Chapter 43 You Must Die

"So, in this plan you guys will bait the goblins to the trap and then the soldiers and I will take care of the rest. Any questions?"

There was a pin-drop silence after he finished explaining the plan. Their faces turned even uglier but they help their anger back.

Esdras didn't beat around the bush, he directly told them that they were bait. He wanted to see if they could still hold back after knowing the rest of the plan.

Esdras took the three of them to the place where the action will take place. A trap prepared by their own hands. It was a half circle made of huge stones under a small hill.

The center of the half circle was the only opening and exit. This was not a natural formation of course, it was the busywork they did last week.

Or what they thought of as busywork, it was not. It was intentional preparation by Esdras. Though he did enjoy seeing them suffer and whine about it.

Some of the soldiers came out carrying a wooden cage, it was clearly recently made albeit crudely. This was also their own handy work.

"So, I guess it's time to explain the plan in better detail." Esdras coughed to attract their attention, "you will bait the goblins into the stone circle and then you guys will hide in the cage and bombard them with your spells and whatnot."

"Meanwhile, the soldiers and I will assist by shooting them with arrows from this hill. It's not that hard really."

"What!"

"You're insane!"

"This is just sending us to die."

Esdras took in their outburst with an understanding smile, as if he could see why they were mad.

"Relax, I think you're agitated because you slept for too long, hahaha. Did you forget that you will be safe in the cage?"

"Last week, didn't I tell you guys to make it as sturdy as possible? As I remember you guys assured me that it's sturdy enough right? You didn't lie to me back then did you?"

Esdras looked at them each in the eye as he saw them squirm not knowing what to say. They were doomed either way.

"Alright, with all that being said, now for the last part of the plan." Esdras saw the two soldiers he sent away earlier coming back with a bucket that they both had to carry together.

Placing the bucket down an extremely putrid smell wafted everywhere.

"Ew, what the hell is that?" Tara closed her nose and looked disgusted. She was not alone everyone including the soldiers couldn't stand the smell at all.

"Terrible smell right? It's wild boar shit. Bad news is, you will use this to bait the goblins into the trap." Esdras grinned at the trio. And waited for the inevitable question.

"…how so?" Theo, the quite but sinister one asked. Feeling a dreadful wind settling around them.

"Don't be alarmed but you will have to spread it all over your bodies. It will have to be a thick layer in order to make sure the smell is very obvious."

"What is this talk about the smell? Why do we even need to use this shit to bait the goblins! We can just attack them and that's it." Bran clearly couldn't hold back any longer and lashed out.

"Tsk, tsk, what did I say about raising your voice at me? Look here, the goblins are attacked to this smell, this is the result of intensive research that I concluded after careful study. But, if you want to rebel against the Octarine tower then go ahead."

Esdras naturally didn't do any research of that kind he was just going out of his way to pay these assholes back.

He didn't forget that he was forced to walk through that tunnel of Troglodyte shit because of them.

To exaggerate things he even invoked the entire Octarine tower directly, this was a phycological trick. He was making a mountain out of a molehill.

"Since you guys will be doing the hard work I will apply the shit on you myself to compensate for not doing much, I hope you can look past my incompetence."

Esdras took out two cloves that he borrowed from the smithy in the fort and went to work on the three of them.

"Hek!… I'm sorry! Hek! Please don't do this! I just went along with it…I didn't mean to…"

Unexpectedly Theo started crying and apologizing to Esdras with tears streaming down his eyes.

"Hey, hey, don't cry. You will do a great service today. There is nothing to be sorry about." Esdras didn't bother to give him an actual answer.

Sorry? Was that word enough for trying to kill him? As if! How shameless can one person be, there is no way Esdras was going to just forget about it.

'You tried to kill me just to fit in? You still have to die!'

Esdras sent the three on their way along with two soldiers in secret, they were to report if the three tried to make a run for it. Which honestly would make his job much easier.

At this point the soldiers moved the wooden cage to the far end of the enclosure where the three would hide.

With the excuse of inspecting the cage he broke two of the poles which made the cage wobbly.

'Heheh! Justice sure feels good!'

After twenty minutes of wait he heard a commotion approaching the trap site. The two soldiers returned first and grabbed their bows above the hill. Esdras and the rest were waiting there.

The hoard of more than fifty goblins came chasing after a group of three pieces of shit that fled in fear and despair.

Three of them ran into the enclosure and slammed the cage shut, the goblins had to go through the opening of the trap which meant that they could deal with fewer goblins at once.

"Sir should we shoot now?" One of the soldiers asked in good faith.

But he didn't know what was really going on, "hold, wait until I give the order we must ensnare the goblins carefully." There was a cold gleam in his eyes.