"So... how are you planning to wipe out this outpost, Beatriz?" Elrick asked, crouched low behind a fallen log. His eyes flicked nervously between the goblins and the woman beside him. "Do I act as a distraction, or... are you taking them out in waves?"
Beatriz didn't answer right away.
Her crimson gaze swept across the camp with clinical precision—tracking patrol routes, archers perched on crude scaffolds, half-buried tents, the uneven spacing of the fire pits. At the center stood the largest of them: a heavily armored goblin towering at nearly five feet. It barked commands in a snarling tongue, pacing like a sergeant overseeing its troops. Around it milled a dozen others—some wielding rusted swords and shields, others lightly armored with bows at the ready.
Beatriz calculated silently.
Using Elrick as bait would draw them out. And it might work. But she dismissed the thought almost instantly.
Too risky.
If they all charged at once, he'd be torn apart.
More importantly, she wouldn't allow him to be harmed.
She finally spoke—flat, detached.
"Yes. I'll kill them in waves."
"I'll isolate the outer patrols first—quiet kills. Then I'll circle around and eliminate the archers before they can raise an alarm."
Elrick glanced back toward the camp. "So what do I do?"
"You stay hidden."
She turned slightly, finally meeting his eyes. Her voice sharpened—quiet, but cutting.
"If anything goes wrong—run."
Elrick hesitated. "You're serious?"
Beatriz didn't blink.
"You're not ready."
And just like that, she was gone.
Vanished into the forest.
She moved like a phantom between the trees, stalking the goblins who wandered beyond the perimeter. They always traveled in pairs or trios—careless, overconfident.
That wasn't a problem.
The ordinary ones fell with ease. Their senses were dull, their reactions pitifully slow—each of them a walking corpse the moment they stepped too far from the camp. A swift thrust to the throat, a clean snap of the neck—no sound, no struggle.
But the armored goblins were different.
They wore rusted breastplates and carried chipped swords, their stances more disciplined, their movements sharper. These ones weren't mindless. They had training—rudimentary, perhaps—but enough to put them close to a peak human in terms of strength and agility.
Close… but not enough.
Beatriz was stronger. Faster. Far more ruthless.
One armored goblin turned just in time to see a flash of crimson eyes before her spear drove clean through its chestplate, the force so violent it lifted the creature off its feet. Before it could even scream, she twisted, wrenching the blade free in a spray of blood.
She didn't slow down.
Another duo emerged from the trees—spears in hand, already alert.
Beatriz didn't hesitate.
A single step launched her forward—unnaturally fast, a blur to the naked eye. Her spear sang through the air, cleaving one in half at the waist, then reversing mid-motion to bury its tip in the second goblin's skull.
Both fell without a sound.
Beatriz straightened, blood dripping from the blade of the pear as she scanned the treeline.
"That's seven," she muttered, voice low and clinical—as if she were tallying insects.
She paused.
The forest had gone still. No more rustling. No grunts. No patrols.
They weren't coming out anymore.
Beatriz's crimson eyes narrowed as she stared back toward the campfire's faint glow through the trees.
"They've noticed," she said under her breath.
The larger goblin, no doubt the leader, must have realized his patrols were thinning. The outpost's movements had slowed. Their formation was tighter now. More cautious.
Tch. Annoying.
She stepped back from the brush and crouched beside the corpses. And quickly extracted the crystals from all the goblins she killed.
Seven crystals. Dull, but pulsing faintly.
Her expression didn't change, but her tone cooled further—precise, restrained.
"I'll absorb these now. If I level up, it might make breaching the outpost simpler."
Beatriz stood, one hand raised, and began drawing mana into the crystals—one after another—absorbing them in silence, the faint flicker of energy casting pale reflections in her cold eyes.
---
While Elrick crouched behind the log, he kept his eyes fixed on the camp.
Something had changed.
The goblins weren't moving as casually as before. The archers had repositioned, and the ones with shields had tightened their formation around the fire. The armored goblin barked louder now, gesturing toward the treeline and pointing its jagged blade in frustration.
They're spooked, Elrick realized.
Maybe I miscounted… there's still at least twelve of them.
Then—suddenly—a soft chime echoed through his mind.
A familiar pop-up flickered into existence before his eyes.
> Beatriz
Level: 2 - 3
Strength: 20 - 25
Agility: 25 - 30
Constitution: 20 - 25
Endurance: 15 - 20
Spirit: 20 - 25
She leveled up again? Just like that?
A slow smile crept across his face.
There was something strangely reassuring about it—knowing that Beatriz, cold as she was, was out there in the trees, tearing through goblins like a storm cloaked in habit and shadow.