OwO

Expedition to Isekai

---

It was enough. Rin saw the path that she could take. Just as the beasts could act to their own accord, so too could Rin. Her slash didn't do much, yet it was enough. Enough to instill a drop of confidence in a world that had hours earlier flung her into a tree. Confidence that would let her trust Shun to not allow beasts to swarm her. She'd finish off this beast with her geometric slashes.

The simplest way forwards was to overwhelm the beast. But if she had done so, she would be staking the strength of their selves against one another. Trying to outgas a beast was, perhaps, not the best way forwards. Humans were endurance animals, but only over the course of hours and days. Minutes? Beasts were much better. However, she possessed what beasts didn't; what humans lacked in intuition, they more than made up for in cunning.

She created another arc to throw at the beast. Blinding, blooming, violent. More dangerous-looking than before. However, its looks were the only thing dangerous about it. She put little force into it; what power it did possess reserved for visual flair. Behind it, she tracked the beast with her eyes. Her vision in the night wasn't the greatest. However, her perception gave ample time to parse the forms before her.

Behind the arc, she traced a simpler line. One that would drive forward. It was designed to pierce the beast. If it could simply clash with large arcs, then the answer was simple: a needle-like mass that focused all of its intensity towards one point. A penetrating attack that could not easily be blocked or deflected.

Persona ~ Alone at Sea (PERSONA WITH A BOAT 𓊝)

---

Of course she worried. There wasn't a bone in Maive's body that wouldn't. While previously Maive had been preoccupied with helping others, the sudden trip to a surreal balmy island had marked a change in her behaviour. Now, she always had something to do. Sorry, she'd tell others, I don't have the time right now.

Long walks along the beach were romantic. Searches along the English coast were less so. Maive patrolled the waters and looked for any clues. Unfortunately, her searches turned up with nothing. Perhaps if she was brave enough to jump into the depths again, she would find something... But she wasn't. She saw Victor frequently. Of course, she didn't have the heart to talk to him about it. She didn't have the heart to talk to anyone else about it, for that matter. After that all happened, Maive had receded into a shell of worry.

And then she was called into a room for an interview and saw two detectives staring her down.

Maive was, of course, not the type to get in trouble. In fact, this was the first time she was called to talk about anything. In anything, she was on the other side of the table whenever her siblings were up to no good. So she would react like anyone in her position would: she'd squeal like a pig. She'd tell the detectives about everything. The other world. Summoning a spirit. Launching everyone into the water and how it was her fault.

But a miracle happened. Though, perhaps it wasn't a miracle considering that Maive's tear ducts were closer to aqueducts at this point.

She bawled until she was unintelligible. The detectives still caught the main words. Hazing, dock, fall. The bit about the island had, perhaps thankfully, been shrouded in snot and wails. Any leading questions were answered in a similar manner. With sobbing and shakes of the head. Any attempt at consoling her or calming her down was, frankly, a failure.

"..." Detective Harris looked at Maive with a look of pity before placing a business card in front of her. "Please call this number if you remember any other details."

And that's how Maive's first run in with the cops went.

Expedition to Isekai

---

It wasn't perfect, but it was something. Rin had caused something to happen. She had managed buy a moment of respite, even if it involved shards of wood in her palms and the sudden prospect of being airborne. Landing next to Shun was a lucky break. Shun was battered and bleeding, but she was still breathing. At the very least, Rin knew that they were alive. Beyond that was her reflection of what she had done.

"I get it..." She whispered to Shun. Afflicted by a strange epiphany, Rin's thoughts began to compound.

What was she trying to make? A spear. What was a spear? It was such an ambiguous term. So many things could be called a spear. No, what was physical was not an idea. It was an imitation. It was substance at a point in time. No matter how she tried to imagine it, there was no way to create the perfect representation of a spear.

But why was she getting hung up on what a spear was? She could always take a step back. A spear was merely something used to pierce. Was there any reason why it couldn't have been something else? A bullet could pierce and so could a knife. In fact, was there any important distinction between piercing and slashing? It was all the same in the end. To damage and sunder substance was all there was to it. That was the essence.

She understood that she had to abandon her notions of what constituted a form. Necessity was the mother of invention, after all.

