Chapter 13

It did not take anymore than 30 minutes for them to put down the different traps. They were mostly just the good old pitfalls, as they were the most simple and easiest to create. All they had to do now was to wait for the squad to come out.

Arthur was excited for this, as he thought his plan was quite good. He also knew catching everyone with the pitfalls was impossible, as they would not run tightly together. They would still have to fight some of the bandits.

The gate suddenly opened up slowly, letting Arthur and his men look inside the base. It was all just wooden buildings, but they had been built quite a bit better than the ones in the deserter's base.

"Everyone, get ready. They are coming!" Arthur whispered to the others. Everyone turned to look, and everyone became serious.

30 men came running out from the gate, and Arthur could feel that about three of these men were about the same strength as the previous bandit leader. This would not be an easy task, far from it. Arthur could not help but grin at this thought.

"AAAARGH!"

Suddenly screams came from the bandit squad who had left the base. Five of the 30 men who had come out fell into the first pitfall, making it impossible for them to fight. The men furthest from the pit could not see what had happened since it was too dark. They thought they were under attack, so they all drew their weapons.

"What happened?" One of the bandits suddenly yelled out.

"There is a pitfall. Five of our men fell inside!" Hearing this, the bandits furthest back sheathed their weapons again.

"So we fell into one of our old traps?" Another bandit suddenly commented, trying to hold back a laugh.

"I think so …!" One of the leaders said as he facepalmed. He did not look like anything special, but her still gave off a Sharp aura. He had two small knives by his side, which clearly indicated he was an assassin-type fighter.

Hearing this, Arthur thought that it was quite lucky. He did not think they would be this stupid and think it was something they themselves had made. This only made it better for them, as the bandits had no idea they were surrounded by Arthur's squad.

"Get us out of this shit …!" The second leader, who had been caught in the pit, suddenly yelled out. He was annoyed by the ones who were just looking at them. This man was quite huge, as he was standing around 2 meters tall, with muscles bulging out from every part of his body, giving off a domineering air.

"HAHAHA, and why exactly would we do that?" The last of the leaders said as he looked down on the ones in the pit with a cruel smile. "With you staying here, it will be one less man to compete with for the leader's position! Good luck getting out from there," The man said. His smile grew wider and more ugly as he left them behind.

This leader was clearly the most cunning of the bunch. He did not look like anything special and did not give off the domineering air like the one in the pit or the sharp aura like the assassin. In fact, he felt like any other normal bandit. Arthur felt like this man was actually much more than meets the eyes, and he was probably the strongest of the group.

"You f*cking traitor!" The other bandit leader's words had clearly infuriated the one in the pit. "If I ever get out of here, I will cut your f*cking head off!" He yelled out as he saw the rest of the bandits leaving.

"let us follow the rest of them!" Arthur commanded in the dark. He was not afraid the ones in the pit would get free, as the hole they were in was quite deep.

Unfortunately for Arthur and his men, none of the other bandits fell into the other traps. This made it much harder on both Arthur and his men, as they were clearly outnumbered by bandits, whose overall strength was higher than theirs.

"We will have to take a few of them out in the darkness before their vision becomes better!" Arthur said as he thought this would give them the highest chance of success.

Arthur was not a tactician, but since they had the cover of the darkness, he thought this was actually quite a good plan. He had the confidence to win if he could reduce their number by ten, as this would then be a 10 on 15 fight.

Arthur made Franz the leader of this mission, as he was the most agile person they had. His speed was also quite good, which would make it easier for him to stay invisible in the darkness.

Arthur also had confidence in his own speed, but he would not be able to kill more than a single person before being spotted. Franz, on the other hand, definitely has this ability.

He wanted to restrain the bandits, kill them, and use them as a bargaining chip. But he knew this would be impossible if they had too many people fighting Arthur's small group. Killing ten of the small fries was not too much of a loss, as it would be the three leaders in the group who would be the best bargaining chips.

As they ran through the forest, Franz used every opportunity he could get to take out those small fry bandits. Most of the time, he only got one kill, but he also managed to get two kills a few times.

In the end, the bandits finally noticed something was off when they finally came out of the darkness. When they looked behind them, they had lost a lot of their members.

"What the hell happened? How did none of you notice anything?" the assassin's leader said as he saw that they had lost quite a few members. Rage was clearly visible in his eyes.

"I don't know, the darkness made it so I could barely see you in the front …!" One of the bandits furthest back came up with a reason.

"Yeah, how would we keep an eye on the ones in the back when we could barely see you?" Another bandit argued as he did not want the blame put on him.

"For f*ck sake, why are my men such idiots?" The assassin said with a frown.

The cunning leader was just standing at the side with a huge smile on his lips. As Arthur was looking at him, he felt like he was looking at a man who had everything already figured out. He felt like this man had already spotted them long ago but had let all of this happen for some reason.

"Why don't you guys over there just come out already?" As if confirming Arthur's thoughts, the man looked in Arthur's direction with a smile.

"Oh well, since we have already been spotted!" Arthur stepped out from within the bushes where he was hiding, with a grin on his lips. He was not really scared of this group in the end. The only one he was on guard about was the cunning one who had spotted them.

The bandits then looked in the direction where Arthur walked out from. They were quite shocked when they saw him and the group behind him. Mostly because the whole group was just kids under 20 years old.

"So you guys took out the men we lost?" The assassin suddenly said with a cruel grin. One could clearly feel the anger from the rising aura coming from him.

"HAHA, no, "we" didn't do anything. He did!" Arthur said with a smile while pointing at Franz.

This made everyone look at Arthur with strange faces. He was technically not wrong, but who was that ordered him to do it? Franz did not look at Arthur like that, though. He looked at the assassin with excitement as Franz knew what Arthur was doing. Franz knew that Arthur wanted him to take care of the assassin.

"So it was you?" The assassin's grin disappeared as his anger soared once more. "Get ready to die!" He said before he disappeared before everyone's eyes before he appeared behind Franz.

"Everybody … ATTACK!" Arthur yelled after seeing what happened.

Arthur ran at the cunning man while Emily and the rest ran at the small fry. Arthur knew that the small fry would be captured shortly, while the two leaders Arthur and Franz were fighting would take much longer and some considerable effort to capture them alive.

As Arthur approached the cunning bandit, he saw the bandit smiling calmly at him. Seeing this, Arthur's instincts told him something was very off. Almost at the same time, he thought that the bandit stabbed out the spear that was previously on his back, straight towards Arthur's right eye.