The skeletons picked up the grey batons as they staggered up to their feet. Eve didn't intend to let them do that. She drew an upwards arrow in the air and a sphere of flames shot out from in front of her, crashing into the closest skeleton.

Rin outright flinched when she saw how potent the attack was, enveloping the skeleton in flames and causing it to let out a shrill cry. As the skeleton fell to the ground, writhing in pain, the other two quickly moved toward Rin and Eve with their batons in the air. Instinctively, Rin got between them.

As one of the skeletons looked to slam its baton down on Rin's face, the adventurer raised a leg high up and tried to roundhouse kick it. The skeleton leaned back, however, dodging out of the way of her kick. Of course, Rin knew how agile these undead monsters could be. So, she kept her momentum and transitioned into a second roundhouse kick that accounted for the new distance between them. One that was proven unavoidable as it struck the side of the skeleton's head, pushing the creature away to her left.

The other enemy had just about reached her. Quickly, she followed up with two quick punches aimed at the other skeleton's jaw that had it recoiling. Behind her, Eve finished off the skeleton that had fallen to the left with a [Fireball] while Rin then swept the other skeleton's legs out from under it and then stomped on its head, crushing its skull.

The three skeletons that had risen to face them were dead within a few seconds, and as the two rookie adventurers realized that, they turned toward each other and smiled.

"Ahh! Look at us!" Eve said as she flew over at Rin and hugged her head tightly. "We're badasses!"

Rin chuckled and smiled up at the fairy.

"Don't get too confident. Those were just three skeletons. We've still got a whole ruin to clear."

"Well, if the other skeletons in this place give us as much trouble as these three did, we may as well just turn back and ask Maria for a bigger challenge."

"Ehm, no thanks. But, if you want her to put you up against a dragon or something, you're welcome to ask her to do that."

"Excuse me, but I said 'we're' badasses. I never said I was a badass on my own, so no, I don't think I will."

"Oh? So, if I was into the idea, would you go ask her to let us fight a dragon then?"

"Absolutely," Eve said as she smirked. "As awesome a duo as we are, I think we have a good chance at taking one."

"You're joking, right?"

"Half," she shrugged. "Come on, let's look for some more undead!"

Rin shook her head as she laughed.

"Sure."

With two happy smiles, the adventurers continued into the next room. They ended up in a hallway with two paths they could go down, one on the left and one on the right, and they decided to check the one on the right first. This path led them to a small office where a large box-like machine was resting on a table, broken in half. A chair in front of the table had a skeleton on it that reacted to their presence by stirring to wake, but it quickly disintegrated, covered in flames by Eve who cast a [Fireball] on it as soon as it twitched.

There was nothing else here, however, save for what seemed like a cup that had something written onto it that Rin couldn't read.

The strange sights that they'd come across so far, and the ones Rin had seen before with Xhez, made a question pop up in Rin's mind. As Eve flew around the room looking through some dusty old drawers, Rin asked:

"Have you seen any places like these? Before you came to the Academy, I mean."

"Uhm, once," Eve replied as she flew back to Rin's position. "When I was a kid."

"Really?" Rin tilted her head.

"Yeah... Um, my experience with human families is... limited," she said quietly, "so, I might be wrong about this, but I think a fairy's parent tends to give their kids more freedom than a human parent does. So," she began to explain as they exited the room, the smell of ashes fading as they walked away, "my friends and I were allowed to fly pretty far away from the clan. And, well, one day we ran into a place like this," she said with a nostalgic tone.

"Wow."

"Mhm. We had no idea what it was at the time, but, you know, if you run into a random door carved into the side of a mountain out of nowhere, you're probably gonna get curious," she chuckled. "We walked in, saw some old stuff broken down, some... Some corpses and we flew right out. Terrified."

"I can imagine!"

"We got lucky, though," Eve noted. "I'm pretty sure that place had been purified by some adventurers before we got there. If an active ruin has a curse that's strong enough, the doors don't open again after you walk in. If that place had been active, we might have been trapped inside. And, well, yeah. We would have absolutely died."

"That... sounds like a terrible way to go out."

"Yep. Thankfully, though, it didn't happen, which is great because if it didn't I wouldn't have gotten to meet you!"

"Aw," Rin blushed. "I'm glad you didn't get trapped in a scary ruin too. You know, you're kinda, sorta, cool, so it's nice, I guess," she teased with a shrug.

At that, Eve smirked as she flew in front of her. She tapped Rin's nose with an index finger and said:

"Oh wow, careful, you show me that much love I might fall for you~"

"You can fly, though. Isn't that impossible?"

"Nah, cause you make my wings feel heavy~"

"That sounds like a bad thing."

"Really? I'll try to find a different pickup line then."

---

Eventually, they reached a spot that resembled an old marketplace, though the buildings within this area had clearly long since been active. There were giant chandelier-like objects hanging from the ceiling and many little rectangular surfaces where Rin imagined there used to be gardens planted. Along with several small stores, there were also ethereal creatures roaming ahead of them.

[Ghosts.]

Rin and Eve watched as spectral figures slowly hovered across the ground from one place to another, mindlessly. Eve and Rin hid from them using a nearby wall as they'd rounded the corner. It was from this spot that they looked on as the enemies shifted throughout the room.

Of course, Rin had encountered one of these before. The ghost who had gifted her the [Spirit Flame] technique. However, these looked nothing like that one. That one had looked faintly human. These had faded, blank, sunken eyes and deathly expressions, looking much more monstrous than what she'd seen before.

"Hm. Not gonna lie, I thought they'd be invisible," Eve remarked.

"Nah, you can see them," Rin noted absent-mindedly.

