Because if what I am thinking right now was true, then I am a fool for believing his word. As the one who tells me the location of the warehouse and gives me the information of the leader of the thief organization here…
He might be the leader, he deceived me by acting like he was only being told by that Samson guy. But actually, he was that man.
I might still need proof, but for the thief here to know about our arrival, no other person knew where we were going besides him.
I then tell Irina everything that I know, about the man who I suspected as the leader of this group and how he lied to us.
Irina's face paled slightly after hearing my story, "You mean the one you encountered earlier at the town was the leader?"
I nodded in confirmation.
"And you trusted him? When he said that " she continued asking.
"Yes...no...well, sort of. I didn't have much choice since he was the only person who knew where they might hide our stolen equipment," I admitted sheepishly.
Irina sighed heavily before patting my back reassuringly, "It's okay, Edvin. But next time try not to trust strangers easily, especially those who claim to not be a part of anything."
"I understand," I replied gratefully while appreciating her kindness towards me.
"Anyway, what do you think we should do now? Should we head back to the town or continue our search?" Irina asked me curiously.
"Well, I doubt the person would be in the town anymore as I think he's already fled away and hid somewhere else. So we should continue our search for our stolen equipment and confront him directly," I answered confidently.
"But how could we find him? Do you even know where he could be hiding?" Irina inquired worriedly.
"Not really but I guess we could lure him out, I mean he does like stealing some valuable stuff and we are well aware that his group is targeting the soldier armory," I replied confidently.
"Are you suggesting that we wait inside of the soldier's armory and ambush him?" Irina asked incredulously.
I nodded affirmatively, "Yes, I doubt that the leader himself would be involved with such a task but we can follow one of his subordinates back to their base."
"It might work but it also might backfire if we aren't careful enough," Irina stated doubtfully.
"Don't worry about it, we'll be fine," I reassured her cheerfully.
"But something tells me that we aren't going to do this in a legit way," Irina quirked her eyebrow.
"Well, of course not... You don't need to believe my initution but I somehow feel like there's a rat among the soldier. Thus I decided that we wouldn't be telling anything to the soldier about our plans," I answered seriously.
"Okay, so what exactly is your plan then?" Irina questioned curiously.
I then explained my idea to her. It was simple yet effective.
First, we would go back to town and report everything that happened there. We would tell them that we tracked down the thieves who stole our equipment but unfortunately, we didn't manage to retrieve anything as the stolen goods weren't there.
And we tell the soldier that we would be leaving and leave everything to the soldier to handle the thief themselves.
And when the soldiers mobilize themselves to take care of the thief, I'm sure that we can sneak into the soldier armory as I doubt there would be tight security around that place as everyone is busy chasing after the thief.
And by staying there, we would lure the thief to steal some weapons thus leading us to their hideout.
"That's an interesting plan, Edvin," Irina commented approvingly.
"Thanks! It's not really that great but it's all I can think of at the moment," I admitted honestly.
"Alright then, let's go and put it into action immediately," Irina agreed enthusiastically.
We then exited the cabin and headed straight back to town where we went straight to the headquarters of the town soldiers and reported everything that happened here to them.
We even pretended that we were feeling tired and weak as we barely managed to defeat the thief here. The soldier did give us some recovery potion and allowed us to rest in the town's guest room while they mobilized themselves to clean up the area and search for some more evidence.
After a few hours had passed, we decided to head towards the armory and hide ourselves inside of it. And just as I predicted, the place was empty except for the guards stationed outside of the building.
As soon as the sun began to set, a group of hooded figures suddenly appeared inside the place and started stealing some weapons from the shelves. I recognized these people as they are the same people who stole our things before.
Once they'd finished robbing the place, they made their escape without even realizing that Irina and I were hiding amongst the shadows in the corner of the room.
We waited patiently until the group of thieves was completely gone before emerging from our hiding place and following them closely.
We kept trailing behind them until they arrived at a small house located in an abandoned part of town.
The building itself looked fairly old and dilapidated as the walls were covered in cracks and holes, and the roof looked ready to collapse at any moment.
Yet despite its poor condition, there were still signs of life coming from inside of it as we could hear voices coming from within.
So we hid behind a nearby tree and listened carefully to what the occupants inside were discussing.
"How did it go?" a deep voice asked anxiously.
"It went smoothly, no problem at all," a younger-sounding man replied cheerfully.
"That's good to hear, make sure you stored it properly," another person stated gruffly.
"Sure thing!" the second voice responded excitedly.
"To think that we are doing pretty great for a group of thieves. We'd already stolen quite a lot of equipment from the soldier, haven't we?" A female voice commented proudly.
"Yeah, but let's not get cocky, the soldier will be searching for us anytime now," a soft female voice warned the others.