It was a chilly spring morning when Mau left her mother's cottage at the crack of dawn. Today was the day. The day she was going to eliminate the threat to her home town. She didn't care if she was heralded a hero for it or remained quietly obscure. All she wanted was to make sure her mother, and her family and friends in the village would be safe while she was away. And the only way to ensure that was to murder every single goblin she came across.

Her mother was still asleep when she had ducked out of the house, but something compelled the Hero to pause, just before slipping out the door, to leave a small kiss on the sleeping woman's cheek.

The first order of business after that, though... Was to find where the goblin lair actually was.

This wasn't too difficult. One of the first skills the Hero had picked up over the course of all their lives was the ability to track and hunt prey... And to Mau, goblins were very much a prey species. She started by the local creek, and it wasn't long before she found several sets of roughly child-sized foot prints in the loamy earth by the water that she was able to follow for a time.

Crouched low to the ground, running her fingers over the dirt, she followed the trail left by a careless goblin that didn't even think so much as to bother hiding where it was headed.

It led her right to where she wanted to go.

The cave mouth was littered with trash, bones, detritus, and excrement left haphazardly by its little green bastard occupants, strewn all over the ground. Mau hid in a nearby bush by the cave entrance and waited. If the goblins were any shade of intelligent, as many of their type vaguely were, they would have at least one or two guards watching the entrance to their ratty little home. The last thing Mau wanted to do was alert the whole den by letting the entry guards know of her presence. It would be worse than kicking a beehive; she had to move slowly, carefully, and cautiously while killing any goblins that she encountered as quickly, efficiently, and silently as possible.

Her patience was rewarded.

Soon enough a pair of groggy looking little green blighters emerged from the cave mouth, yawning and grousing. They had likely just been woken up for a change of shift, and catching them sleepy and off guard was essentially perfect. Mau waited in perfect silence, crouched in the bush completely unmoving as she watched, observing the pair for any pattern to their guard duty. Goblins, however, are lazy and barely intelligent creatures, and soon enough she saw that the pair was just content to kick pebbles around the entrance to entertain themselves as they slowly woke up.

That's when luck struck.

One of the goblins groused at the other in their barely comprehensible language and jerked his thumb at the nearby bushes before slowly starting to make his way over. Mau shifted her weight, moving slowly and carefully to head towards the very bush that the goblin had indicated. She beat him to it. While the goblin's buddy has his back turned he started to fuss with his loincloth, clearly needing to relieve himself.

He didn't get the chance to get it down.

Faster than lightning, Mau lunged, clasping a hand over the goblin's mouth to keep him silent as she gave his neck a quick and lethal jab with one of her daggers. The goblin struggled briefly before realizing he was dead and went limp in her arms in the bush, before Mau flipped the same dagger in her hand and flicked it. The dagger sailed gracefully through the air and planted itself neatly in the second goblin's back before he even thought about turning around to check on his friend, embedding nicely between ribs and piercing the little bastard's heart.

From here, Mau moved quickly, emerging from the bush to pull her dagger from the goblin's corpse and drag the dead body out of sight. With the entry guards dead and silent, and the rest of the den still likely slumbering, Mau essentially had free reign to do as she pleased with the goblins inside as she started heading inside. Crouched low and walking on the balls of her feet to make as little noise as possible, she briefly considered lighting a torch. In her past lives as a human she would always have to light a torch in dark caves and crypts to see anything beyond an inch past her nose. It would eliminate much of the element of surprise, but at the same time, the goblins wouldn't be able to casually murder her in the darkness either.

That's when she realized, as she stepped out of the morning sun and into the gloom of the cave, that her eyes were adjusting. Slitted pupils slowly dilated more and more as she was bathed in the darkness of the corridor heading into the cave, until she realized that she didn't need a torch. Though everything was in dark shades of grey and white, everything in the cave was almost as crystal clear to her as though it were daylight inside.

Huh. One of the benefits of choosing something other than the default race, she supposed, eyes rolling skyward as she quietly cursed Galatea for being so basic.

