"Do you smell that?"
"What is that smell?"
"It seems like smoke, but why is there smoke underground? Did someone accidentally burn something?"
The bandits were all confused when they smelled the smoke that was in the air. There wasn't a single one of them that could understand why there was this smell and at the same time, most of them didn't believe that it would be smoke.
That was why it took a while for them to react to the fires that had been set at the entrances of this underground base.
The moment that they realized that the entrances had been set on fire, the bandits immediately started to panic.
Being trapped underground while flames spread through their base was the last thing that they wanted to happen.
If that were to actually happen, there was only one thing that was waiting for them.
Death.
So there was no hesitation at all from the bandits as all of them focused on dealing with the fires that were at the entrances.
"What is going on here? Who was supposed to be watching the entrances?"
The moment that they heard this voice, all of the bandits suddenly trembled and stopped what they were doing. Even though the flames were still burning, they stopped trying to put them out.
That just went to show how much influence this voice had on the bandits.
The owner of this voice stepped forward to look at the bandits still holding buckets and running around before turning to look at the fire in front of the entrance. He narrowed his eyes to look at the fire before suddenly giving a click of his tongue.
"Are you idiots? It's not a real fire. This is just a distraction fire that was set up using materials that aren't easy to put out. The fire itself isn't actually spreading to the main parts of the base, so it isn't as if it poses any danger to us."
All of the bandits looked like they were shocked to hear this, but the one that was saying this didn't seem to care about how the bandits were reacting.
Instead, it seemed like he was more interested in the fire that was by the entrance.
After all, the fact that this fire was here meant that their hideout had been discovered and that there was someone here…
"Hurry and find the one that set this up! If you don't find him, then I'll kill all of you!"
As soon as the boss said this, the bandits immediately ran off to search for the person that the boss wanted them to find.
Only the boss didn't seem to care about them as he turned in a certain direction.
"Boss, what is it?" One of the followers of the boss asked in a worried and confused voice.
"They're clearly trying to get the riff raff to scramble, which means that they know the layout of our base. But why would they do something like this?"
"Why?" The followers looked at each other with confused looks.
The boss glared at them which made them take a step back, but then he said, "The only reason that they would do something like this is if they wanted to draw someone out. Or they wanted to cause a distraction to do something."
"Shit!" The boss suddenly shouted before running off.
The followers still had confused looks on their faces, but they quickly followed behind the boss.
With the boss leading the way, it didn't take long before they arrived at a hidden room in this hideout.
But the moment that the door to the hidden room opened…
"Huh? It's still all here?" The boss said in a confused voice.
When he saw that all of the treasures that he stored in this hidden room hadn't been touched at all, he couldn't help revealing a very confused look.
After all, he thought that the person that had caused that distraction had done it because he would be stealing this treasure.
So if he wasn't here for the treasure, what was he here for?
The more that the boss thought about it, the more confused he was…
That was until he heard someone calling for him outside.
When he came out, the boss asked, "What are you shouting about?"
"The women, they're all gone!"
"Huh?" The boss looked a bit surprised at first, but then there was a smile that appeared on his face. It even seemed like he felt relieved because of what his subordinate said.
The others all looked confused when they heard this, but they didn't say anything as they waited for the boss to say something.
"Ha, ha, ha, it seems like we have a hero on our hands. In that case, this is much easier to deal with than I thought."
The others still looked at each other with confused looks, but they did seem a bit more relieved to hear the boss laughing like this.
"Go and get the amulet. We'll find those slaves and the hero at the same time."
The followers nodded before heading off to get the item that the boss wanted.
When the boss was alone, he said to himself with a chuckle, "It turned out that he did all of this because he wanted to save those slaves. I never thought that it would be a fool doing all of this. I thought that he would be smarter than this, but he never would have expected us to put a tracking spell on the collars."
When they came back, the boss took the amulet and immediately activated it.
Seeing that it was pointing him in a certain direction, the smile on his face became even wider before he said, "Come on, follow me!"
It didn't take long for them to arrive at another exit to this hideout, but the boss' expression became a bit ugly when he saw this.
This was his secret exit, the one that no one else knew about.
But it seemed that it wasn't secret enough.