Alice waited impatiently for the beasts to come, trying to use her enhanced sight to see through the darkness. To think that only a few days ago she thought how she would never ever walk again. And now, she was in the middle of a fantasy land, living in a place where dungeons could create monsters and she could learn to use Mana and fight them all. If she could only stay alive for that long.

Earlier, while El was meditating and filling himself with Mana, she decided to walk around the campsite and somehow found herself walking to where Prince Kerwin was talking to his soldiers.

She asked him if he was planning to listen to El’s advice and retreat into trees, but he just smirked at her and said that she did not need to worry about him, that they were soldiers who did not hide up the trees but stood their ground, and that he had a few tricks up his sleeve that may be way better.

It was obvious to her even back then what a colossal mistake they were all making, two heads, two little fighting groups, separated by doing their own thing while fighting the enemy that was ready to eat them up for supper.

Alice suspected El would probably never accept orders from the Prince and the Prince even more so from El, but they had a common enemy and it was crazy they did not unite their forces and make a united stand.

“Next time, if I live through this night, I won’t let this happen. Have to bring them together, like a war council where all leaders can say what they want to, and then together we can come to the decision of what is the smartest thing to do next. Otherwise, their childish pride may just end us.”

So, up in the tree, she hugged a big branch and watched out toward the darkness when she heard El’s muffled voice. “They are here.”

Alice looked toward the spot El was staring at and uphill from their camp she thought she could see the ground move.

“You have to warn them,” Alice said, realizing how the guards were just unsuspectingly strolling leisurely around.

“You have to!” she insisted as she saw El suddenly becoming hesitant.

But then, his face became all blank, the expression she saw before, his eyes glowed as did his long staff, and the lighting suddenly lighted an old pine tree next to the soldiers' tents, revealing dark shapes of the beasts that were sneaking up on the camp guards.

The guards instantly became alert and blared the alarm in their horns. One did not even have a chance to do that as one of the largest beasts Alice had seen was ready to jump on him, so all he could do was throw the spear in its chest, pull out the sword, and put his long shield in front of himself to defend against the beast that was still coming at him.

At the same time, other soldiers ran out of their tents, battle-ready, shields and spears in their hands.

“They were ready,” El muttered to himself, seeing how swiftly they all ran out and formed a defensive wall.

“Hold your arrows!” Trim spoke from the tree to the right. “They are still too far away.”

But, arrows did come, just not from the trees that El and his village fighters climbed.

“That must be king’s archers there,” El said, noticing the shafts coming from the trees around their tents.

“At least he took some precaution,” Alice said, referring to the Prince.

“But… but… Where are the rest of them?” someone from the tree next to them asked anxiously, and only then did Alice realize there were not that many soldiers on the ground. With a fast count, she estimated their numbers to be only about two dozen.

“There can't be more than ten of the archers in the tree!” the voice said, seeing the number of shafts raining down on the oncoming beasts.

“Maybe they ran,” someone else said.

“I don’t see their horses either.”

“They sneaked out. I saw them. I thought they were just going to guard the horses a bit away from the camp, but it seems they are gone.”

“Maybe. But I would not bet on it,” Alice answered them.

“It does not matter. We came here to fight the dungeon. Any help we get from the soldiers is the help we did not even expect!” Trim's firm voice broke up their discussions. “Wait till you see the beasts and make each arrow count!”

El helped a bit by using two points of his Mana and lighted a big pile of dry wood they placed in the middle of their camp.

By now, the beasts started to launch themselves at the soldiers who had to circle their wall and make a turtle out of their shields, moving it slowly downward, step by step, toward the villagers' positions while at the same time stabbing the creatures with their spears all while the archers were raining down shafts at the beasts, thinning their numbers

But it was all too little. Alice could see it right away. There were just too many beasts and too few of the soldiers.

When a bunch of the creatures tried to encircle the soldiers, El started to fire bolts of Mana and Elma started to draw shafts and the other village archers followed.

Very fast, Alice started to feel very useless and could understand what the Prince said about hiding in a tree. There was nothing she could do to fight the beasts.

But that feeling was instantly erased as one of the beasts came running through the camp and jumped up into her tree, its claws digging into the tree bark as it tried to climb it up.

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Alice never gave it a chance to steady itself on the tree, and before El or Elma could react, she dropped down to the branch below, bent over, and while holding the upper branch with her left hand, she swung her axe at the beast's pawns, severing it enough that it lost the grip on the tree's trunk and dropped down to the ground squealing.

Even a larger one jumped up and tried to bite her in the leg, its head extended, but it only found the cold and sharp iron edge of Alice's axe as she smacked the beast over the left side of its head.

“They won't be able to hold them!” El said, noticing the beasts pulling a soldier out of the turtle, jumping on him to feast on his flash before El could send enough Mana into them to kill them all.

“I have to go down!” he announced, and Alice did not protest as it was obvious he was right.

And just as El and Alice were aiming where exactly to jump so as not to be instantly bitten by the beasts squealing underneath, the galloping of the horseman and even louder shriek of King horsemen’s war cry came from somewhere in the darkness up the hill, behind the creatures.

They came down as a tsunami, running over the beasts, hoofs kicking them to the ground while their spears took them apart. There were more than two dozen of them riding, and Alice felt a huge relief to see one of them against the burning fire, swinging his sword with red feathers up in his helmet.

