[What is happening?]

The sprite couldn't move. Her eyes remained fixed on Varyn's body as the wolf-eared boy remained in front of her, unable to stand.

"Aggh..." Varyn let out a low, pained moan as that strangely-colored electricity coursed through his body.

Xhez stared at his curled-up body, feeling her blood run cold.

"What...?" Her bottom lip trembled.

Suddenly, Cruz walked past Xhez.

As the giant orc roared ahead, preparing itself to crush them, Cruz raised his hands up.

Drawing an intricate spellsign in the air, a burst of flames poured out from his palms. He had used many powerful abilities up until now but, although this one was simple, it was the strongest.

The orc cried out in pain and Cruz moved the flame around, dispersing it through the area and engulfing each of the remaining enemies.

Rin, who had been about to engage a couple of mages above, was forced back by the fire that covered the walls, falling on her back.

Xhez did not spare the action a glance, though. Instead, she crouched beside Varyn and used what little Spirit she had left to try casting a healing spell.

All it did was make him cry harder.

"W-What?"

"Don't!"

Cruz warned her and the sprite backed off as she heard his voice.

"What's happening to him?" Allison asked. The healer almost moved to perform a spell just as Xhez had but had to stop herself.

One by one, Cruz eliminated most of the remaining orcs with what looked like minimal effort.

The giant orc wasn't quite dead yet.

The mage manifested a spear made of ice in his hands, one that was a lot like the ones Xhez was capable of making appear from the ground, and then threw that spear through the orc's head.

Its body fell back, making the ground tremble.

This battle that had been raging on for so long ended in a blink.

"W-What the fuck!?" Seth asked, looking back and forth between the orc and the mage. Dominic was equally shocked, though not as vocal.

Cruz disregarded the two of them, immediately moving to kneel beside Varyn, opposite Xhez.

"To think they've been taught something like this..." He shook his head, sighing.

"What is happening to him?" Xhez asked. Rin jumped down from the walls and walked over to their position.

"Varyn? What happened?" The adventurer asked as she approached.

"That orc," Cruz replied, "it cast a Curse-type spellsign."

"A... Curse?" Xhez asked.

"A powerful type of spellsign that affects not the body, but the Essence within someone."

[Their Spirit?] Xhez quickly corrected in her thoughts, looking down at Varyn.

Indeed, it seemed like whatever wound Varyn was suffering was not a physical one.

"It is not an ability that an orc should know. I guess they really have been getting taught."

"Taught? What do you mean?" Allison asked.

Rin, however, asked:

"Wait, you know about that?"

"I do," Cruz nodded, as he picked Varyn up and threw his body over his shoulder. "And, judging by the color of your eyes, you're that woman who got teleported. So, you know as well."

"Um, yeah," Rin responded. Xhez stood beside her as she spoke. "How...?"

"I suppose I owe you all an explanation." Cruz inhaled deeply as Seth and Dominic joined the group. Before he started, Cruz snuck a glance at Jane's dead body. With a sigh, he began speaking. "I am not actually an adventurer. I was merely posing as one. In actuality, I am a member of the Mages Guild."

"The Mages Guild? But, why-?"

Cruz cut her off, his eyes remaining on Varyn.

"We heard that there would be a raid on some low-level monsters near Libera. The guild decided it would be a good idea to see if the orcs here displayed knowledge of any spellsigns they shouldn't know. I... had some debts to pay to the guild, so my superiors sent me here to see."

"... Wait, what?" Rin asked.

Xhez looked up at her and found that she looked absolutely stunned, in the worst way.

"That had been my objective from the beginning. I have seen enough. I will-"

"Are you fucking crazy?"

Rin's question caught the man off-guard. His stern face turned toward her.

"Excuse me?"

"People died!" She said, gesturing at Jane's body. "You- you're this much stronger than the rest of us, but you couldn't save a couple of adventurers?"

"If I interfered with the mission too much, too early, the orcs would never get a chance to display the full range of their abilities. I-"

Rin cut him off again.

"Well, maybe you couldn't just kill them all on your own, early, but you could have just helped!"

Cruz glared hard at her.

"Possibly," he replied. "But, aiding you with this mission was never my true objective. So, why should I have done so?"

At that moment, as Xhez looked back at him, she understood why his Spirit was as cold as it was.

It wasn't evil she had sensed. It wasn't anger or fury. It was indifference. Raw, cold, heartless indifference.

