{Rin}

As the students all reached the mountain's base, the teachers stopped. Harriton turned toward them and put his hands on his hips, grinning.

"Alright, here we are!" He announced happily. "This is where I'll be waiting, alright? If any of you need to retreat or get too hurt to continue, please, do not hesitate to come back to me. I'll heal you right up, okay? At the end of the day, this is just a test. No pun intended, but, this isn't a hill you should want to die on."

"Eli and I will head to the top now," Maria added. "We will be there to tend to any of you who make it to the summit. As you can see," she said, gesturing at the various different openings in front of them, "there are many paths you can take. Don't just go in behind the other teams, try to take your own route. Now, take a moment to gather your bearings and figure out what you will do in your fights while we go ahead. Good luck, everyone."

On that note, Eli and Maria both stepped through the dense line of vegetation that Rin felt almost acted as a barrier, as though it was preventing people from making it into the mountain unless they were certain they were looking for trouble.

"Finally," Alea said with a sigh, stretching her arms up into the air as Seth stood next to her. "There's nothing to 'figure out' though, right? Just slam whatever pops up with blades and fire."

"Mhm," Seth replied curtly, before simply stepping forward and moving into the mountain. Alea followed soon after.

The other teams weren't quite as hasty, however.

"Hm... They didn't say much about which monsters would be here," Varyn muttered to himself. "Only that they would all be Rank D on this side of the mountain."

"Yeah," Rin replied, though the beastborn didn't hear her. She turned toward Elisa. "Maybe they're all stuff we've seen before?"

"Or," Dylan cut in with a polite smile, "stuff we've discussed in class. Is that right, Cara?" He asked Harriton and Cara.

"Maybe, maybe not," Cara replied with a shrug. She then turned toward her partner and asked, "are you ready, Eve?"

"Y-Yeah," the fairy replied. "Let's go."

"Alright."

Just like that, they were gone as well, moving into the mountain through a path to the left.

A hand fell on Rin's shoulder. Elisa grabbed her attention and smiled down at her.

"Wanna go?"

"Yeah," Rin nodded. "Let's get this over with."

"Alright then. No one's gone through that path yet," Elisa said, pointing at an opening to the right. "Let's do this."

With a pair of excited smiles and butterflies in their stomachs, the two of them separated themselves from the other groups and moved into the mountain, beginning their mission.

---

Rin had to calm herself down. The density of the air, the shrouded distance obscured by bushes and trees, the fact that she already couldn't see where they'd come from. It all coalesced to put her on edge.

[I guess that's part of the point,] she thought.

There was a strange sense of familiarity to all of this, however. Rin felt she had been through these sorts of woods before when she first met Xhez.

[How would she feel walking through this place? She might feel right at home, huh?]

"Kinda hard to see in here..." Elisa said, as she looked around.

"Yeah. This place feels cramped."

"Might be tougher to see our enemies before they see us because of that," Elisa replied.

"Just have to watch each other's backs, right?" Rin asked.

"Of course," Elisa replied with a charming smile. "Already planned on it. I've got you, don't worry."

[Yeah, you sure do.]

Elisa took her greatswords off of her back and held them in her hands, dragging them by her sides as she and Rin walked. Rin kept her hands balled up into fists, just in case anything jumped out of the trees. She had no idea what to expect. There could be enemies behind the bushes, sitting up on the branches, or even underground.

Instead, the first opponent that showed up simply appeared in their vision after the two of them passed into a clearing.

Rin's eyes widened when she saw the monster.

[What the hell is that?]

What she found was a creature with a thick green shell on its back, some pincers, two big, black eyes, and a tail with a stinger at the end. She'd never seen anything like it. She felt like maybe Cara had said something about this sort of creature before but, if she had, Rin couldn't remember any details.

"Uh, do you know what this thing is?" Rin asked.

Elisa shook her head.

"Not really, no. Judging by how it looks, though, its pincers are probably its main means of attack. Probably wants to use them to hold you down to hit you with that stinger. Might be able to use Essence too. Look out for that."

"Right."

"Well then," Elisa turned toward her, "if we just gang up on this thing, we probably won't learn anything. So, do you want to go first, or should I?"

With that question being posed to her, Rin thought about it. On one hand, with Elisa having two actual weapons, it was probably safer for her to handle this. On the other, Rin did want to impress her.

And, ultimately, that desire won out in the end.

"I'll take it."

"You sure?" Elisa asked with a raised brow.

"Yeah. I've got this."

"Well, okay. Go ahead and show me what Maria's been teaching you," Elisa said, encouraging her. Hearing that, Rin walked forward, taking deep breaths to keep her nerves under control. Raising her fists, she prepared herself for her first fight of the day as the turtle-like creature raised its bulging eyes and looked at her.

[Okay, okay, how am I going to fight this?]

Immediately, the first thing that came to her mind was Cara's usual words she would tell her students whenever discussing new monsters.

[When in doubt, aim for the eyes. And, uh, in this case, they do make for some pretty big targets,] Rin noted.

With the pressure of knowing that Elisa was watching behind her, Rin dashed forward.

This was it. The first moment of combat for Rin throughout the entire mission.

And, it went about as poorly as it could have.

The turtle-like creature did something Rin hadn't expected. It spun and used its tail to whip at Rin's legs. Because she didn't see it coming, she didn't respond well to it. Rin was struck and fell forward, landing just in front of the monster.

[Crap.]

She shifted in place, rolling onto her back and putting her palms down on the dirt to try to put some distance between herself and the enemy by pushing herself away. Only, before she could manage it, the enemy's stinger caught her left thigh.

"Ah!" Rin hissed as it dug into her.

She tried to push herself away then, but she didn't have to. Elisa intervened and used one of her greatswords to cut straight through the enemy's shell, breaking it in half and making green blood explode from its body.

Some of it fell on Rin's face and she quickly wiped it away before getting on her feet, stumbling as a result of the hit she took.

"Shit," Rin muttered. "I..." She looked up at Elisa, who looked back at her with concerned eyes. "I messed up."

"Are you okay?" Elisa asked, kneeling down in front of her to look at her thigh. The blow had gone straight through her leather armor.

"Y-Yeah," Rin replied, trying to keep herself steady. "I'm fine, I'm fine. It's just... Dammit."

"Hey, it was the first fight of the day," Elisa told her, standing up straight and casting a sympathetic expression her way. "It's alright. You're just shaking the rust off."

Rin nodded.

"... I guess," she replied.

Elisa then looked back down at her wound.

"How does that feel?"

"Uh, fine... Like I got stabbed with a knife. Shouldn't be too bad, though."

"Here, let me heal you."

Elisa put her weapons on her back and then used the basic [Heal] spell on her, drawing a circle in the air. The wound closed quickly, and Rin gave Elisa a thumbs-up.

"I'm good," she stated. "Thanks."

"Alright," Elisa responded, putting her hands back on her weapons. "In that case, come on, let's keep going. We have a lot of ground to cover."

Just like that, they kept going. Rin's leg still felt strange, but the stinging sensation of an open wound had left, so she didn't make too big a deal of it.

[Focus,] she scolded herself. [You have to be on point. Treat it like a real mission. Don't mess up again.]