“I guess that was his trick,” Alice said thinking of the Prince, somehow glad he did not ditch them and ran away.

The horsemen instantly took the pressure off the turtle wall, killing the beasts as they ran through the camp, then turned around, formed the line again, and went up the hill to take care of the rest of them.

Some beasts tried to jump on the riders, but none made it without getting a bolt of Mana from El or a few shafts from the archer.

In mere minutes, the battle was turned and the beasts became scattered and an easy target for the soldiers.

“And what are those?” Alice asked, looking at dark shapes that started to come down from the slope, a river of them, some carrying torches and revealing a gruesome scene.

They were dark shapes, definitely humanoid, walking on two legs, covered in rags, waving some crude weapons above their heads, some metal some very large wooden batons.

“Goblins,” El growled right away.

“Did not imagine them like that,” Alice confessed.

“Me neither,” Elma answered. “But I bet they still die all the same.”

“Luck has it they do not wear thick armor,” Trim said, trying to prop them up.

“But, there are so many of them,” a scared voice said from somewhere.

“We need to unite our forces!” Alice suddenly urged them.

“You're right. Can't fight them like this. Archers stay in trees!!” El commanded, then added. “Those with swords and spears follow me!”

“Goblins are coming!!! Form the wall!! Goblins are here!!!” he yelled even harder as he landed on the ground, making sure that the Prince heard him and saw the torches coming down the mountains.

Alice followed him, jumping down next to the injured beast that she finished off by chopping at its forehead, splitting it in two before it could bite her.

As soon as she pulled the axe out, she felt the sense of new Energy hitting her body.

“Upgrade!” she yelped happily, the sense of euphoria overcoming and erasing her fears as she ran after El.

{The decision to come down the tree and kill the wounded beast had raised your Reputation by 100.

In addition to your previous actions, your Level has been upgraded to 3.}

“Cool,” slipped off Alice's lips. She felt so invigorated she did not need to go to her Energy standing to see it being bumped up, but she wanted to know about if she earned any special, anything that could help her in the fight.

The first thing on the list was exactly what she wanted and she selected it right away. “Lumber Jacks Swing!! Yes!”

Then as she took a breath of air, she asked “And what does it mean?”

{Exert 100 percent more damage with the blows that are coming vertically down while using 50 percent of the Energy in each blow.

Power the Axe with a maximum of 3 units of Energy, increasing its Kill power by a further 30 percent}

“Shit, I bet El has something like that. No wonder he can just carve those beasts with his sword as if it's a Jedi's lightsaber.”

The Prince came down off his horse, sending him downward, and the rest followed. Swiftly they hurdled together with their shields to form a protective wall.

“Form an arc!!” the Prince commanded them, his voice rising above the yelling of the coming goblins and instantly, the soldiers started to curve their defensive line with the middle part doubled by the Prince and two of his bodyguards, a maneuver they clearly practiced before.

“I'll take the left flank!” El shouted to Trim, sending him and the rest of the villager fighters to the right.

El held his long staff in his stronger right hand while the smaller one was in his left and he stepped forward to meet two goblins that came at them, knocking them in their face, and sending them down to the ground.

It was right away clear that the routine of killing the creatures they used in the village could not be applied here, so Alice moved to stand right next to El and soon enough got her first kill as El knocked one of them down to drop on his knees right in front of Alice when she brought down her axe on his neck and beheaded him.

Alice had no time to stare at their sunken red eyes, their rotten teeth, and the dark tongs they flashed at them in their maniac yells. She went mad and went swinging, and crying as if this might be the last thing she was ever going to do in her life, sometimes not even waiting for El to knock them down.

One goblin tried to flank El with a sword in his hand, but Alice smacked that sword with her axe, shattering it as if was made of glass, then she brought the axe high over her head and split the dumbfounded goblin’s head in two.

A particularly large goblin, a head taller than the rest of them had managed to smack against the shield and threw a solder backward, opening their line and El had to shoot 3 Mana units into him just to make sure the frenzied monster’s body went limp as it finally ran into Prince Kerwin’s sword.

“Close the line!!” the Prince yelled the order as he stepped forward to allow the fallen soldier to get up.

“There are just too damn many of them! Can you not burn them??” Alice asked El in desperation, realizing that she could not swing and kill ten goblins in a single strike.

El looked at her with horror, shocked that she even suggested he could do such a thing, realizing she did not know the limit of his power, maybe thinking of him as an omnipotent being with unlimited power.

Using Mana to turn one goblin into the flames would require at least ten good units and there were just hundreds of them coming down.

Did I make her think I could do such a thing? But... I tried not to. Obviously, I failed at communication again, he thought as he slammed one running goblin in the chest with his long staff, the impact of Mana so powerful he went flying backward against two other ones behind him.

Then an idea struck him as he stared at the pine tree that he had lit and was still burning.

Digging for all the Mana in his smaller staff, he picked the tallest tree in front of them, shot Mana into its trunk, making it explode, forcing it to fall on top of dozens of the suddenly terrified goblins who were running down at them.

As the tree loudly cranked and started to fall down, he fired all the Mana he had left in the long staff and lighted it up, engulfing it first in a small flame, but then, he poured everything he held inside of himself inside those flames to make the whole tree burst into an explosive fire that burned all underneath and around the tree.

Never before had he released nearly so much Mana at once and the impact made his knees wobble, his feet losing hold of the ground, and he twitched backward and stumbled to the bloodied snow.