{Rin}

Maybe it was because of how chaotic this all was, maybe it was because the orcs were difficult to take down even with her empowered form, or maybe it was just that Rin's conditioning wasn't as good as she'd originally believed.

But, the truth was that this battle felt endless.

She guessed she'd only killed around four orcs, but each individual fight had been a drawn-out duel to the death that had all, thankfully, resulted in her winning.

As she stood there panting, another orc went to challenge her.

It swung a club at Rin's head that the woman ducked under before slamming a fist into the orc's gut. That wasn't enough to win the fight on its own, even with the flames covering her hands, so she pounded away at the orc's midsection once, twice, three times, and then a fourth as the orc fell back.

"Agh!"

Growling almost, Rin punched further and further until she realized she was now hitting the dirt under her enemy's body. Her hands had burned straight through it.

Rin was exhausted, though.

Sweat rolled down her cheeks as she frantically looked for her next opponent, standing over this corpse.

She realized then that her position was sort of an eye of the storm. Everything around her was sheer chaos, with orc shamans and archers launching one volley after another of spells and arrows at the other adventurers. The ground around them carried multiple scars from this one battle, with seared spots where fire had fallen and other places that looked like they were covered in sheets of ice.

Around it all, of course, was blood. The blood of the fallen orcs and two fallen adventurers. While Rin was focused on her fights, Jane died to some terrible blow to her head. Above, on the walls, Carter, the one and only archer the adventurers had, had taken multiple arrows to his body and was hanging over the wall's edge, lifeless.

That left her, Xhez, Alea, Varyn, Seth, Dominic, Allison who if Rin recalled correctly was a healer, and that eerie-looking mage, Cruz as the only adventurers remaining.

The only adventurers left to contend with the monster that had just walked out from the fortress.

[... Crap.]

"AAAAAOOORGH!" A giant orc raised its thick arms up into the air and roared as each of the adventurers took in the arrival of this new enemy.

Other orcs came out from behind it, running straight to the stairs leading up to the walls. More archers, more mages.

Dominic, Varyn, Xhez, Allison, and even Seth were all standing there, gawking at it while the orcs took that moment to reposition.

The only one who seemed to keep her composure in the situation, surprisingly, was Alea.

"HEY!" She called out, yelling at everyone. Rin blinked, turning toward her. "It's just an orc like any other! FIGHT IT!"

Those words got the adventurers to re-focus.

Rin looked around, scanning her surroundings.

Although it felt like there was no end to these enemies, it became clear just how much they'd thinned their numbers. The bodies of orcs, severed and broken, covered almost every part of the fortress.

Trying to steady herself, Rin glanced at the giant orc and then looked at the ones on top of the walls.

[We lost our archer. Someone's going to have to deal with those.]

All of the other adventurers had, understandably, shifted their eyes to the orcs nearest to them.

[They're not even thinking about the ones on the walls.]

At that moment, Rin's eyes locked with Alea's. The other adventurer looked in the same direction and then back at Rin.

She'd been maintaining that barrier on her this entire time. It was certainly something Rin would have to thank her for later.

However, as she understood what Rin was thinking, she finally took her hands away from Rin, nodding at her as she turned toward the others.

[Yeah... I'm gonna have to handle this.]

Rin decided that she alone would have to keep the archers and mages off their backs.

[I have to be careful, though,] she told herself. [Without Alea's barrier on me anymore, this could end up being a really easy way of ending up with an arrow in my throat.]

Regardless, she made her way to the stairs and left the core of the battle to take down the orcs' supporting forces, leaving the giant orc and its warriors to the others.

---

{Xhez}

Alea's yelling spurred the adventurers to fight. Seth and Dominic, who acted as a type of human shield for the mages behind them, ran in to face the giant.

Xhez, however, could feel her knees buckling.

[What kind of creature...?] She thought as she stared up at it.

When faced with the incredible size of this thing, it was only natural to be fearful.

She hesitated for just a moment before she saw the orcs' mages, atop the walls to the right, beginning to resume their spellcasting. All of the adventurers had seemingly forgotten about them.

They nearly got some spells off until Rin appeared by their sides.

She kicked one of them back into the others, causing a small group of these mages to fall on top of each other. As the shamans noticed a new opponent themselves, around half of them turned toward her.

Rin put her fists up, stepping back and preparing to dodge their spells.

Xhez almost started running over to her.