"Oh, have you seen these things before?" Eve asked.

"Y-Yeah, a while ago," Rin said, waving a hand dismissively. "So, how do you wanna handle this?"

"Uhm, I guess I have to be the one to take them out, right? Since physical weapons don't work against them," Eve muttered. Suddenly, she sounded a lot more scared than before.

Rin, however, wasn't too sure about what she just said. For a moment, she looked down at her own hands as she considered using the very technique she'd picked up from the ghost she had met.

[... I guess this would be a good time for it. I'm going to have to keep it activated till we reach the end of the ruin, though. Sure, I can do that.]

And so, nodding to herself, Rin closed her eyes. Unlike usual spellsigns, the one for the [Spirit Flame] was drawn mentally, and so, Rin took a few seconds to sketch it out in her head. Once she was done, she heard flames spark and opened her eyes, finding her arms covered in the white-rosy fire she had been looking to activate.

"AGH!?" Eve instinctively flew away. "Rin? What the hell!?"

"S-Sorry," Rin said with a chuckle. "I should have- WATCH OUT!"

"Huh?" Eve looked ahead and her eyes widened when she found a ghost flying straight at her. "AWAKAA!?"

In a panic, Eve flew up. This might have been an effective strategy against a wolf or a kobold, but this was a ghost. In response, the ghost just flew up with her. Thankfully, it seemed like Eve was good at casting spells under pressure, as she tossed out two [Fireballs] in a row as she flew up. Both projectiles crashed into the ghost that was chasing her up, and the spirit let out an ear-piercing shriek. But, it was dead.

Eve, however, didn't stop flying. Instead, she kept going until she hit the ceiling, back first, letting out an "ERGK" sound as Rin watched from below.

"O-Ow," Eve said, clutching her head.

[Uh...]

Rin watched with a terrified face as several ghosts saw Eve and went right after her, just as the first one had.

"Eve, get over here!" Rin yelled. The fairy heard her and then looked forward.

"..."

She was so scared that when she opened her mouth, no words came out. Instantly, she flew away, toward Rin. Her enemies chased her, and Rin got into a fighting stance.

[Okay. Moment of truth.]

As Eve arrived at her position, Rin dashed forward. The ghost directly in front of her simply continued moving forward, as though it had complete confidence in its ability to absorb whatever Rin was about to throw at it. That would prove to be a mistake as Rin threw a punch forward and as soon as her fist connected with the outline of its body, her [Spirit Flame] had an effect.

It all happened within a second. The flame-seared the ghost from within. The white fire spread through the ghost's body and in the blink of an eye the specter was disintegrated, becoming a simple ball of ashes that fell to the ground in front of her.

[Holy crap!] Rin thought as she stared down at it. Briefly, she looked at one of her fists and then looked up at the other incoming ghosts.

Charging forward, she met them with an outstretched arm and, in surprisingly easy fashion, made short work of them all. All of a sudden, the plaza they were in had far fewer ghosts and far more ash on the ground, as Eve watched her work.

When Rin was done, Eve flew over to her with a bright, beaming, smile.

"Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit!" Eve squeaked. "That was amazing!"

"I..." Rin looked down at her hands once again. "I guess," she said with an awkward chuckle.

"With a power like that, we'll be done even sooner than I thought!" Eve told her. "You're so strong!"

"Ehm, not really," Rin replied, maintaining that slightly embarrassed smile. "This was just... A gift I got a while back ago. Turns out, it's pretty good for this sort of stuff."

"Wow. I'd love to know where I can casually get handed gifts like that. Ohhh!" Eve said before flying a short distance away. "I think this path right over here leads out to the next section. Come on! I think we might just be halfway done!"

"How do you know?"

"Gut feeling!" Eve replied with a triumphant expression. "Call it, adventurer's intuition~"

With a light-hearted roll of her eyes, Rin followed after her. Soon, they were back in those cramped metal hallways. There were a handful of skeletons on the way that they took out with ease before they emerged in the next room.

[... Where the hell did we end up?] Rin wondered as she looked around.

Something about this new space felt... dense. Thick and dreary in a way that Rin hadn't experienced ever since she'd encountered that one stronger skeleton with Xhez. She wondered if perhaps there was something like that here, a concentrated point of the curse that plagued this ruin, but if there was, she couldn't find it.

No, everything around them was empty. There was, quite literally, nothing here. It felt like if it wasn't for the crackling of the fire on Rin's arms, the sound of the adventurer's heartbeats would be deafening. It was one big, open space with nothing but some dust on the ground to welcome Rin and Eve.

"Uh..." Rin muttered, "where exactly did we end up?"

"Hey, you're the human," Eve replied quietly. She sounded as uncomfortable with the emptiness of this space as Rin felt. "If anything, I should be asking you."

The fairy performed a spellsign in the air and the orb over her head intensified, illuminating more of the room around them.

When she did that, Rin finally caught sight of something.

At the back of the room, there was a body, curled up and motionless.

However, unlike the skeletons they'd encountered before, this one looked like it still had all of its flesh.

[What the hell is that?] Rin wondered as Eve flew closer. She took a few steps forward as well and saw that the creature had a dark, leathery body with slick black wings on its back and long blade-like fingers on its hands. Its veins were popping out all throughout its body, but particularly strongly at its neck.

"I-I think..." Eve began to say, but she stopped when the body ahead reacted.

"Yeah?" Rin asked.

And that question was what fully woke the monster. Its head snapped up and suddenly, two red, beady eyes were peering back at Rin.

Eve flew by Rin's side.

"It's a vampire," she stated quietly as the creature slowly got up.

Rin gulped.

[Oh.]