After that, Paolo got even more excited and told Jack more information than he knew, Paolo was smart and also had some theories about how thieves stole traders.
Jack heard Paolo's information and realized that some things made sense, Paolo said that thieves attacked in groups of 30 or 40 thieves, they attacked only when traders appeared to have less than 5 guards.
Thieves killed everyone they attacked, yet sometimes some traders risk going outside the capital with less than 5 guards because sometimes thieves do not attack these traders.
Paolo felt that this was a strategy of thieves so that other traders would have the courage to hire fewer guards because the guards charged the merchants too much because of the risks.
Hearing this, Jack thought of a plan that could make it easier for them to attack thieves, his idea was that they would form a group with one of the merchants who had once escaped the thieves and they would disguise themselves as merchants.
In this group they would only have 2 guards to pretend to the thieves that they could be a group worth stealing from, the other soldiers would stay away from where they were and only attack after the fight started.
Jack thought that this group could not have more than 22 people to make thieves less suspicious of a possible trap, Paolo thought this was an excellent idea and they could easily convince one of the traders using the army's authority to do so.
On the same day, Jack went to tell Captain Max about his plan, Max liked the plan and found a merchant and convinced him to participate in that plan for the sake of the capital and the merchants.
The merchant had no choice but to accept helping Jack and the soldiers on their plan, he was more relaxed thinking that he would have a group of 20 soldiers in disguise and the thieves might not fall into this trap.
To be more realistic, Jack asked Captain Max to send some people to spread a rumor that the next day some traders were going to take some valuable products to the neighboring kingdom and that the soldiers were angry about it because they thought it was a betrayal.
Jack thought that maybe the thieves had some informants inside the capital who would pass on some important information to them, which could make the thieves less afraid that this was a trap.
After two days Jack had made all the preparations, he had left the rest of the soldiers at a very great distance from the group of traders they were going to make, so the soldiers would take a long time to help after a fight started.
The merchant who agreed to help on this mission was nervous when they left the city walls, the merchant had already risked and left the capital twice with few guards and he thought he was lucky he did not die.
So he intended to take advantage of the profit from his last trips and hire more guards so he wouldn't take any chances this time, what he didn't expect was that he would have to take a risk on this mission with the army soldiers.
Jack chose only soldiers who used the sword well for this mission, only 3 soldiers knew how to use the bow well, because the enemy this time was the bandits and not wild animals.
Jack and the other soldiers in disguise were unarmed and their swords were in one of the carts they were carrying, this further increased the danger of this mission for Jack and the other soldiers.
They walked quietly down the Royal Road waiting for the bandits if they passed the mountain region Jack would know that his plan had not worked, they had to walk slowly to pretend they were carrying too much weight from the treasures.
So it would take them almost 3 days to pass the mountains, on the first day they managed to travel without meeting the thieves, the merchant was happy that the thieves had not attacked him again.
Jack didn't care if the thieves didn't come to attack, the only difference was that his mission would be more difficult to complete if they had to attack the thieves' territory, but it seems that the merchant was not so lucky.
On the second day when the day was almost over Jack realized that something strange was happening, the other soldiers were distracted because they did not think that the thieves would fall into this trap.
Fortunately, Jack had prepared several different commands and signals so that he could communicate with the other soldiers without warning his enemies, he looked at Aaron and spoke to him loudly so that everyone could hear.
"Aaron, I think I'm going to rest in the cart for a while, I can't take this much longer."
"Okay, Jack, you can rest."
When Aaron and the other soldiers heard Jack saying that he needed to rest, they were alert and prepared for a possible fight, this was one of the codes that Jack created to warn that thieves would attack.
In the cart that Jack came in to rest were the weapons of all the soldiers who were unarmed, Jack could get his bow and sword quickly if the thieves decided to attack.
After a few minutes, the soldiers could see that on the road in front of them there was a fallen tree, clearly, the tree had been placed on the road to prevent the horses from continuing to walk.
Soon some armed men came out from behind the trees that they were hiding, as Jack hoped they did not use the bow and used only swords, they advanced slowly to where the group of soldiers was.
Behind them were more thieves who were coming down the road so that no one could escape, one of the thieves who was the tallest came down the mountain together with other thieves, Jack realized that there were 35 thieves in this group that was attacking them.
"Take cover, come over to the cart to get your swords, let's kill these thieves."
When Jack realized that none of the thieves had a bow, he shouted at the soldiers, and at the merchant for them to prepare for the fight, there was no longer any need for them to pretend they were merchants because the thieves had already appeared.
As soon as Jack shouted this, the merchant went to the cart that had been prepared for him to hide, the other soldiers rushed over to where Jack was to get their swords, the thieves were surprised to see this.
"This is a trap, they are not traders, prepare for a difficult fight."