[Rin!]

She took one step before stopping, however, as she saw Rin glancing back at her.

From this distance, it was hard to tell, but Xhez swore that Rin just shook her head.

[Does she not want me to help her?]

If it was up to her, Xhez would ditch every single one of these people to go help her. If that wasn't what she wanted, however, then she would need to honor that.

[... Focus on your job. Trust her. She'll be alright,] Xhez told herself as she took her eyes off her friend and forced herself to cast her barrier on top of the others, and not Rin.

She moved her hands fluidly through the air, weaving the spell together and manifesting the Spirit-based shield on top of her human allies. Allison, Varyn, Alea, and even Cruz did their best to aid her in that regard.

Varyn and Alea were now casting offensive spells at the enemies' mages and archers while Cruz cast a barrier over the four of them, protecting all of the mages at once.

The shamans on the orcs' side did the same, creating their own barriers to avoid the offense the humans were putting out.

[... How complex are these spellsigns the orcs are weaving? They seem quite knowledgeable. Is this common?]

The trembling of the ground shook Xhez out of those thoughts. She looked forward and found that the massive orc was, understandably, giving Seth and Dominic trouble.

The orc balled its massive hands up into fists and raised them over its head before attempting to bring them down on top of Dominic. The human sidestepped the attack and the orc's fists caused the ground to shake again. Unperturbed, the human dashed forward to try landing a hit but the orc kicked him away faster than he could react. The hit was so strong it sent Dominic crashing into the wall to the east.

"Damn it!"

Allison saw this and ran toward him, splitting off from the other mages. Arrows and spheres of flame followed her all the way to Dominic's body, where she crouched and cast a quick healing spell while Cruz maintained a barrier over her.

"Thank you," Xhez heard Dominic mutter before he got up and ran right back into the fight.

Seth stood in front of the giant as Dominic attempted to get close again. The orc tried to do the same as it had done to his ally, lifting a massive leg to try to kick Seth away, but Seth was somewhat faster than Dominic.

He ducked under the monster's leg and ran in, dragging his sword with him.

The adventurer closed the gap and swung his greatsword into the orc's leg, but that was insufficient to subdue it.

It barely even passed through the orc's skin, jamming itself in the outer layer of its flesh and remaining stuck there.

Then, a shaman cast a spell that made Allison gasp.

It drew a star-like shape in the air with multiple dots encircling it. A spell began to charge up, aimed at Seth.

"T-That's...!" Allison yelled, stunned.

Seth's eyes widened. The man froze as he noticed the spell being cast.

A burst of red, spiritual power shot out from the shaman's hand and crashed into Xhez's barrier, nearly breaking it.

The sprite felt the force of it. It made the bones in her arms shake.

"Hm... That's strange," Cruz muttered quietly, but Xhez heard him.

The sprite briefly dropped her barrier due to the sheer weight of the ability that had just struck, but thankfully, Dominic shoved Seth out of the way before it could connect.

"What just happened?" Xhez asked as she drew her barrier spellsign again and recast the ability.

Allison, still staring at the shaman, said:

"That was... that was Enrage! A spell that turns a creature chaotic, forcing them to attack anyone nearby. That was a Rank B spell!"

Now, Xhez understood why they were so baffled. As Rin had said before when they were picking this mission out, this was supposed to be a Rank D to C mission.

"Stay focused!" Alea called out. "Xhez's barrier stopped it. Even if they can cast Rank B abilities, our defensive options should still work against them!"

"Y-You're right," Allison responded, nodding. "Stay-"

Another ability shot out through the air.

A mage to the left wove together a spellsign that was far more intricate and complex than any other cast by the orcs up until there, including the Enrage spell.

Xhez watched it, her eyes taking in the way the orc's hands moved until a black bolt of lightning shot out from its palms and went...

[Is that aimed at me?]

"Get out of the way!" Cruz yelled, sounding panicked.

It all happened in an instant. Xhez, who had been keeping her barrier over Seth and Dominic just stood there as the spell cut through the air.

The orc's spell went straight through the barrier Cruz had over Xhez.

Then, Xhez was tackled.

Someone saved her.

Xhez didn't see who until she sat up and found Varyn curled up, in pain.

Electric shocks coursed through his body as he lay just a short distance away.

[... What just happened?] Xhez asked herself, as she felt a darkness coming from Varyn so powerful it brought chills running down her entire body.