She pulled the energy from within her once more and dragged her finger along the beasts in the night.

What she had drew was not complex. What had formed in her mind was fundamentally simple. Something fundamental to everything, yet could not be observed in reality. It was something that could only be in the mind.

A single bisecting line.

Sleepless Nights\\ Iron Cages

"Well, I didn't use it or see it be used. I was just involved in-" Roqe immediately froze and looked at Honest. Honest was, as always, mean and glaring. Thankfully, Roqe had caught herself before a third brick hit her in the face. "Won't talk about that. Anyways, that's pretty bold of you to ask how to use it before knowing what it does~! Now I don't want to tell you. Feels like it'll be dangerous if you're in the know now. Try thumbing through the pages and figuring it out yourselves! It's safe enough to do that."

Her face displayed a moment of deep thought.

"Probably."

Expedition to Isekai

---

It missed. Thankfully, Rin hadn't exactly been punished for her failure in that instant. No, the beast had merely dodged and sent a megaflare her way. She was doing better than her partner in crime who had narrowly avoided being called Sh and Un.

How unfair it was. Sure, Rin had an inkling that something in her changed. Just as she felt a wellspring inside her after being flung into a tree, the beast had its own well floating towards her. Only her well was inside and doing nothing. The beasts well had been firing blasts at her. She could do little but move to dodge them. Her speed was lacking. Most of the dodge turned into scraping blows. She grit her teeth. Not the worse mishap she's ever been in. Pain was just a sensory illusion, that's what she'd convince herself to think.

She who dares, right?

Further in she went against the eyeballer and its orb. She'd certainly give it something to ponder. That something was a spear.

She'd draw from her own well. Everything she could. Every drop. Would it work? Who knew. Someone had to do something. Just as the Wright brothers believed they could fly. Just as Cugnot believed in self-propulsion. Just as Hormell Foods believed they could can ham. All she could do was believe that this was her correct choice.

She directed what she could towards her spear and thrust it towards the orb.

Expedition to Isekai

---

Rin could sense it. The monsters didn't give chase. Even if her vision in the night was hazy, she could tell that they didn't follow. Perhaps it was for the better. Perhaps it was the worse.

If her vision was better, she could have used her spear as a javelin. Even if the hide was tough, the eyes were almost always a weak spot. The thought did cross her mind that if she struck one of the laser wolves in the eye while it was charging its blast, its head would just explode. There was no evidence for this to happen unless one took cartoon as fact.

With Shun on laser duty, Rin had to do something. In a creeping dash, she skulked towards one of the laser-wolves. Quiet and fast. She'd pierce one of the laser beast with Shun acting as her cover.

Sleepless Nights\\ Iron Cages

thanks for putting up with my immense delays

I should be back on track now. No exact date on when I'll post next, but I'll try to respond when you guys post.

Soon: a downtime flavour interlude to the next missions. For now, it's just conversation with Roqe time.

Sleepless Nights\\ Iron Cages

"Do I know Mel?" A chuckle escaped from Roqe's lips. "Most people do. She gets around. Though, I'm technically pretty close to her~. Even worked on some things toge-" Roqe's head quickly shifted to the right as she dodged a damaged chain-glaive thrown directly towards her skull. "Well, I'm not supposed to talk about that. You can ask Mel about it. You even have the book we-"

Clonk.

A brick came flying at Roqe's head and bounced off.

Roqe was quite chipper about having something hit her noggin. Perhaps she didn't even see it as an attack. After all, the sensibilities of someone who couldn't die would, without a doubt, be dissimilar. If they weren't cursed and reviled, immortals would be great at slapstick comedy. Though, perhaps the funnier thought was if Honest kept a stack of bricks linked to her power solely to throw at immortals.

"If you want to talk about if I know Mel personally, then that's a very big yes~! We go back to when we were children. I was the one who dragged her out of the underworld, after all. Funny how that turned out. I'm back down there, Mel managed to rub shoulders at the first. Though last I checked, she's voluntarily persona non grata now."

Roqe looked at her fingernails. Still green. One fell off.

"I don't quite have much time left in this form, so if you want me to give you a quick summary of the past before I leave, ask. Otherwise, I can answer any question you kiddos have. Roqe knows many things."

