The fact that Daniel hadn't come there, Victoria realized, could only mean one thing. The giant stag wasn't the boss.

Victoria wasn't sure if she should be happy about that fact. But right now, she didn't have the time to ponder that question anymore.

Thanks to her mana sense, Victoria was able to tell that their little group was made up of six people, including Victoria. She could also tell that the wolves were ready to pounce on them from three different directions.

Now, normally they wouldn't do that as long as something long and pointy was directed at them, at least that was what Victoria thought. But something about the Wave seemed to make them extremely aggressive and disregard their own safety as they had seen earlier. Because of those circumstances, their little circle of spears was suddenly a lot less safe than normal.

If the wolves pounced on them, even if they died in the process, they would still get buried under their bodies. Best case, they would end up stuck and unable to move. Worst case, they would break bones or even died from it.

"I'm driving one back! You guys get out through the gap, we can let them trap us!"

After she said her part, Victoria focused on the wolf in front of her. She could only hope that the others got away as there wasn't enough time for them to properly coordinate.

She takes a step forward, carefully strengthening her body as to not waste any aura as she performs a long thrust directly at the monster's face.

The wolf quickly jumps to the side, avoiding the attack and giving Victoria the opening to scream: "Now!"

More, she couldn't do. At this point, she had to worry about herself.

It was also at this point, that two things happened at once.

She didn't know if it was on purpose or not, but one of the people behind her pushed her. As she lost her balance, the wolves jaws snapped shut on her weapon, pulling on it.

Not letting go of the spear in time, Victoria stumbles forward, right into the paw that is already swiping at her. In an act of desperation, she strengthens her legs and jumps.

Unable to properly control her flight, Victoria somersaults through the air. As she sees the claws passing by beneath her, where she had been just a moment earlier, Victoria is reminded of a certain fighting game.

That, however, wasn't important. What most certainly was, on the other side, was a certain move from it.

Pulling in all her limbs, Victoria begins spinning faster, still rising higher into the air.

At the same time, the wolf throws away the spear, instead rearing up on its hind legs to snap at Victoria.

Before it can do so, however, Victoria stretches out her right leg, transitioning from a somersault into an ax kick, hitting the monster right on the head.

With a crack, the wolf's head caves in and violently reverses direction towards the ground.

Victoria, on the other hand, is once again destabilized and tumbles through the air. Just barely preventing herself from faceplanting into the ground, she lands on one knee and has to put one hand on the ground to stop herself from falling over.

Congratulations! You killed [Dire-Wolf level 3]

You earned 2lvl => 4exp

Somehow, she had managed to kill the wolf and got nothing but a scraped knee. Well, it wasn't actually scraped thanks to the beauty enhancement. But it still hurt like hell.

Now that she thought about it, wasn't this the cliche super-hero landing? No wonder her knee hurt so much.

She quickly checked her mana sense. Two wolves were still behind her and the group had taken the chance to get out of the encirclement. Instead, they were surrounding one of the wolves in a half-circle, taking turns stabbing at it.

It wasn't exactly the fastest way to kill it, but that way the monster wouldn't be able to get out.

The problem was, there was still one more that was just about to pounce at the...

Never mind. Victorias thought got interrupted as another entity ran its spear right through the monster's side, even throwing it to the ground.

A quick look behind her as she stood up gave her the details her mana sense didn't. It was Boris, not the quartermaster, but the weirdo.

Maybe, she thought, there was more than just bragging to his claim to be the strongest.

Victoria herself would have needed to use almost all of her Aura to achieve the same result, as was proven from the incident with the squirrel. Even now, the reason she had managed to kill the wolf with her kick was that she was still wearing the magical high-heels Daniel had made for her, which weighed about two hundred kilograms to everyone else than herself. And Daniel, probably.

Now that all immediate threats were averted, Victoria took the chance to take a look around.

To her right, the stag was still rampaging. It had already broken through their barricades and didn't look like it was in any difficulties at all. Not a moment later, Victoria could see it throwing up its head, using its antlers to throw maybe three people several meters into the air.

That wasn't something she could do anything about though, as frustrating as it was.

To her left, on the other side, there were still several Dire-Wolves out and about. It didn't take her long to find a group that was in trouble.

