Midnight Maiden, Part One

{Monday}

With Rin's visit to Dren having concluded, it was time to get back to work. Now, as the cold morning air kissed the adventurer's skin, she and her classmates began their first class. Harriton watched them enter the classroom with a smirk, and Rin saw a jar on the desk in front of him, filled with small pieces of paper.

[Huh?] She tilted her head as she sat down at the back, next to Eve and Elisa.

"Welcome, good morning, everyone!" Harriton said, with his arms spread wide. He clearly looked a little excited.

As each of the students sat down, he quickly took the jar, opened it up, and stood in front of them all.

"Today, we're going to be learning about Rune Spellsigns. These spellsigns are ones that can be placed on surfaces, rather than cast in the air as you usually do, to achieve different effects. You can, for example, bless your home to make it so that Undead-type enemies are weaker when they step inside. However, we'll be doing that in just a second. Right now, I want to talk about your next mission," he said, smiling. "For your next mission," he told them, "we're going to be doing something different."

He reached into the jar and pulled out a piece of paper, placing it in front of the student closest to him, that being Carla. Then, he passed one to John, then to Seth, and eventually, every student in the class had one of them.

Rin looked down at hers and found the number "3" marked on it.

"What's this?" She muttered.

"I am glad you asked," Harriton pointed at her with a grin. "So, let me explain. At this point," he said, as he began to walk from one side of the room to another, "you've all got some experience dealing with monsters under your belt. Sure, you've only fought some of the weakest creatures in the world, but, you have enough experience for us to clue you into something."

He walked around his desk and sat down, putting his hands together as, with a smile, he said:

"Team-based missions," Harriton declared.

As he made that statement, some confusion spread throughout the classroom.

"What?" Harriton asked as he saw their reactions. "You didn't think this was gonna be a completely solo journey did you? No," he shook his head. "Sometimes, the Guild receives a mission that's too hard for any individual, low-rank, adventurer to take, but also too easy to bother the likes of Maria with. Such as, for instance, clearing out ruins filled with orcs or assaulting twin hydras at a lake. When this happens," he continued, "adventurers team up, and tackle these missions in small groups. Now, yes, they could take these missions on with ten other adventurers, but then the varols would be split between them and no one would make any money. This is why the 'Rule of Four' was made."

He said this, making quotation signs with his hands.

"It's an unofficial rule, by the way. You actually can tackle missions as 10 people if you want to, it's just not encouraged. Anyway, the Rule of Four is that these sorts of missions merit four adventurers of equal rank to take them on. They boost each other's strengths, and each one gets 25% of the cut when the job is done."

Then, his smirk grew, and he pointed in front of him, at John's paper.

"Now, those scraps I gave you. Take a good look at the number. Everyone who has the number, '1', raise your hand."

Rin, of course, kept her hands low. Around her, four people raised their hands.

Eve, Seth, John, and Lisa.

"Congratulations," Harriton said. "Those are your teammates."

"Wait, wait," Seth said, throwing his paper down. "Bullshit, I don't need a team."

At that, Harriton raised a brow at him and shrugged.

"If you want to sit this out, kid, you can. However," he added, "these missions pay a lot more than regular ones. Even when the cut's split, you'll still be making more than you would on your own if you add these types of missions to your list. So, sure, throw away the varols if you want to, but, I'd advise against it."

Seth glared at him, crossing his arms, but he didn't say anything else.

"Now, everyone with the number 2, raise your hands."

Elisa, Dylan, and Carla did as he said.

"Alright, since there are only three of you, don't worry, we'll be giving you a slightly softer mission. Though... I won't lie, two of you are pretty far ahead of everyone else, so if you feel like you can still take on a four-man mission, let me know."

"Got it," Elisa nodded.

"Finally, everyone with the number 3, raise your hands."

Rin did so, and she looked around.

[... Wait...]

The others who did the same were:

Varyn, the beastborn, Alea, the mage, and Sara, Eve's slightly scary roommate.

[... Shit,] Rin sighed. [I don't know any of these people.]

"W-Wait," Carla raised her hand. "Why can't we pick our teammates? When we graduate from the Academy, won't we be doing that whenever we take one of these missions?"

"A fair point, but no, not always. Adventurers travel a lot, as although the Guild is centered at Cradle, you can take missions in both of the major cities and at all of the different villages and towns. And, well, things, unfortunately, often happen that can make it so that you don't have your friends to rely on. And, if you wait for too long, another team will come in and take the missions away from you. So, no, sometimes you just have to team up with strangers. This is also training for those moments. If we just put you with your friends, or if we balanced the teams' strengths out, you wouldn't really learn anything."

Even though Rin hadn't talked to her much, she could clearly see that Carla and John were good friends, and that was why the girl had asked, as she gave the boy a disappointed look as she heard Harriton's response.

"With all of that being said, I highly advise you to get to know the people you're going to be going on that mission with. You'll be going one week from now, on Monday. So, I'd advise you to figure out how you want to go about this before then. Now, as I was saying, Runic Spellsigns..."

