Sophie thought.

Lance opened his mouth to speak, but then he heard something like thunder in the distance: the sound of gunfire breaking out somewhere else in the building. Both of them turned towards it at once, Lance holding one hand on the ground while Sophie gripped her own weapon tightly.

"We should stay here," Lance said quietly. "Hole up for a bit and recover before we move."

"That works," Sophie replied with a grimace, standing up and looking around herself as if she could see through the walls of this place to get a feel for where their attackers might be coming from. "I feel like I'm healing faster, but I'm not a hundred percent yet."

"Let's try and make our way back to the surface, eventually," Lance said after a moment, taking a drink himself as a few more shots were fired off far away. He wasn't sure what was happening, or how long they'd have before another wave of enemies came—and they still didn't know who they were or why they were attacking like this. Whatever it was, he wanted to find out about it sooner than later—or else they wouldn't survive much longer.

"Hey, Lance," Sophie said. "You should try using those Status Points. Have you used any yet?"

Lance shook his head. "So far all I've done is add some Skill points," he said. "What would it even do?"

Then again, the last time he had increased his Perception by two points, it seemed like it helped him out, like his [Mindread] had returned quicker than it should have. So maybe trying something similar with his stats might be worthwhile?

"Why not?" he wondered, then added: "I don't think I'll ever get a better opportunity than now if I wait until we're in a fight anyway."

"What level are you?" Sophie asked. "I got to three from the fighting earlier."

"Four."

"Oh, so you should have six status points."

"I have six," Lance confirmed, bringing up his stat sheet.

"I had four, spent three," Sophie said. "All on HP."

"I don't know what's best for me," Lance said. "HP, Magic, Strength, Agility, and Luck."

It was going to be a hard choice. Still, he didn't want to risk wasting his precious Status Points if he could help it. They would need all the Stat Points they could get their hands on later if things went wrong again. If he made a bad call now, he might regret it forever. Wouldn't he rather do the safe thing than the smart move? In the end though, both options sucked equally. Either he wouldn't have the stats, and he would suffer, or he would waste them on the wrong one now.

He thought, holding the option open in case of emergency—and hoping that this wasn't the kind of decision where you got stuck with no other way out but to reload your save file like an RPG. Though he supposed "reloading a save file" meant dying and hoping there was another world waiting for him.