She quickly threw a glance at the ground, trying to locate her spear. Unable to do so, however, she decided to just leave it be. Kicking would be more effective either way, thanks to her shoes, and the spear would just get in the way for that.

The group Victoria had seen, was a small team of three dealing with two wolves at once. Lucky for Victoria, one of them stood with its back directly towards her.

Crossing the less than twenty meters distance in a sprint, she football-kicked the monster in the hind leg.

With a crack and yowl, the wolf fell on its side where it quickly got punctured by a spear.

Congratulations! You killed [Dire-Wolf level 2]

You earned 1lvl => 1exp

With that dealt with, Victoria took another look around, searching for yet another group she could help.

Ten minutes later, she had helped out three more groups. By that time, however, all other fights had already come to one conclusion or another. Either the people died and the monster searched out new enemies, or people started to completely surround the wolves one at a time, slowly poking them to death from every angle.

Somewhere in the middle, even the stag had been dealt with. Victoria had seen commander Klein running past her after she helped the first group, and now she was standing in front of the monstrosity, surrounded on all sides.

What surrounded her, however, weren't wolves. Those, she could have probably dealt with easy enough.

"Huh!? Commander, what do you have to say? Twenty people! Twenty people died. Even one of your own guards! And where were you?", one especially loud voice stood out from the commotion.

"SILENCE!", the Commanders voice sounded out once more.

"NO! You be silent!", came back promptly.

Victoria wasn't surprised. Having a loud voice could scare people, but only so much. If you used it too often, the trick would stop working. Especially if the source of the voice was missing the necessary body mass to further enhance the effect and the people on the receiving side just went through a life-and-death battle against monsters.

"WHERE. WERE. YOU?", the voice asked again, now just as loud as the commander.

Not only weren't they scared of the woman anymore, but they also seemed to be able to use the same tricks as her. That meant the instigator of this commotion could use Aura. And that meant this could turn out badly.

Finally, the commander answered: "I was busy protecting the other side of this place!"

"Oh? So there were monsters there too?", the voice asked back.

"No. There weren't any.", Commander Klein answered the person's question.

Although Victoria had shifted her focus back on the edge of the forest, lest they got surprised by yet another pack of wolves while everyone was distracted, she had still come gone closer to the crowd.

Now that she was close enough, she could identify the person in front of the Commander as a tall man. Victoria was now regretting the fact that she didn't stay in the barracks a bit, else she would have had a better understanding of the situation and who that man was.

"Then why didn't you come here the moment you heard the monsters coming, huh? Even from the other side of the fort should you have heard the commotion!", the troublemaker continued with his accusations.

By now, it was clear to Victoria what his goal was. He wanted to undermine the woman's authority.

For what reason, however, especially under the current circumstances, was something Victoria couldn't understand. Well, there were always people who did incomprehensibly stupid shit in the worst situations. This seemed just to be one of those cases.

"Because the moment I leave my position I risk that we get overrun from the back! If I come running for every single demon that appears, I won't be able to react when the real threats show up!"

"Oh? And I thought those were the ones your little Hero was supposed to deal with. Where is he by the way? Don't tell me he ran away after you glorified him as our savior, telling us he would save us all."

"The Hero has one, and only one job! And that is to save his strength until the boss appears. Because that is the one fight that decides whether we are all fucked or not!", the commander said before finishing with her enhanced voice: "NOW, EVERYONE GET BACK IN POSITION! I'VE WASTED ALREADY ENOUGH TIME AND ENERGY ON THIS SHIT! BELIEVE ME, IF I SAY THIS: I WANT TO DIE JUST AS LITTLE AS THE LAST ONE OF YOU! SO; DO YOUR FUCKING JOB AND MAYBE; JUST MAYBE; WE GET OUT OF THIS ALIVE!

AND YOU! COME WITH ME!"

Saying that she suddenly lifted her hand to the man's head. But different from what people expected, she didn't hit him. Instead, she pulled down his ear and walked back, pulling the screaming man after her.

It wasn't a good solution. Hell, it wasn't even a bad solution. Victoria could clearly tell from the atmosphere of the crowd as they watched the Commander leave with the man in tow.

All it did was pushing the problem to a later date, at which it would definitely backfire.

Maybe, it was a good idea to leave this place once the Wave was over. Before this situation could boil over.