Once the bodies started rising, Rin quickly put her stuff down, being extra careful with the bag Xhez was in, and she fell into a combative stance. Alea yelped, running backward to place herself behind Rin and Sara. Varyn did the same.
As far as synergy was concerned, they had basic positioning down, at least. Now, it was time to see how well they could actually fight.
As for Rin, she didn't hesitate. As the body in front of her began to rise, she stepped back, spun, and landed a crescent kick that tore its jaw off. And yet, the monster was still alive.
[Right, with undead you have to go after their heads,] she remembered. [If things get too desperate, I can always use my Spirit Flame too. But, for now, I should try to get through this without it.]
On that note, she pulled a fist back and landed a straight punch that made a cracking sound ring out. With another one, the creature went limp, and Rin quickly turned to see what else was happening.
Behind her, Sara was cutting a couple of enemies in half, while Varyn and Alea focused on weaving flame spellsigns, aiming projectiles at the undead in the distance.
[So far, so good.]
Hearing a guttural moan to her left, Rin turned toward the noise just in time to avoid being bitten in the neck by a creature that had gotten too close. Her response was to take the creature by the back of its head and pull its skull down, delivering a crushing knee at the same time.
The monster fell back and Rin stomped on its head, earning another kill.
[Keep going,] she told herself, turning toward the other creatures in the building, [keep your momentum up!]
Running forward, she found a lumbering undead, carrying a rusted sword, making its way to Sara, who had her back turned to it. Rin charged toward it before leaping into the air and performing a spinning kick that sent the monster to the ground. Again, she crushed the monster's head as soon as she had the chance and kept going.
At the same time, spheres of fire were sailing past her head, crashing into other enemies.
Before too long, there was just one monster left. Rin wasn't even breathing heavily yet. She got ready to take it down, as the creature was walking toward her. However, before it could arrive, Sara ran straight into it, stabbing it through the waist.
That wasn't all, though. Sara carried it into the air and rammed it into the nearby wall. As its rotten flesh fell on top of her, Sara pulled her sword out and held it up in a reverse grip, before bringing it down on top of the undead.
Once, twice, three times, and soon, it was clear the monster had died a while ago, but she was still stabbing it.
Looking at Sara now, her face was finally showing emotion. She looked absolutely furious.
Rin dropped her hands as she watched.
"Uh," she said. "I think it's dead."
At that, Sara turned toward her with a glare, and Rin pulled back.
"Uh..."
"..." Without a word, she ripped her sword out of the monster. The expression on her face faded, and she walked away, deeper into the room.
[... What the hell was that?]
"Good job!" Maria clapped for them, walking to the center of the room with a smile on her face.
"Is that it?" Alea asked. "That was the mission?"
"Hm? Of course not," Maria shook her head. "Have you forgotten your objective? You have to purify this place. If you don't, these creatures will all come back to life, and you'll have to repeat this fight again."
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"Even though we broke their heads?" Rin asked.
"Yes. Unless you use fire to kill them or purify this location, their injuries will simply be repaired by the corrupted Essence here, right in front of you. Your mission has only just begun."
Hearing that reminded Rin of how she "cleansed" the ruins of Derain with Xhez. Though, they hadn't gone about it in the same way. Maybe there were multiple ways of purifying places.
Sometime later, though, they were doing just that.
Rin took Xhez's bag and separated it from everything else, putting it in the corner of the room just so no one would accidentally step on it or something.
While the others kept a looked out, just in case more monsters made an unwelcome arrival, Varyn used some chalk to draw a rune in the middle of the main room. The purification spell in question was one of those runic spellsigns Harriton had taught them about a while back. It required constant concentration on behalf of the person performing the spell, which meant that Varyn was to keep his mind focused solely on the task at hand.
"Can I at least take a break?" Varyn asked Maria.
"Yes," Maria nodded. "You need to extract your Essence from the rune in order to do that, but be careful, because if you do so too abruptly, all of your progress will be undone."
"Great," Varyn replied, before sitting down in front of the rune he'd drawn and crossing his legs. "How long will this take?"
"A few hours," Maria replied.
"... Well, I wanted to sit down and rest anyway, so, whatever," the boy replied before he closed his eyes and drew another spellsign in the air. When he did so, Essence began to flow from his hands to the rune in front of him. Once it did, the chalk outline began to glow, and the spell began to work.
"So, can you only draw these runes with chalk, or what?" Rin asked, walking toward her teacher.
"You can do so out of pretty much any materials," Maria replied. "The important thing is that the shape of the rune is clearly laid out. However, I will note that the potency of these runic spellsigns is increased when you use something connected to humanity."
"... What?"
"Human blood, for example," Maria stated, with a solemn expression. "Over the course of history, there have been several instances where some necromancers decided that their pursuit of power was worth more than the lives of the people around them. So, they would murder innocents by the dozens to increase the power of these spells. I tell you this," Maria said, "so that, in the near future, when Harriton dives into the more... ethically grey parts of Essence, you understand why certain practices are outright illegal."
"Uh, okay, I understand," Rin nodded.
"Anyway," Maria said, addressing the rest of the group, "Varyn has gotten started. Now that he is in this position, and your team has effectively lost a member, I ask you, what do you think is the right thing to do?"
Rin looked away, pondering the question.
"Maybe, check the rest of this place to make sure there aren't any other enemies?"
"That is an option," Maria said.
"We should probably clear out these bodies, right?" Alea added. "Will burning them kill them permanently?"
"Generally speaking, yes," Maria answered. "Though, the area itself will remain cursed, which means that any other corpses you missed will still rise up. Because of this, a lot of people don't even bother, but, you can go ahead and do that if you want to spare yourself the fighting."
"Okay," Alea replied, "we should probably take all of these things out then. Burn them all at once. Don't just stand there," she told Rin, annoyed, as she moved over to one of the bodies. "Help me out."
"Right," Rin replied with a sigh.
Sara joined them quietly, and soon, the three women were dragging one body after another out of the building. When they were done, Alea cast a spellsign that resembled three upward arrows stacked on top of each other, and a stream of fire emerged from the palm of her right hand, burning the pile they'd made.
"Like I said," Maria warned them, as they returned to the fortress. "There are other bodies resting under the ground. Don't let your guard down."
---
A couple of hours passed, and Varyn was still sitting there, his eyes closed and his body so still that Rin wondered if he'd fallen asleep. She'd checked out the rest of this place and found nothing. No bodies, nothing she could take back to Libera and sell, nothing that indicated what this location had been like before it fell into desolation.
For a while, she sat with her back pressed against the wall, and with Xhez's bag right next to her.
[Did the commotion earlier wake Xhez up?] She wondered though she wasn't about to check right now, with everyone else around her.
Suddenly, a bottle of water was being held out in front of her, and Rin looked up to find Maria holding it.
"Good work earlier," Maria said in a slightly quiet voice. "You're not hesitating as much anymore."
"I have a really good teacher to thank for that," Rin said with a smile.
"Really? I would like to meet them!" Maria replied and the adventurer chuckled a little. However, when she felt someone glaring at her, she looked to her left. Alea had been scowling in her direction, but when Rin noticed, she turned away.
[Uh... Okay.]
After that, she grew even more bored than she was already.
While everyone else just sat around, waiting for Varyn's spell to be completed, Rin remembered something.
[Actually, there was some water to the north of this place. I'm pretty sure Xhez would love to see it.]
She looked down at the bag next to her.
[Hm... Then again, if I walk out mid-mission and they end up having to fight without me, I'm pretty sure Alea would stone me or something.]
"Eh, maybe later," she said to herself, before closing her eyes and continuing to wait.