Chapter 40 A Trap (2/2)

“Everyone, gather around!” Slyfox summoned everyone to him, then proclaimed: “This mission is more complicated than we expected. We have no idea how many rats there are, but judging from the current situation there has to be at least five hundred of the little bastards. This place is too big; there’s no way for us to scout out the entire place.”

The mercenaries began to mutter and curse. Mad Dog said irritably, “Then have you come up with an idea? You can’t seriously expect us to fight against this many giant rats.”

Slyfox was the first captain of the Tartarus mercenaries, and he was also their principal mastermind. Generally speaking, it was his job to find solutions to any thorny problems they encountered.

“A very stupid idea.”

“A stupid idea?”

“There are twenty-five of us. So long as we can avoid fighting more than forty of those giant rats at once, and so long as we can avoid making any major mistakes, we won’t suffer any casualties in battle.” Slyfox hesitated a few seconds, then continued. “I’ve already scanned the local area. There’s a couple of flat-topped mountains in the area around us with very few places for the rats to hide. We still have plenty of water, and we can eat most of the ordinary giant rats. In my opinion, we can fight and win a war of attrition against them.”

“Starting now, we aren’t going to go any deeper into this place; the only thing we’re gonna do is hunt down small packs of those giant rats. If we encounter large swarms of them, we’ll figure out a way to split’m up and then trap them in batches. We’ll slowly wipe’m all out in a safe, stable manner as we advance… and in the end, we’ll find that rat king!”

So the plan was for them to slowly wipe out the rats through attrition? After they killed a few hundred of the critters, they would then come up with a way to kill the rat king? This really was a pretty stupid idea. But, it also was a potentially effective one.

Cloudhawk let out a yawn. It looked like they were going to be busy.

The Tartarus mercenaries were elite wastelander warriors. Each of them had their own unique skills, giving them tremendous power and flexibility as a group. Slyfox made a few special arrangements, then ordered the entire company to begin to move.

Woola was given a very important task. They were going to depend on his sense of smell to find the various rat packs, while the mercenaries would then bait the ones they found into traps and wipe them out in batches.

By the end of the day, they had slain over a hundred of the giant rats. The total value of that much rat meat alone was quite significant. As for the mercenaries, they had suffered no casualties at all. This was an absolutely dazzling achievement!

They continued with the program the next day. However, Cloudhawk noticed that the number of giant rats in the area had noticeably lessened. By nightfall, they had only killed around fifty of the giant rats... and by the third day, there were virtually no giant rats to be found anywhere.

The mercenaries were all rather puzzled. Still, they didn’t spend too much time pondering this. Most likely, these giant rats were territorial in nature. After they wiped out all the giant rats in one area, the giant rats in the other areas wouldn’t immediately come pouring in, resulting in an empty region for a period of time. This actually wasn’t that uncommon in the wastelands. Since they had already wiped out the giant rats in this area, the mercenaries decided that they would begin to slowly wipe out the rats in the surrounding areas as well.

“Woola!” Cloudhawk had Woola on the leash. Woola was running up ahead while the twenty-plus mercenaries were moving through the exposed parts of the wastelands. Woola spent more than an hour running forwards before he suddenly came to a halt in front of a valley, then began to bray and bark towards it.

“There’s a small group of giant rats up ahead.” Cloudhawk wore a pair of protective goggles and had swathed his face in cloth. His shotgun was on his back, his staff was in his right hand, and he was dressed in leather armor; he rather looked like a proper mercenary right now. “There are roughly twenty to thirty of them.”

Mad Dog didn’t even hesitate. “Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go in and wipe’m out!”

Cloudhawk gave the gorge another glance. It looked very dark and narrow. For some reason, he had a bad feeling about this place. “Something feels off.”

Mad Dog didn’t understand what Cloudhawk was saying. “Woola’s sense of smell is never wrong!”

“The four of you, wait here. Report back immediately if something happens.” Slyfox also trusted Woola’s judgment, but his cautious nature led him to leave behind four mercenaries to stand guard. “We’ll go in and deal with them as quickly as we can.” Twenty or thirty giant rats were nothing to this group of crack mercenaries.

This gorge was extremely dark, narrow, and deep. As Cloudhawk followed the mercenaries in, the bad feeling in his heart only grew stronger and stronger. He had the nagging feeling that something was wrong, but was unable to put his finger on it.

Finally, they reached the deepest depths of the gorge.

“What the hell is going on?” Mad Dog stared at the empty gorge, his hideous black face twisting into a scowl. “Did Woola really fuck up?”

The region was completely empty. The ground was covered in rubble, and there was nowhere else to go. Not a single giant rat was to be seen everywhere. This made no sense!

Cloudhawk suddenly saw something in front of him. He immediately charged forwards, using his staff to bash aside a few rocks. When he saw what lay hidden underneath the rocks, his face instantly turned white.

The other mercenaries crowded around to take a look. When they saw it, strange looks appeared on their faces as well… because a large pile of rat hair and rat dung could be seen beneath the rocks. Woola’s nose had been functioning perfectly. These things had been left buried no more than a few hours ago at most.

Even Slyfox and Mad Dog stared jaws agape at this strange sight. Cooke, however, didn’t seem to understand the gravity of the situation. The burly mercenary actually began to roar with laughter: “Are you shitting me? Don’t tell me that these giant rats set a trap for us, that they schemed to trick us into this place? Ahahaha…”

But just a heartbeat later, he stopped laughing… because he realized that no one else was laughing with him. He felt quite awkward!

Cloudhawk wasn’t amused in the slightest. Instead, he felt a cold chill go down his spine. Although he had experienced countless terrors during the past two months, this time was different. A strange, terrifying thought was floating through his mind…

Did these damn rats really set up a trap… and succeed in tricking humans into falling for it?!

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