17. Reina

The baleful aura generated from the slaughter still hadn't faded from their bodies, and the bright glowing eyes of Lucius and Camilla didn't do them any favors either.

In the darkness surrounded by fire and blood, they looked more like demonic specters than warriors of justice.

After the remaining bandits were slaughtered, it didn't take long before the surviving captives were calmed down and brought back to order.

A few of them were red-eyed after killing a few bandits, but they soon came back to their senses.

They were all just regular people at the end of the day. It was only the immense hatred for the bandits and the fear in their hearts that had turned them into lunatics for a couple of seconds. After the hatred had been satisfied and the bandits killed, the raging survivors found themselves at a loss for what to do next.

After a few minutes, the group of survivors was lined up in front of Lucius.

As he looked at their haggard and tired appearances, Lucius couldn't help but feel a little pity for their predicament.

They were all women and children abducted by the bandits.

The unfortunate ones had been used as playthings by the bandits, and the even more unlucky ones would have been sold and traded as slaves to all sorts of places.

Lucius scanned the crowd. On the outside, it wasn't too strange—it was as if he was just watching the crowd of people—but an experienced eye would easily find something wrong.

Lucius's eyes didn't linger long, but his gaze was too inquisitive, as if he was trying to find every detail in the person he was looking at.

It was as Lucius was looking around that he locked onto someone.

It was a woman with hair as dark as blood.

Although it was difficult to make out her hair color clearly, her hair was in an absolute mess, scruffily put together.

Her figure was hunched over and weak, and there was dirt spread all over her face to further mess up her appearance.

With just one look, you wouldn't be wrong to guess that this was a helpless woman who had been humiliated and tortured by bandits. But the second Lucius laid eyes on this woman, a wicked smirk appeared on his face.

"Found you."

As if to confirm Lucius's thoughts, he heard a sound go off in his head.

---

**Potential Sub-Heroine Detected!**

**Heroine:** Reina 

**Age:** 27 

**Race:** Half-Barbarian 

**Affiliation:** Mountain Bandits

**Strength:** 18 

**Agility:** 14 

**Stamina:** 17 

**Mana:** 13 

**Will:** 15 

**Talents & Traits:**

- Barbaric Strength (Passive effect/ bloodline ability)

- Rage! (Active/ bloodline ability)

- Axe Master (Passive effect)

- Scheming

- Hot-blooded

**Favorability:** -30 (Hate!)

---

As Lucius suspected, this wasn't just some helpless lady. No, the one pretending to be a victim was actually the leader of this group of vicious mountain bandits!

As befitting a villain, the second she heard the desperate fighting of her subordinates, her first thought wasn't to join in and save them but to go and hide!

When she was alerted by the fighting outside, her first thought was to sit by and assess the situation.

After living as a mountain bandit for many years, she had long since learned how to cut her losses.

If she stupidly ran out to fight and ran into a full knight squad of the empire, her end would be too tragic!

So, with that, she pretended to be a captured woman.

If the enemies were too much, she would sneak out directly, but if not, she would sneak attack them when their guard was at its lowest.

Even though he knew about it from the book, Lucius was still left speechless when he saw this third-class fighter shamelessly pretending to be a victim.

Such a scheming and vicious individual was definitely not a good person.

Even the original protagonist, with all his hacks and heightened senses, was still left greatly injured by this vicious woman's attack.

Fortunately, Lucius had the foresight of further knowledge. Otherwise, if he was sneak attacked with his weaker body, he wouldn't even be able to resist and would die on the spot!

Despite finding the person he was looking for, Lucius didn't make it obvious as his eyes quickly skipped over her as if he hadn't noticed anything special.

He just secretly called Camilla to his side and whispered, "See the hunched woman with the red hair? She's a strong third-class fighter. I want her taken down, alive."

Camilla was a little shocked when she first heard Lucius's words.

'How did the young leader know there was a third-class fighter hiding among the captives? He was weaker than her, so his senses shouldn't have reached this level yet?'

But even though she was filled with questions, Camilla knew restraint.

Lucius was the leader, and she was the assistant. He would reveal information as he saw fit. If Lucius didn't tell her, then it was none of her business.

She quickly shook the unnecessary thoughts out of her head and silently pulled out a set of poisoned needles from a holster on her thigh.

Before the red-haired woman could even notice, a storm of poisoned needles flew toward her!

"Kyahh!"

The woman let out a cry as dozens of poisoned needles sank into her body.

'What the hell is going on?' thought the woman. 'Since when was I discovered?'

The woman quickly realized that something had gone wrong and that she had been exposed.

She cursed herself for being so careless, but there was nothing else she could do at the moment.

At this very same time, Camilla had turned into a shadow and was hurtling towards her at blinding speeds.