She paused.

"Though don't ask about what that does." She gestured to the book. "I was never exactly told why we had to use it last time and never cared enough to ask. I just know that it's important."

Clonk.

What an immortal considered bad was definitely something curious. Even more curious was that a second brick had struck Roqe in the head after she mentioned the book being used last time.

The Little Hamlet

Ingrid Lucentia von Draph

^{Interacting with: Wormwood @Dark Cloud}
The Bridge || Guardsmanin'? || Interrogating?

Oh shit, a rat!

Except it wasn't. No, rats had fur and, when they weren't being pests, were actually quite cute. Well, the fur made them cute. Rats without fur were, in fact, quite horrifying to look at. What had locked eyes with her was a toddler-sized lizard with scales, bulbous eyes, and jutting teeth. He certainly matched the description that Dalton gave her when something went through the inn's garbage: a short and bulbous thing scaly thing. Then again, it may have just been an ugly rat that had gone through Dalton's garbage.

Regardless, Ingrid didn't share the villager's level of caution when it came to the more non-human types around Hearth. After all, she was tutored by a libertine, acted out her knightly duties, and had spent time travelling across the lands before settling down. Though, perhaps a large portion of it was instead instinct: a mixture of her natural sense of danger and the understanding that the Kobold could pretty much only bite her ankles. Maybe if he stretched as high as he could, he could scratch at her knees.

This whole situation reminded Ingrid of one of her escapades as a knight. Her duty (alongside the other knights) was to find and bring to justice a group of brigands who had taken over a bridge and demanded a toll from anyone who would pass. They called themselves "The Bridge Boys" and would wait under a bridge until a merchant came by.

For Wormwood, that wasn't exactly a good memory to come up.

"...Why are you under a bridge?" The soaked Ingrid asked with an interrogating look on her face. Her level of authority here was strange; on one hand, she wore no armour, was carrying a rather thick fishing rod instead of a blade, and was completely soaked. On the other, she was sized to punt Wormwood to the next village over. That was definitely intimidating.

Surprisingly, him being a Kobold was less of an issue than being under a bridge. As for why was a story for a different time.

Expedition to Isekai

---

Though a curious thought went through Rin's mind when she saw the spear poke into the carcass with ease: what if the monsters were strong only when they were alive? The spears would be useless if that were the case. The alternate hypothesis was that things in a dungeon had an affinity for affecting each other. Rin had no evidence for something like that, though. In either case, some level of testing was complete and Rin was off for some rest. She needed it.

Rin never really dreamed of much. It was always some mundane thing for her. Building in a weightless world, looking for something that didn't exist, something like that. More often than not, her dreams reflected her current state. Judging by her current dream, having her bag torn open and her things flying away affected her pretty deeply. She collected enough that she could push it down from the forefront of her mind while she was awake. Work on whittling away spears or telling people how to tie knots. However, when she was asleep? There was no way for her mind to hide how she lost some of her tools.

Her turn on the watch gave her a brief moment of respite from her stressful dreams. Sharpening a stick was simple, but it required some level of focus. Not enough to ignore the watch, but enough to not think about things. If only man didn't need to sleep. She whittled her time away before Shun had taken over the watch.

And she went back to her dreams. Back to the mundane dreams that would wake her feeling nothing but stress. This time, however, she did not awaken to cold sweats and stress. No, it was Shun yelling. It appeared that the students were never safe.

Perhaps a pitfall would have been a good idea after all. An ambush in the night was brutal. She stumbled up with spear clutched in hand. The others had been littered nearby for other students. After all, Rin only had two hands. It was better to keep them spread out where they were needed. Surely a weapon, even one as simple as a sharpened stick, would be better than students beating the life out of the wolfbears with their fists.

...

At least, it would be better if they weren't named Duncan.

If only Rin had some magnesium. Or phosphorus. Really, anything. Shun running off with a flashlight to act as bait was foolhardy. If it was night and the wolfbears had good night vision, it would be nice to try to abuse that instead. Though, Shun would need to run towards them rather than away for that to happen.

Well, if Shun would try to be a distraction, Rin would move to help her. She moved near her ready to stop any pounce with her spear. Though, not close enough that the two would have been clipped by the same beam.