{Rin}

On the one hand, Rin was pleasantly surprised by the fact that her pursuers hadn't caught up to her. Whether that could be attributed to her training or their lack thereof, it made distracting them through the means of this chase much easier than she'd expected.

On the other hand, if this was indeed the result of her opponents lacking the same training she'd received, it meant that there was a solid chance they were adventurers.

If that was the case, it didn't say anything good about the potential of sprites being included in human society.

In addition, however, it also made Rin wonder why they kept Vortell alive. It was hard to think of a reason, given that she was currently mid-sprint. She wished she could just stop and ask them. The woman behind her, who raised an axe high above her head as she nearly caught up to Rin, however, let her know that a peaceful conversation was likely an impossibility at this point.

As the woman caught up, Rin dodged to the side, avoiding a vertical swing that left that thick axe embedded in the dirt. She spotted one of the humans preparing a spell of some sort. A second later, what looked like a ball of water shot out from his right palm. Rin leaned forward, ducking, and the projectile soared past her head.

Before she could get back into a proper fighting stance, the axe-wielder lunged forward and began swinging her weapon wildly. This would probably be an extremely dangerous moment for most young fighters, but for Rin, who had been spending the better part of several months sparring against people using weapons, it may as well have been another practice session. She slipped away from the woman's axe, dodging attacks nimbly. All the while, the mounting frustration on her opponent's face became more and more visible.

That was, until the third of the potential adventurers attacked from Rin's right, shooting out an arrow on a collision course with her head.

"Agh!"

[They have an archer too!?]

Clumsily, Rin ducked as she had before with the water spell, but this time the axe-wielder was ready to capitalize on the opening her ally created.

She went for another vertical strike, intending to split Rin in half. Rin was only able to get her torso fully out of harm's way, but before she could move her left leg, the axe scraped against the side of her thigh on its way down to the earth.

The sharp sting it left made Rin grit her teeth. She backed up, and the axe-wielding woman lifted her axe, resting it on her shoulder as she smirked.

She raised her free hand, letting her partners know not to strike Rin. It turned out she just wanted a couple of seconds to mock her opponent.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"If you wanted to raid travelers, maybe you should have brought a weapon with you, honey."

Glaring intensely, Rin wondered if she'd bought enough time for Xhez by now. Unless the bindings that had been used to keep Vortell were magical in some aspect, she figured Xhez had to have succeeded already.

With that in mind, and partly motivated by the snarky quip that her enemy had just made, Rin decided it was time to get serious.

Pushing through the sharp pain, she put her fists in front of her. The amused look that the axe-wielding woman served as further motivation to start kicking some ass. At the same time, however, she reminded herself that she needed to remain calculative about this.

Through many, many lessons, Maria had hammered it into Rin's mind that a fight against a human was fundamentally different from a fight against a beast. And, here, Rin would put some of those lessons to work again.

[Read your opponents, Rin,] she told herself. [An archer, a mage, and a melee fighter. I got a taste of it just a moment ago. I'm pretty sure their game plan is to just have the one with the axe distract me while the other two get clear shots.] Her eyes roamed over each of her opponents analytically. [I could just push Essence through my body and I'd probably be able to take them all out pretty quick... But, if there's a monster around here or something, it could come back to bite me in the butt. I'm better off just playing it safe and trying to out-skill them.]

It was Rin's turn then to give a confident smirk. That expression appearing on her face confused her enemies, but Rin knew she was right to be confident.

[Luckily for me, I was trained by the best. I can make this work.]

"Last chance to surrender," the axe-wielder said. Maybe Rin's performance in this skirmish so far had made her bloodlust lessen. "Someone like you, you're probably running with a gang. Tell us where they are and we'll let you go."

Rin did not respond with words. Just as the woman finished making that offer, Rin dashed forward. The pain in her left thigh nearly made Rin stumble, but she ignored it as best as she could.

Caught off-guard, the lady tried to take her axe and swing it, but she was struck well before she could do so.

Rin leaned in. She feigned a hit to the woman's head, but at the last moment, she diverted her hand south and dealt a palm strike hard at her liver.

It had the desired effect. Rin hit her so hard that she dropped her axe and fell to the ground, bringing her knees up as she curled her body in pain.

The ranged fighters were also taken off-guard, but the mage was the quicker one to react between the two of them.

He tried casting another spell. With no wild, axe-swinging sprite kidnapper trying to murder her, Rin was able to dodge his attacks effortlessly. Before the archer could even nock an arrow, she had reached the mage.

"Ueh!" The man cried out as Rin appeared before him. He only caught a glimpse of her though, as Rin quickly circled around him, went behind the mage, and slammed the side of her hand into the back of his head.

There was a sickening thud and the mage went down, out cold.

The archer was suddenly the only one left standing. His hands trembled and he struggled to pull an arrow back.

Rin just arched a brow at him.

[Yeah... these guys are probably just beginners.]

She suddenly felt a little sorry for them, but she couldn't let up just yet.

There was always a chance they'd find some other sprites to kidnap and, although Rin couldn't quite kill them, she had no problem with giving them headaches strong enough to maybe delay them for a bit.

So, just as the archer finally gathered the courage to shoot an arrow at her, Rin dodged it easily and ran up to him.

With a firm punch to his chin, the archer went down.

"Okay," Rin said, exhaling slowly. She glanced around her. All three enemies were down and out. "Done."