CHAPTER 111: CHAPTER 111: SLAVE CATCHERS_1

These people couldn’t ride horses, so they could only drive the horse-drawn carts forward. Their progress wasn’t very fast. Otherwise, on horseback, they could have reached their destination in just two days at full gallop.

After dealing with them, Lance turned his attention to the bodies discarded by the roadside.

Under normal circumstances, these bodies would have been a meal for the creatures of the wilderness, but unfortunately, they wouldn’t get to feast this time.

Directly Sacrificing them also served to replenish some of the energy he’d expended saving the horses.

At this moment, Dismas also dragged the captive back.

"Lord, something is wrong. These people are Slave Catchers."

Upon hearing this, Lance frowned. He had long suspected the identity of this bandit gang; after all, ordinary bandits could barely afford a full set of armor, let alone all be mounted.

As for these Slave Catchers, there was a reason for their existence. The world had not yet abolished slavery; on the contrary, it was very prevalent. For instance, farms and factories needed a large number of Serfs to operate. The popular arenas of the era also required a sufficient number of slave warriors, along with some slaves to fulfill special demands.

It could be said that in this age, people were also commodities. Where there was demand, there were profits, and where there were profits, there were people willing to do the work—hence the emergence of the Slave Catchers.

However, they usually targeted the Barbarian Tribes and people from other countries. Capturing their own country’s freemen could easily attract official retaliation, whereas those people were not Imperial People, and naturally not protected by imperial law.

Of course, this wasn’t to say there weren’t underhanded dealings involved. The Barbarian Tribes were powerful, and most had a fierce, death-defying disposition, so capturing them alive required considerable effort.

Similarly, capturing foreigners necessitated traversing borders and coastlines, and encountering foreign military forces—which were not just for show.

In contrast, it was much easier to snatch people within the country. Once captured, their captors could label them as they wished, and after being handed over to a buyer, there was no escape.

Thus, while cases of disappearances in cities were numerous, they were even more so in rural villages.

But while this line of work was highly profitable, it also had high barriers to entry. Usually, Slave Catchers were backed by substantial organizations; otherwise, they would lack the resources to bribe officials and secure sales channels.

So, how did these people end up here?

"Whose men are you?"

"Only the boss knows about these things."

The business of Slave Catchers was inherently shady. Since they mostly captured their own countrymen, they usually operated through a layer of proxies. These proxies were readily abandoned in case of trouble, a procedure that suited their backers.

"Tell me everything you know."

The man had long been frightened out of his wits and hurriedly spilled the details.

Listening to the man’s account, Lance was somewhat speechless. These guys are mediocre in strength, not equipped to capture members of the Barbarian Tribes or foreigners. So, their targets have always been ordinary citizens of our country, mainly from remote villages and towns far from the reach of law and order.

But they weren’t from this area; they, too, had fled from the central regions.

And with refugees desperately filling up and even saturating the slave market just to get food, they were forced to become bandits, plundering nearby to scrape by.

But for over ten consecutive days, no merchant caravans had passed through, and they were bored stiff.

Lance, however, understood. At the end of this trade route is Hamlet. With trouble brewing there, what merchant caravan would still use this route?

But then he noticed a very strange issue.

"Why are you staying here?"

The man paused at the question, seeming stunned. Lance, sensing the anomaly, barked sharply, "You’re lying to me!"

"Sir, I really told you everything!"

"Do you take me for a fool?" Lance directly pulled out the pistol from his waist and pressed the muzzle against the man’s forehead. "You’re bandits, with no possessions to speak of. If you couldn’t make a living here, would you still stay?"

They were refugees to begin with. If they couldn’t make a living here, they would definitely leave for another place. The fact that they’ve waited for over ten days means something must be keeping them here.

Lance lifted the hammer of the pistol with an expressionless face, and without giving the man a chance to argue, he pulled the trigger.

CLICK. The hammer struck, sending out a shower of sparks. The next second... nothing happened.

The pistol had been fired once before and hadn’t been reloaded, so the chamber was empty.

But the effect was clear. The man fell to the ground, dumbfounded, and soon a wet spot seeped through his trousers. Lance’s shot had scared the piss out of him.

"Guess whether my next shot will have a bullet?"

As he spoke, Lance reloaded the pistol in front of him. This action seemed to jolt the man’s senses back.

"I’ll talk! I’ll talk! Don’t kill me... WAAAAH..."

The man was too distraught to care, sobbing and wailing as he shared the information he had been hiding.

It was simple: they had indeed found a way to make money, and it was no different from before—it was still about capturing people.

Only this time, instead of serving Slave Owners, they were serving Heretics.

"They would pick their targets, usually young girls, then pay us to kidnap them.

"At first, we didn’t know what they were up to. We thought they needed so many young girls for a brothel. But then we couldn’t find those girls in the town’s brothels. Soon after, we heard in a tavern about several disappearances in town, and some of those weren’t our doing.

"The boss thought someone was stealing our business. So, after one transaction, he had some of our men follow those guys. They discovered that the buyers were Heretics, and all the girls they took were brutally murdered."

Lance frowned upon hearing about evil cults. An evil cult starting to spread within the territory is not good news.

But now he finally understood why this man was so reluctant to talk about these matters.

Although the country was nominally ruled by the Empire, its authority effectively only extended to the cities. Towns and villages, on the other hand, still relied on the deformed system of management by Noble Lords.

However, another power, the Church, could extend its divine authority into the countryside. Therefore, the Church’s control was very strong, and it opposed all evil cults.

If their human trafficking was discovered by the Empire, they could survive by hiding outside the cities. But if the Church learned they had dealings with Heretics, then there would be no place for them in the Empire.

For blasphemers, the Church could drag them to the pyre and burn them alive without the Empire’s consent.

"Sir, I’ve really told you everything! Please spare me! I’ll turn over a new leaf, become a good person!"

"If you had reported them upon discovering they were Heretics, or if you had stopped, I might have granted you a quick end.

"But clearly, even after you found out, you didn’t stop. You sent one living person after another down the path to death. You too are a member of that evil cult."

When Lance said this, the man seemed to sense his fate, becoming petrified in terror.

Dismas, hearing this, wasted no words. He drew his Short Sword, ready to act.

But at that moment, Lance raised his hand to stop him and looked at the man, saying, "I won’t kill you. I’ll give you one last chance."