It looked like they were heading toward a hospital—and that had to be where the latest monsters were coming from—but it also appeared that some buildings were still intact, which meant they could find something to hide inside if they were careful about picking one out. He just hoped they'd survive long enough for them to do so.

Sophie's ability with ice made the job easier than it would have been otherwise, and she was able to create barriers along their path as well as stop any incoming attacks from the creatures that lurked beyond them.

Sophie thought after she'd stopped yet another wave of beasts.

Lance was surprised at how calm Sophie sounded about this issue—especially given everything else going on in her life these days. Then again, emotion was always dulled with [Mindread].

Speaking of which--he needed to check how much charge he had.

[Mindread] (Charge: 68/100)

It recharged pretty fast, all things considered--maybe an hour or so to go from 0 to 100.

That wasn't a bad thing; it gave him plenty of time to use it if necessary. The only problem with it was that he could feel its presence like it was actually here with him; that made it hard to concentrate sometimes. He hoped that wouldn't affect his ability too badly while they were still outside the walls of what remained of civilization. There weren't any monsters near them yet; hopefully it would stay that way for awhile as well. If it didn't, then there'd be no stopping them until everyone in this group was dead; no matter how many the group killed, there were always more monsters.

Lance thought grimly.

They kept moving forward through the streets, but none of them saw any other groups of survivors around them anymore—not even on the sides of buildings where there should have been enough space to hide. Most likely, the rest had either died out in the last wave or left the city completely after it happened: their own survival instinct kicking into action before anyone else's did.

Lance took another look at Jacob, Grace and Sophie, who walked ahead of him now since he had stopped to take a moment to use his abilities again. Both of them looked exhausted from using their magic to defend themselves so often these days, and they also appeared to be doing a lot of thinking about their future.

Not that there was much of one.

It had been a few days now, and they still hadn't managed to get out of New York. Nothing looked familiar anymore.

Jacob, who'd said he had once been a tour guide here, was probably the only person among them with an idea of what he wanted to do next—or where to go next—but if they couldn't figure anything else out soon, then it might be time to try something else,, head in a different direction. Anything would have been better than staying here in this dead city forever. The others agreed with that; no matter how hard it seemed, it wasn't too late to leave the city behind and start over somewhere else where life could potentially be easier or even safer.

"Incoming!" Jacob shouted.