Nevertheless, Mau proceeded cautiously, eyes darting left and right in search of any hidden side-passages or alcoves where she could be ambushed from or create an ambush, herself. For the most part though it was a single straight shot corridor leading further into the depths. With her dagger in her left hand and short sword clasped tightly in her right, she crept through the darkness towards the sounds of hissed breathing and grumbles.

Eventually she did find an easy to miss side path, and she paused at the junction, ears perked as she listened to the ambient silence of the cave and the slow whisper of wind carrying fresh air inside it. She quickly ducked down the side way, back pressed to the cave wall as she crept further into a small alcove where three goblins were already asleep, snarling and snoring as they tossed, not registering the presence of death that had just entered the room.

There was no fairness in Mau's actions. It was devilish, dastardly, and cruel; the way she casually slit the closest goblin's throat while he dreamed of pillage and plunder. She proceeded to the second and repeated the grim process, eyes cold as she watched life leave the little monster's body. It was as she shuffled to the third slumbering goblin that he cracked an eye open and blearily stared at her for a beat...

"GRA--ghk!" The goblin squawked as Mau's hand clapped over his mouth and she planted her short sword swiftly between his ribs.

"Sleep." She whispered, giving the blade a sharp, jerking, twist that made the light fade from the creature's eyes as it went limp pinned beneath her.

That could have been bad. If the goblin had managed to let out a cry of alarm there would be only the gods know how many of the little things bearing down on her in an instant. Mau gripped her wrist tightly to try and make her hands stop trembling. Her mind may have had the experience of killing countless goblins in and out of their lair, but her body was unused to the sheer levels of adrenaline and heart-racing terror that gripped her still.

That was the kicker. No matter how many times she did this, it was always terrifying to be deep in enemy territory, trying to remain unnoticed while hunting her quarry. A slow, steeling, shivery breath and the Hero shoved the kitten's fear aside and forced her body to stand up again. Until the Hero was truly used to this new body every action was like awkwardly controlling a puppet with its own instincts and fears that had to be surmounted.

What was worse was how young and still untrained this body was. Sure there were a few benefits to youth and the racial bonuses she discovered along the way, but in most of their lives, the Hero had started adventuring much later- usually around the age of sixteen to eighteen. There was an inherent frailness to youth that needed to be ironed out with real training, exercise, and preparation. Mau barely had time for any of that before a threat appeared looming over her hometown threatening to kill her and everything she knew.

That was the thing about goblins. They were a constant across every world and life the Hero had lived. Though they were considered the lowest of low ranking monsters and considered to be weak and pathetic excuses of life in every world, there was another constant about them that the Hero had learned. They were emotionless little monsters. They breed quick, mature quicker, and once they get their first taste of blood there's no stopping them from wanting to bathe in it every chance they could get. Once the Hero had made the mistake of clearing out a goblin den and leaving the children to live, out of pity.

Once.

After that, the Hero vowed never to return to another village burned to the ground because they had let several goblin pups live, thinking they could adapt to a life without killing. Mau was not certainly not going to let that happen to her home. Not in this life, not in any others the Hero had lived.

Mau left the side alcove and resumed her course down the cave's lonely corridor. The den was still largely silent, which meant one of two things... The goblins were still unaware of her presence and she could get away with a few more quiet kills... Or they were ready and waiting for her now, plotting their traps and tactics for capturing and killing an intruder.

Either way she would be ready for them as she inched slowly down the cramped cave. The further down the path she went the more she could feel a nervous fear building in the secret place behind her heart, making it hammer and skip beats in her breast. She had to pause to recover, knowing full well that one careless slip up would end her adventuring career, she didn't want to make a dumb mistake just because she was nervous, and stopped to catch her quickening breath.

It was a good thing she had stopped when she did, because in the next instant a ratty and poorly made arrow whizzed between her ears as it sailed harmlessly over her head. Mau quickly dropped into a crouch and tumble-rolled forward into the next chamber.

There were two goblins waiting for her, and judging from their bloodshot eyes, they either hadn't gotten much sleep or were rudely woken up But the pair were apparently very confident in their ability to take out the threat to the den as they, stupidly, didn't sound an alarm.

