Hm. Lance hadn't even consciously activated [Mindread].

He used [Assess] on the man, and...

[Ray Adams, Lv. 2 Human]

Ah. Had he just been hiding the whole time?

Jacob was already approaching from Lance's left with his fists at the ready while Sophie went around the other side of Ray—who had stopped dead when they had appeared—and started searching through the drawers on one of the beds. Grace came into view as well: she'd found a rifle like the one Lance was using--though she held it awkwardly with both hands—and was slowly turning it over in her fingers like she couldn't believe it was real.

"Oh my God, please tell me you're not one of the monsters," Ray said, finally noticing them. He held the pistol up, but his grip was shaky.

Sophie raised her weapon to point towards him before saying anything else. "What are you doing here?"

Ray flinched back, startled by how quickly the two girls could move, but he didn't raise his gun again. Instead, he lowered it to his side and turned away to hide behind himself so that he wasn't directly facing them anymore.

Lance nodded at Sophie and motioned for Jacob to step back too. Then he put his gun down and approached cautiously.