{Rin}

After that brief interruption with the undead drake, things started to go much more smoothly for Rin. Taking Maria's advice to heart, she forced herself to finish off enemies as soon as she noticed any potential opportunities for it, and it had been working so far.

Right now, there was a sword-wielding skeleton in front of her. The butterflies in Rin's stomach had all but faded at this point, and after securing several victories against these enemies without the help of her [Spirit Flame], she could actually say that she was starting to get used to this.

The skeleton lunged for her and Rin dodged to the right, punching it in its chest. Her attack shoved the skeleton back, and then she grabbed it by its head and brought her knee up to its skull, breaking it. The skeleton fell to the ground and Rin took a deep breath.

"I-I think I'm doing a little better," Rin noted. "Am I?"

She turned toward Maria, but the adventurer wasn't listening. Maria had an absent look on her face as she sat on a dug-up coffin. She was looking down at her own hands, and Rin had to clear her throat to get her attention.

"Maria?"

"Hm?"

"Uh, am I doing better?"

"Yes," Maria nodded, lowering her gaze again. "Yes, you are."

Her voice was quiet and almost timid. Ever since that drake had appeared, her mood had clearly changed, though, Rin couldn't tell why. She hadn't gotten hurt, and the drake had been dispatched easily. It all made her wonder why Maria looked so shaken.

Still, every time Rin walked deeper into the cemetery, Maria would follow, so she figured it was okay to just keep going for now.

As she looked around, she noticed a few things. The tombstones around her had carved out markings, but she could just barely tell that some of them had numbers on them.

[1011-1030,] she read. [1004- 1092.]

[Hm... This is a pretty old place.]

Atop one of the tombstones, she noticed some sort of a necklace had been draped over it. She reached for it, about to take the thing to get a better look at it, but Maria grabbed her by the wrist and stopped her.

"H-Huh?" Rin turned toward her.

"... You can't do that," Maria said. "In places like these, corrupted by Essence, if you touch the wrong thing you can end up stirring several corpses at once. They're traps, basically," she said, as Rin moved away from it. "I'm sorry I didn't let you know a bit sooner, I was..."

"Nah, it's okay," Rin waved her hands. "I get it. Won't do it again."

"... I believe we're done for today, anyway," Maria said, turning away from Rin and walking back in the direction they'd come from. "The point was to get you used to fighting, and it looks like you are. We can do more before your mission if you feel like it."

Rin heard that and turned toward the other tombstones, seeing a few skeletons in the distance. She gave them all one last look before she started following Maria out of the cemetery.

Just like that, her training session was done for the day.

The two of them returned to Libera a couple of hours later, and, although it felt like they'd cut the trip short, Rin couldn't deny that she was at least, a little more prepared than before. She didn't know what she'd be doing on her mission specifically, but if it was anything like her first, then she guessed she'd be alright.

Maria didn't say a word on the way back. She looked a little better once they got out of the cemetery, but, still, she remained silent.

In fact, as they arrived, Maria let out a deep breath and put her hands on her hips.

"Good work," she told Rin, who raised a brow at her.

"Uh, thanks..." Rin muttered. "By the way, are you alright?"

"Hm?"

"You... looked pretty weird back there. Is everything okay?"

"Yes, yes," Maria nodded. "I was just thinking about a lot. I'm good, however. I should probably head back to the Academy, however. Goodbye."

She turned away and started walking but, Rin jogged up to her.

"I'm heading back there too, though," Rin said with a laugh. "We may as well just go back together."

"Oh. Right, of course," Maria chuckled awkwardly. "Sorry. I wasn't... I wasn't thinking."

---

As the two of them arrived back at the Academy, Rin saw someone waiting outside its gates. Cara was standing there, looking far more casual than Rin had seen her since she arrived. She had on a black sweater and tight pants of the same color that made her look like one of those theatre actresses she knew from Dren.

Rin walked up to the woman, a little smile coming up on her face as she saw her teacher. At first, her cold attitude had been intimidating, and, in some ways, it still was. However, after she'd been rescued by the adventurer, Rin's opinion of Cara had gotten better.

"Hey, teach'," Rin said, greeting her.

Cara's eyes went to her, and then she looked at Maria.

She opened her mouth like she was going to say something, but Maria passed Cara by, gave her a cold look, and walked right back into the Academy, without saying a word.

So, Cara ended up just sighing and turning toward Rin, while the brunette watched awkwardly.

[Oh... Right, they aren't on good terms, for whatever reason,] Rin remembered as she thought back to that argument she'd overheard before.

"Rin, hello," Cara said, "were you out training?"

"Yeah," she nodded. "Maria thought I could use it."

"Did she?" Cara looked away. "Then, I guess we had the same idea."

"Huh?"

"I wanted to spar a little with you," Cara said. "I know you've been training with Maria privately, but, if you only train with her, you'll get used to her style. You need to spar with different people so that you can learn to adapt to what different fighters are like. Especially since monsters have different tendencies. Does that make sense?"

"Um, I guess so," Rin nodded. "But... Are you gonna fight in that?" She asked, looking down at Cara's clothes.

"Yes. And?"

"Won't your outfit get all sweaty?"

At that, Cara gave a rare smile.

"If you could actually make me sweat, you'd give me my biggest surprise this year, kid. Come on, let's go."

Just like that, Rin had been roped into a second training session.

They went up to the Dueling classroom where Cara was going to test Rin's skills for a while. Here, Cara grabbed a wooden sword from a nearby rack and twirled it in her hands a little, as though she was getting a feel for it.

[Hm, so, what should I do with Xhez today?] She wondered as Cara stood in front of her.

"We're not gonna do anything too hard, I'm just gonna swing a bit at you, and you try to dodge, try to fight back. Sound good?"

"Yeah," Rin nodded. Thanks to what she'd been doing at the cemetery, she felt warmed up.

"Alright. And... Now."

Suddenly, Cara disappeared from Rin's sight.

[What?]

She felt a stick tap against her stomach, and she looked down, finding that Cara was pressing her sword against Rin's gut.

"Hm. Sorry," Cara said. "A bit too fast there. It's been a while since I've done anything like this."

[... These adventurers aren't human, I swear.]

After that moment, however, Cara adjusted her speed accordingly and the two started training properly. Immediately, maybe because she'd trained so much with Maria, she noticed a couple of differences between the two of them.

Maria, from what Rin had learned about her, not just in training but also from when she killed the undead drake, seemed controlled, always. Every move that Maria made during their practice sessions was always calculated and looked easy.

As for Cara, however, every hit she went for looked like she was applying all of her strength to them, even when, in reality, she was managing her power as to not hurt Rin. It made for a contrast that made Rin think about how, for all their apparent bad blood, they looked like two sides of one coin.

It also seemed like they knew each other well enough to where, as a brief pause occurred in their training, Rin held a hand up.

"Yes?" Cara asked.

"So, uh," Rin gulped, taking deep breaths. Cara was really making her work. "When Maria and I were outside she seemed sort of... Off."

"In what way?"

"Well, this drake came and attacked us, and I don't know, she just looked like she had a lot on her mind. Is that normal or...?"

"..." Cara sighed. "It's not my business to say. If you want to know more about her, it should probably come from her."

"Right, right," Rin nodded. "Sorry."