The first goblin went down in a gurgle of blood as she flung a quick dagger through the air into its neck. This made the second hesitate just long enough that she was able to charge at it before it could knock another arrow to its shoddy hunting bow. She tackled it with bone breaking force, her free hand slugging it across the jaw to stun it further before she raised her blade, poised to deal the fatal blow. The goblin meekly raised its hands to protect its face from further abuse and indicate surrender. Mau didn't entertain it as she stabbed it firmly through the solar plexus.

With the deed done, she slid off the goblin and rolled onto her back, breathing hard. She stared at the cave ceiling for a moment just trying to catch her racing breath and slow her heart as it thundered.

That's when, out of the corner of her eyes, she saw why these two goblins had been awake.

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They had been eating breakfast.

Slowly sitting herself up, Mau stared at the remains of a prior party that had ventured into the den. There was a young man- he must not have been older than sixteen or seventeen, dressed in the light leather armor of a fighter. Crumpled next to him was the mangled body of a girl; roughly in the same age range as her companion, dressed in the finery of a wizard of some stripe. Their dead, glassy eyes stared judging Mau as she stared back. She felt her gorge rise, looking at the mangled, half-eaten corpses, and looked away quickly, scrunching her eyes shut tightly as she was given the grim reminder of what happens when one isn't cautious around creatures like goblins.

She remembered them, too. The pair were novice rank adventurers that had been sent when the town called for aid from the nearby adventurer's guild in the closest city. Mau had subtly tried to warn them that the den was beyond their skills when they visited the inn, but of course they didn't listen to some demi-human kitten and decided to strike out anyway. It cost them their lives.

It was grisly and dark, but Mau started rifling through the pair's belongings for anything of use. She assumed that the goblins would have taken most of their belongings and weapons deeper into their lair as trophies, but she had to check and see if the little bastards had missed anything.

She struck paydirt.

"Sorry." The kitten whispered solemnly as she fussed through the mage's potion and reagent pouch and came away with a small vial. The Hero knew what it was immediately. It was an antidote potion. At least the novice adventurers knew the risk of goblin poison and had brought it along in case one or both of them had gotten hurt by a poison coated blade.

Mau stuffed the antidote in her pouch and retrieved her flung dagger from the dead goblin. After that scuffle the den was probably already starting to wake up, regardless of how careful and cautious Mau was trying to be, There was no helping the matter, she had to move and act quick, efficient, and brutal, if she wanted to maintain the element of surprise.

Ducking down the next path available she crouched low and moved quickly and quietly until she heard movement in the space beyond. This time she wouldn't be caught off guard by any more goblins, even if they were lousy shots. The next chamber in the cave was lit by the embers of a dying fire, adding splashes of reds and oranges to the black and grey shades of the dark cave, the silhouettes of three figures moved against the wall of the chamber beyond. Mau shifted her weight onto her toes, blades held tightly in both hands as she lunged into the chamber.

The shadows danced on the walls as the three figures jerked, jolted, and snarled in surprise. In an instant there was a fourth among them, the long shadow cast by a short sword flicked along the cave wall and with a sputter the stone was painted in arterial spray. The other two shadows halted, shocked and surprised. The slender silhouette of the taller figure was between them in an instant and in two quick diagonal cuts the two shadows toppled over with more splatters of warmth against the cave floor, splashing onto the dying embers of the fire and putting them out with a hiss that bathed the chamber in perfect blackness once again.

Two murderous blue eyes gleamed in the dark as Mau wiped her blades clean on the rags the goblins wore.

Her hands were still trembling after every fight; but the intensity of their shaking decreased the more the kitten grew used to the act of killing. Soon enough, the Hero figured, they would stop quaking entirely with a few more goblins put to the blade. But the question remained... Just how many goblins were lurking in this den?

❧

It had been three hours since Mau entered the cave den. Her muscles burned and she was already more than just starting to get tired. She was soaked in sweat, grime, filth, and blood, but she pushed on, ignoring the burn in her lungs.

By her count, she had already put about thirty six goblins to the blade. But for every one she put down, another two or even three sprung up and tried to catch her by surprise. The den was awake now and the hornets were buzzing; slavering for blood of the little intruder that had invaded their lair and killed their green skinned kin.