"Every single one of you 'adventurers' knew what you were signing up for. Of course, that never stops you, does it? No, adventurers like to gamble with their lives, and yet you take your duties so much less seriously than I or my colleagues do. It's fascinating, actually. At the end of the day, you took a mission that was beyond your capabilities for the sake of financial gain. Any and all risks associated with the mission fall squarely on your shoulders. Not mine."

"That's... That's..." Rin was speechless.

Alea wasn't, though.

"He's right," she said, confidently. "If people came here to take a mission they weren't ready to take, then it's-"

She wasn't allowed to finish, because Rin slapped her in the face before she could get another word out.

Xhez had seen how strong Rin was. She guessed that the woman didn't put much strength behind that slap, because all it did was move Alea's face to the side, but it was still loud.

The mage was angry, but she didn't react much beyond just shutting up.

"Your fucking classmate just got hurt here, and you're saying he deserved it?"

"No," Alea narrowed her eyes at Rin. "If anyone deserved it, it was you."

"Me?"

"Yeah," Alea nodded. "After all, it was *your* sister he got hurt trying to protect. You know, the one you brought to a Rank C mission?"

Hearing that, Rin turned toward Xhez, as though she was asking for confirmation.

Unfortunately, that was what had happened, so Xhez nodded.

Rin's mouth opened as though she wanted to say something, but no words came out.

"Anyway," Cruz continued. "I need to get this kid to the Mages Guild."

Xhez said:

"I thought you did not care about anyone here."

"I don't," Cruz responded. "But, they probably won't believe what happened here unless I show them. This is far beyond what we thought orcs were capable of. Goodbye."

Casually, he drew a spellsign in the air that created a portal behind him.

He walked through it and disappeared, with the portal closing on its own a couple of seconds later.

With the mage gone, along with Varyn, Dominic, Seth, Alea, Xhez, Allison, and Rin were all left there, on their own.

"Shit... I didn't see that coming," Dominic muttered. "Uh, well, I guess we're done, everyone."

"I... I guess so," Allison replied.

Alea walked away, muttering something under her breath, and began ripping off some of the orcs' fingers and tusks.

"Shit, right."

Rin began doing the same, while Xhez stood there, thinking about what had just happened.

The spellsigns she'd seen, the moment where Varyn saved her by throwing his own body in harm's way, the way Cruz's cold eyes looked into her own. It was all too much to handle.

She needed some time in her bag. She'd had enough of the human world for a few days.

One by one, the adventurers picked up whatever they wanted to take with them and left.

Before long, Rin and Xhez were the only ones left at the fortress. As they stood between many of the dead orcs, Rin walked over to Xhez and said:

"I... I'm sorry."

"Hm? Why?" Xhez tilted her head.

Her disguise turned off at that moment, in the middle of this talk. They were the only ones left, though, so it didn't matter.

"I should have been next to you. I just thought that someone needed to take out the archers and the mages and... yeah."

Xhez looked down. Thinking about it for a moment, she responded:

"Someone did need to. No one else had any intentions of doing so, right?"

"I guess, but-"

"It is... unfortunate, what happened. But, it is okay!" Xhez smiled brightly. She took Rin's hands, holding them gently. "I will apologize to Varyn when next I see him. It will be okay."

"I..." Rin sighed. "Okay... But, look, I'm not letting you out of my sight next time. I'll be right next to you."

"I would like that."

With that being said, the two of them left the fortress, leaving behind the monsters' bodies for the vultures.

---

Dominic moved through tall grass, on his way back to Libera, so he could then catch the train to Cradle.

The raid had certainly been a surprise. Not because of what the orcs did, but because of the other adventurers who had shown up. Some of them showed mechanical combat prowess, but that hadn't been what Dominic's own superiors had told him to keep an eye out for before he was assigned to attend this raid.

No, he was looking for outcasts and misfits. The kind of people the Scorned were looking for.

[Hm. If that beastborn hadn't gotten hit with that curse, I might have tried to recruit him. He fit the bill the most.]

There was one bit of news, however, that the Scorned would certainly want to hear about.

"So," Dominic chuckled. "That one girl who got teleported survived?"

He'd heard about this incident. That a woman they'd never kidnapped somehow ended up in one of the Scorned's caves, and that she'd then escaped, running into a wilderness full of dangerous creatures.

All of the Scorned had assumed that she had simply died after that. There was no way a low-tier combatant could survive in those woods, that far from civilization, without help.

And yet, not only had she made it, but it seemed like she'd enrolled for the Adventurer's Academy as well.

This was important information. Dominic was glad to have made it through the raid. The group needed to hear this.

"I suppose we might pay her a visit in the near future. Things might get fun quite soon."