Reya

Reya looked around in the building.

"Is this where you live?"

"Huh? No, I just came here recently."

"Oh. I'm from the other side of town."

Eo looked at Reya with intense curiosity

"You—there are other people living here?!"

"Ye-… nope. I'm the only one."

After reaching the roof of the building, they peered down to survey the assortment of monsters below them.

"Look," said Reya. "There's about three hundred Phase I monsters. I think I can see about fifty or so Phase IIs. There's maybe nine or ten Phase IIIs. And if I'm correct, the gigantic looming one in the back looking like the final boss is the Phase IV."

Eo laughed. "Everyone knows the final boss can always be killed."

Reya nodded. "If we could only devise some sort of strategy…"

Eo finished off her sentence. "...using the purple rune formation from earlier…"

"What?"

Eo then explained how he had seen a certain rune formation that managed to steal essence and give it to another user. He didn't explain, however, the exact details surrounding the incident of his teammates thinking he had betrayed them by killing six of his comrades.

Reya grinned with an evil glint in her eyes. "That could be the centerpiece of a certain trap…"

Eo stroked his chin and shook his head approvingly. "I like the way you think."

Reya absentmindedly nodded in agreement. "I like the way I think, too."

☆

After figuring out the position of the rune formation based off of Eo's scattered thoughts, he and Reya finally had a direction to go in to get there.

The only problem now, however, was the fact that there were hundreds of monsters all crowded around the apartment building, eager for blood.

Reya had also noticed that some of the monsters had started wandering inside of the apartment lobby.

"So Eo, should we first clean out these cute little hordelings?"

"Hm? Sure."

Eo, who had in less than a week fought many Phase IIs and even more Phase Is, was not that concerned. In fact, he was pretty eager

"Given that you're lightning and all, I'll fight off the ones coming up from inside while you do the same to the ones outside."

"Gotcha."

Eo stepped back into the staircase. He could feel the vibrations of monsters below through the floor and the bannister.

Eo synthesized four dagger-chains and ran down.

☆

There were monsters that had already infested up to the second floor. The vast majority of them weren't very smart, though. They had jostled each other around until through sheer luck they got pushed up the staircase.

After slashing down the first few Phase I monsters, Eo exited out of the staircase and on to the second floor. Looking around, he saw a dozen goblin-type Phase Is.

They turned around when they smelled him. Without giving them a chance to move, Eo decapitated all of them in a single swipe using a dagger-chain.

Eo looked around. Was there really no more here?

That's when he heard a massive thump outside. Eo ran over to see what had happened.

Apparently a giant leathery bird thingy had thrashed spasmodically into the window.

Eo peered down, watching the bird-type fall several meters before managing to regain its balance in the air. It majestically unfolded its wings, and-

A giant flash of lightning flew down, smiting it to dust.

Eo grinned and stuck a thumbs-up out of the window.

"Good work, lightning girl!" Eo yelled up.

"Thanks, person!" Reya yelled back down.

(That's the first time I got called 'person' by someone who knows my name...)

Eo was in the middle of rolling his eyes when a clawed hand grabbed him.