Mau had her work cut out for her, and it wasn't going to be easy. The caves were a sprawling maze; with sections cut out of the natural stone to make more labyrinthine paths by the rough tools of goblin-kind. They little bastards had settled in quick and worked fast to make the caves as comfortable for themselves as possible in very little time.

What worried Mau was that she had only encountered normal goblins up until now, and they were starting to wear her down. What could happen if she encountered a hob-goblin again? Or worse, a goblin chieftain or goblin shaman? They would be fresh for a fight while Mau was already partially exhausted.

It would be a problem for Future Mau, she decided as she rounded a roughly hewn corner into another, wider, chamber.

It was bad.

Mau realized that she had made quite the mistake in just turning the corner with little concern to check what was around it first. Faced down, now, with no less than ten goblins all huddled together, brandishing their rough and rusted weapons and shields,they encircled two figures in the center of the room. One was much larger than the others, wearing ratty armor made from poorly tanned hide and a few plates of rusted metal sewn onto it, the hob-goblin leered at the kitten that had just made it into the innermost depths of the lair.

Next to the hob was the bigger problem. Which was saying something, because the figure was actually smaller than the hob-goblin, but wreathed in tattered and threadbare sackcloth robes. It was a goblin shaman.

"Ah..." Mau muttered as they all turned to face her.

It was definitely very bad.

The shaman barked something and immediately the goblins sprang into motion. Though the hob-goblin remained protectively by the shaman's side, the smaller bastards rushed Mau heedless of their own safety. Now; the rushing tidal wave of angry green monsters would make most novice adventurers freeze in their tracks with fear or hesitation. Thankfully, Mau was not a novice adventurer. Shifting her footing into a readied stance she brandished her blades in a defensive position as she backed into the corridor where the passage was thin enough that they couldn't encircle or surround her, using the cramped space to bottleneck the goblins and force them to come at her in ones and twos at best.

The first one reached her, its club raised high and poised to strike.

Mau thrust her short sword forward, driving it into the bastard's solar plexus faster than he could bring his club down. It died where it stood and she used her boot to kick it off her blade as the second came with a pair of rusty, fetid, poisoned daggers. A swipe of her own dagger across its throat ended that charge as a third shoved past the falling corpses only to stagger back clutching the deep and very lethal slash wound across its chest before it could even raise its broken sword.

They kept coming, and Mau fended them off one by one, careful to avoid their rancid poison coated blades, until the horde thinned. Five of the goblins lay dead at her feet and the remaining five paused, hesitant and afraid to approach. Though their shaman leader spat and cursed and urged them forwards they dared not budge toward the little feline girl that was making a mess of their den. She had done enough damage to their morale that they knew they didn't stand a chance against her.

The shaman was less than pleased about this situation, stamping his foot and snarling in the basic and broken goblin language, before he raised a palm and growled.

"Gragh'gagh!" The shaman rumbled, a spark of orange light forming in his outstretched palm before it flared brightly and a lightning bolt made of pure flame licked towards Mau like a whip.

It was simplistic, brutal, and basic goblin magic at best, but it would still be enough to punch a hole through Mau's armor and the flesh behind it, if she didn't move. Tired as she was, adrenaline and reflexes kicked in before conscious thought and Mau twirled herself out of harm's way around the corner she had originally turned down, turning her head away from the hot flash and bright flare of light as the firebolt impacted the wall behind where she had just been standing a split second before.

That was all it took to get the goblins whooping and snarling. Mau peeked around the corner only to hear the shaman growl again, ducking back as another firebolt lanced through the air with enough heat to melt the rock and temporarily blind her with a flare of brightness in the dark.

"Fuck!" Mau snapped, rubbing her eyes and earning a chorus of hideous laughter. The shaman snapped off another firebolt to keep her pinned and she gritted her teeth.

If anything, it gave her a moment to catch her breath but even that was short lived as she could hear the approaching shuffle of several goblins moving towards her. She squinted, trying to get her eyes to re-adjust to the gloom as quickly as possible, but the firebolt had seared her eyes something fierce.