---

There was a strange tension in the air, as everyone went from one class to another. In the halls, as they went from Carliah's Culture class to Eli's obstacle course, and then as they finished that up and headed to Maria's classroom on the fourth floor, Rin could see others eyeing out their partners, and in truth, she was doing the same.

A few people had been lucky enough to get paired with others they knew, of course. Eve had been placed with Lisa, and Elisa had been grouped with Dylan, for example, all of which were Rin's training partners for the last week or so.

On Rin's end, however, it became clear rather quickly that none of them had ever truly spoken to each other.

Alea had an annoyed face stuck onto her portrait, Sara was... Well, Sara. And, Varyn looked like he couldn't care less who he'd been put on a team with.

During Maria's class, Rin was sparring with Dylan, narrowly avoiding thrust attacks from his wooden staff, and behind her, she heard Alea say:

"Of course, I'd get stuck with the girl who doesn't even use weapons. Fuck..."

Instantly, Rin understood that the next week was probably going to suck.

During the middle of the class, Rin sat down by the corner of the room, wiping some sweat off of her forehead and feeling her muscles burning as a result of the limit-breaking she'd been doing. Ahead, she saw Varyn approach Sara, all of a sudden.

[Hm?] Rin watched as he told her something, and the girl nodded. Then, she stood up and followed Varyn as he walked over to Rin.

"Rin," he stated, his animalistic, slitted eyes looking back at her. "Tomorrow, do you want to have a meeting?" He asked. "We can go over what each of us can do. Our strengths and weaknesses. Sara," he gestured at the emotionless girl, "has already agreed to."

He was speaking with a direct, decisive voice. As though he understood that, whether he liked this or not, it was probably the right thing to do.

"Sure," Rin nodded. "But, why not today?"

"I..." His voice lowered then, and Rin detected some apprehension. "I have to do something. I'm not available tonight, but tomorrow, I will be."

"Oh. Alright then, we can do that."

"Hm." He nodded, and then, he approached Alea, who was just a short distance away from Rin. "Alea," Rin heard him from here, "would you like to..."

"Yeah, yeah, sure, whatever," she waved him off. "I heard you from over there."

"..." Rin gave a deep sigh as she listened to the exchange.

However, it seemed to be settled that tomorrow, they'd have a team meeting of sorts.

[Let's just see how this goes, I guess.]

---

The night soon came, after Rin had her healing lunch and trained privately with Maria for a few hours, and, Rin felt it was time to try her little plan.

Elisa wasn't in her room, so Rin was free to let Xhez out of her bag and allow the sprite to stand in her full size, looking back at her with a wide smile.

"Rin! Hello!" She seemed weirdly excited.

"Uh, hi," Rin raised a brow. "What's up with you?"

"Hm?"

"You, um, look happier than usual."

"Ohhh, well, I spent most of the day remembering what happened," Xhez explained with a giggle. "That 'kiss' as you called it. I feel all tingly every time it comes to mind!"

Xhez announced and her grin proved infectious enough to make Rin smile as well.

"I'm glad you liked it that much."

"O-Oh, right, the letter!" Xhez then stated, getting closer to Rin. "How do I do that?"

"Well," Rin put her hands on Xhez's shoulders, gently pushing her back. "I need to teach you how to write first before you do that."

"How to write?"

"Yeah, so you can write a letter," she added. "But... With your memory, it'll probably only take, like, a day for you to learn that, actually. How about I show you tomorrow? Since I won't be taking any classes."

"Sounds wonderful," Xhez nodded.

"Okay... Now, uh, Xhez," Rin said awkwardly. "Could you do me a little favor?"

"Hm? Of course," Xhez replied. "What do you need?"

And so, Rin asked Xhez to change the color of her hair to white. The sprite did so promptly, and Rin took a deep breath as she thanked her for that, before letting the sprite know that she was going to head out.

"Oh, can I come with you?" Xhez asked.

"I... Sorry, but, no. Not this time."

It hurt to reject her like this, but Rin wasn't going out for anything normal. So, bearing the guilt that came with seeing disappointment appear on Xhez's face, she put a hand on the girl's shoulder and said:

"Tomorrow, we'll spend the entire day together, though. How does that sound?"

At that, a little smile broke through Xhez's disappointed expression.

"Is that a promise?" Xhez asked.

"Yeah. Promise," Rin nodded.

"Then, in that case, I will retreat back to my bag then. I look forward to it."

At that, feeling like she couldn't just leave things like this, Rin walked up and gave Xhez a small hug. The sprite, however, returned the embrace fully, and RIn thought she could feel her smiling against her body. When she pulled away, that feeling was confirmed.

"I'll see you soon then, Xhez."

And, finally, Xhez returned to her small, waterproof home. Rin closed the bag, and she took a deep breath, turning toward the bag of potions she'd gotten. She reached for one of the flasks that could change her body and took a sip. She closed her eyes and envisioned herself as having a much smaller chest, but slightly wider hips. When she opened her eyes, she looked down at herself and found that the changes had taken effect. This effect, and Xhez's spell, would only last for a few hours if Rin remembered correctly.

So, with that done, she turned toward the door and put on a determined expression.

[Okay, the first night,] she thought. [Let's see how this goes.]