Lance quickly grasped what the priest ant.
"I've already set traps," he said, pointing toward the fortress gate. "If you want, I can show you where they are."
But Gideon shook his head.
"Not add more. Remove them."
That stunned Lance.
"Clear out the traps at the gate. Make sure the path is wide open."
Now even Sadie and Ralph looked baffled.
"If we do that, won't every hunting party march straight into the fortress without resistance?" Sadie asked.
"Exactly. And because it's unguarded, it becos the most dangerous obstacle," Gideon said with a faint smile.
"I'm not following you, Father," Lance frowned. As a trap expert, he had laid countless clever snares, but this was a logic he'd never heard.
Gideon didn't bother explaining further.
"You'll see soon enough."
He moved toward a shallow pit. Sadie and Ralph followed without question.
"Careful—you don't know where the traps are. If you step on—" Lance began to warn, but his voice died in his throat.
He watched as the priest easily revealed each trap, one after another, as if he'd set them himself.
"How does he know where they are?" Lance wondered, shocked.
Gideon didn't have x-ray eyes. He simply imagined the perspective of a victim—If I were to booby-trap this spot, what would cause the most suffering? That thought alone let him trace every hidden snare.
Before long, the entire gate was cleared.
Lance's jaw dropped. Sweat dampened his forehead.
"Good thing I chose to cooperate. If we fought… my traps wouldn't have slowed him down at all!"
Gideon, unaware of his thoughts, picked up a wooden sign left behind in the clearing.
Before the astonished eyes of three hunters, he scrawled a few words and planted it in the ground at the gate:
"The Trait lies within."
"Ah, I see now!" Lance's eyes lit with realization. "Tell them the truth, and they'll doubt it. The more they think about whether it's real, the less they'll trust it."
Psychological warfare.
"But what if so hothead rushes in anyway?" Lance asked.
Then it struck him. He rembered the snares they had encountered earlier, when first entering the Plague Zone.
So that's when he started laying the groundwork…
Lance's respect for the priest deepened.
"Do you have a map of the area around the fortress?" Gideon asked.
Of course — any proper trapper knew the terrain before setting snares. It was the sa reason Gideon always circled a house before performing an exorcism.
Lance nodded and produced a hand-drawn map.
Gideon unfolded it. Behind the fortress lay a swamp, choked with rot and filth — nearly impassable. Both flanks were crawling with scattered monster packs. Anyone approaching from those directions would have to fight through them.
That left only the main gate as the simplest route.
Gideon began planning counterasures for the rival hunting families.
The Coopers excelled at pack tactics with their hounds; their beasts' noses made escape almost impossible. But their very reliance on scent could be turned against them.
The other families relied mainly on firearms and blades. Simple traps wouldn't work on them… but there were other ways.
Soon, Gideon had a plan.
Against the Coopers, he would bait their hounds into a layered snare.
At the fortress's side path, he arranged three nested traps.
The first layer was crude, ant to be spotted and dismantled easily.
That would expose the second layer—scattered clues laced with the scent of a monster nest.
But those scents were only misdirection, concealing the third layer: hidden explosives.
The charges weren't deadly — just Allard devices designed for quick deploynt. They could cripple a leg, break a nose, or otherwise incapacitate without killing.
Gideon set dozens of these "gifts" for the Coopers. They'll be satisfied, he thought with a cold smirk.
As for the other families, Gideon was less harsh.
"After all, they're still Saint Fréyan's neighbors. No need to ruin relations."
He stuffed a sonic charge into a heap of monster entrails, tying the fuse to rare demon-beast materials, just barely exposed.
"That'll contaminate their weapons. Enough to remind them they're not welco."
Finally, Gideon consecrated the area. He rembered the sudden flare of evil he'd felt near the Hive Queen earlier.
There might be hidden forces here as well. Best to be cautious.
With that in mind, he buried relics of various ages around the fortress periter, each one a ward against the corruption lurking below.
Watching Gideon work, the three hunters all swallowed hard.
"This guy… he's way too devious," Lance muttered, the corner of his mouth twitching.
He glanced at a dirt mound where Gideon had planted a wooden plank, the words scrawled in monster's blood: "Trap here."
But beneath the mound was nothing. The real trap lay further ahead.
By the ti soone read the warning, they were already standing inside the danger zone.
And if they managed to pass safely? They'd soon co across a second dirt mound with the sa ominous sign.
This ti, however, the trap wasn't beneath the mound, nor further ahead.
It was off to the side — right along the small detour path that cautious hunters would instinctively choose to avoid the "obvious" snare.
And if they got through that? A third dirt mound would be waiting.
Ralph wiped sweat from his brow.
"Is this guy really from the church? None of this matches what the Bible preaches…"
Sadie's eyes glowed with a mix of awe and resignation.
"I thought I knew him well. Turns out, I was too naive."
That day, in the middle of the Plague Zone, three hunters learned a hard, valuable lesson — one that would shape the course of their careers.
---
Once the traps were in place, the four regrouped at the fortress gate.
There, Lance shared what intelligence he had on the elite monsters inside.
Then together they crossed the threshold, the hunt for the Trait truly beginning.
---
So ti later, a thunderous boom erupted within the fortress. The sound rippled outward, echoing across the Plague Zone.
A leather boot slamd into the mud outside. With a wet squelch, a half-buried leech burst underfoot, oozing foul fluid.
Another hunting party had arrived at the fortress periter.
They'd heard the gunfire. They knew soone had found the monster's nest.
"Judging from the noise, the fight isn't over yet," said the leading hunter, lowering his binoculars.
Movent stirred in the brush nearby. Guns were raised instantly — only to find another adventuring party erging from the trees.
"Easy there, Haywoods," Theo Nias sneered. "This isn't the ti for infighting."
"Of course. The petty Nias family," Cole Haywood shot back with a cold snort.
"If we're talking about petty, the Coopers put us all to sha." Theo tugged at his stained clothes with a grimace. "My nose has suffered all the way here."
Cole said nothing, but the tight line of his mouth showed he agreed.
More hunters soon gathered at the fortress outskirts.
"Walkers, Webbers, Kaufmans…" Theo ticked off each family's na.
"Looks like every contender for the Trait has finally arrived."
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