She snapped her eyes shut and listened intently. It saved her life as the first of the remaining goblins rounded the corner and swiped its blade where her throat was. She ducked out of the way in time and shoved her shoulder into the little blighter's face with nose-breaking force. He squawked, clutching his shattered nose as he staggered back and the goblin quickly turned and ran back to his compatriots, his bravery rewarded only with shame and pain. She could hear the obnoxious laughter as the goblins laughed at the misery of one of their own. It made her sick to the pit of her stomach with anger, but she held herself in check. The shaman's firebolt would rip right through her if she so much as turned that corner. She couldn't leave, but she couldn't advance, and this time she heard not one but two goblins rushing her next.

They rounded the corner just as her eyes had recovered, and the first one went down with a dagger embedded in his chest. The second though... Mau didn't kill him right away. The goblin squawked in pain as she shattered his jaw with a swing of the pommel of her short sword, and then quickly hooked her arm around his neck as she turned him to face away from her. The goblin snapped at her arm with shattered teeth, but failed to pierce her armor-clad elbow thanks to the fact that he was in too much pain from having his jaw broken in several places. The two struggled for a moment before Mau shoved him firmly around the corner.

"Gragh'gagh!" The shaman was clearly ready for a target, and Mau shut her eyes tight. The upper half of the injured goblin's body vaporized in a bright flash of red. Mau rounded the corner next. She wouldn't make it in time if she tried to cross the distance between herself and the shaman. She'd either be gutted by the goblins in her way, or the shaman would recover and demolish her with another firebolt.

That's why she decided to try her hand at magic for the first time, with this new body. Magic certainly wasn't a new thing to the Hero, after all. The Hero had been a powerful mage in previous lives.

Mau snapped her hand up as she took careful aim. The goblin's magic was simple, archaic, brutal, and barely anything special. That made it super easy to learn with just a little observation.

"Gragh'gagh!" Mau said as soon as she had her target in her sights. The goblins all went stock still, bewildered and shocked as a tiny spark formed in the kitten's palm.

In the next instant two goblins were vaporized, the shaman's head was melted clean off his shoulders, and the hob-goblin was screaming; clutching the scalded stump where his arm had been cauterized right off.

Mau didn't wait to recover, she flung her second dagger into the hob-goblin's neck and cut down the last goblin where it trembled staring in disbelief.

Even if the den hadn't been fully cleared, just dealing with the shaman and his hob-goblin guard solved the problem. The remaining goblins would instinctively know to flee, run off with little to no cohesion, and likely not come back for a long time. Mau collapsed to her knees, lungs burning with exhaustion as she toppled to her hands, sweat dripping from her brow as she panted to breath. She could finally go home and collapse.

Except that was when she heard movement from behind the shaman's throne, a soft whimper and whine. It was just barely audible, muffled by the ratty rags that made up the chair's stuffing and cushioning. Mau picked herself back up wearily and grimly shoved the throne aside, already knowing what to expect.

Six goblin children stared up at her in terror; tiny compared to their adult kin and even tinier compared to Mau, they whimpered as she approached and stared down at them where they huddled together, a menacing silhouette that reeked of blood, sweat, and death, with smoldering blue eyes full of malice that gleamed murderously in the dark...

❧

The sun was setting by the time Mau returned to her mother's little cottage at the edge of town. She was more than exhausted, coated from head to toe in blood, soaked in sweat. She felt grimy and reeked of dead goblin as she knocked on the door.

Mother hesitated to open it, so Mau called out to her. Her voice came out in little more than an exhausted mewl, but the door flung open nevertheless.

Mother stared, shocked, at the diminutive monster that stood on the other side of the threshold.

"Oh gods, Mau..." Mother whispered. "You actually did it..."

A grim, silent, nod and Mau tiredly unbelted her sword from her waist. "It's heavy... Hold onto it for me?" She pleaded. Mother obliged, quickly taking the weapon and pausing in place.

"Let's... Let's get you out of those clothes and into a bath." She suggested.

Mau shook her head. "Not yet." She said, slowly lowering to sit by the door in the last warmth of the setting sun.

It was a nice sunbeam, Mau thought as her eyes grew so heavy.

The perfect place to take a nap.

She was out like a light before Mother could suggest otherwise, an almost peaceful look on the kitten's face as she drifted right off.

Funny, Mother thought. It was the most peaceful she had ever seen Mau look in all her life.