Our family is in decline

These people didn't know how to ride horses, so they could only drive forward in carriages, but they couldn't go any faster. Otherwise, it would only take them two days to reach their destination by galloping at full speed.

After beating them away, Lance looked at the bodies dumped on the roadside.

Under normal circumstances, the creatures in the wilderness would be cheaper, but unfortunately they can't eat them this time.

Sacrifice it directly, which can be regarded as replenishing his consumption of saving horses.

And this time Disma also dragged that one back.

"Sir, something is wrong. These people are from the slave catching team."

Lance frowned when he heard this. He had long suspected the identity of this group of horse bandits. After all, most bandits couldn't even get enough armor, so how could they all ride horses.

As for this slave-catching team, there is also a saying. Slavery has not been abolished in this world. On the contrary, it is still very popular. For example, those farms and factories require a large number of serfs to maintain their operations, and the popular arenas also need enough slaves. warriors, and some slaves for special needs.

It can be said that in this era, people are also a kind of commodity, and if there is demand, there will be interests, and if there are interests, there will be people to do it, and the slave-catching team came into being.

However, under normal circumstances, they only go after barbarians and people from other countries. After all, free people in their own countries are easily attacked by the authorities, and those people are not members of the empire, so they are naturally not protected by imperial laws.

Of course, if you say this, there must be something fishy here. The barbarians are not weak in strength, and most of them are fierce and fearless of death. It would take a huge amount of money to capture them alive.

Similarly, foreigners need to cross borders and coastlines, and other people's armies are not just decorations.

On the contrary, people in China are easy to catch. If you are caught, you will be whatever you say. Once the goods are transferred and handed over to the buyer, there is no way to escape.

Therefore, there are many missing cases even in cities, let alone rural villages.

However, the profits in this industry are high, and the threshold is also high. Generally, slave-catching teams have a background, otherwise they will not have the strength to manage up and down, as well as sales channels.

So why did these people get here?

"Whose family do you belong to?"

"Only the boss knows these things."

Slave-catching teams were always a low-profile affair, and the people who captured the most were locals, so they usually wore a layer of white gloves and discarded them when something went wrong, which was in line with the habits of those people.

"Tell me everything."

This guy was scared out of his wits and hurriedly told the situation.

Lance was a little speechless when he heard what he said. These guys were average in strength and did not have the strength to capture barbarians and foreigners. Therefore, their targets have always been ordinary people in the country, and they were mainly in towns and rural areas that were far away from order. The place.

But not here, they also escaped from the middle.

Moreover, those refugees filled up or even saturated the slave market in order to have a bite to eat, so they were forced to become horse bandits, plundering nearby areas to make ends meet.

However, there was no caravan traffic for more than ten days in a row, and they were idle.

Lance knew very well that the end of this trade road was Hamlet. If something happened there, which caravan would take this route?

But he discovered a very strange problem.

"Why do you want to stay here?"

The man was stunned for a moment when he heard this, and Lance was keenly aware of his abnormality and shouted.

"You're lying to me!"

"Brother, I really said everything!"

"Do you really think I'm stupid?" Lance took out the pistol from his waist and put the muzzle of the gun to his head, "You are horse bandits and have no property at all. If you can't survive here, will you stay? ?”

They originally came here to escape. If they couldn't survive in this place, they would definitely leave and find another place. Now that they can wait more than ten days, something must have left them behind.

Lance raised the hammer with a cold face and pulled the trigger without giving him any room to defend himself.

The hammer struck with a "click" and drew a string of sparks, and the next second...then they were gone.

This gun has been fired once before and has not had time to be loaded, so it is only an empty gun.

But the effect was obvious. The man fell to the ground with a dull look on his face, and soon water began to leak from his crotch.

Lance's shot just now scared the shit out of him~

"Guess whether my next shot will have bullets?"

As Lance loaded ammunition in front of him, these words directly brought his soul back.

"I said! I said! Don't kill me...wuwuwu..."

The man didn't care so much and cried and told what he had hidden.

It's very simple. They have indeed found a way to make money, and it is no different from before. They are arresting people.

It's just that the people they served were slave owners before, but this time they were cultists.

“They would select targets, usually young girls, and then pay us to rob them.

At first we didn’t know what they were doing. We originally thought they needed so many young girls to open a brothel. Until we didn’t find those girls at the brothel in the town, and soon we heard in the pub that there were many incidents in the town. Some of the disappearances were not our fault at all.

The boss thought someone was robbing our business, so he asked his brothers to follow those guys after a transaction and found out that they were actually cultists. All the girls they caught were brutally killed. "

Lance couldn't help but frown when he heard about the cult. It was not good news that the cult was starting to develop in the territory.

But now I finally know why this guy refused to talk about these things.

Although the country is now ruled by an empire in name, in fact the empire's ruling power only reaches the city level. Townships and rural areas still have to rely on a deformed system managed by aristocratic lords.

But another force, the church, is able to bring theocratic power to the countryside, so the church’s dominance is very strong, and the church is hostile to all cults.

Their human trafficking was known to the empire and they could survive as long as they hid outside the city. However, if the people being taught knew that he had dealings with the cult, then the empire would have no place for them.

For blasphemers, the church can directly drag people to the stake and roast them without the consent of the empire.

"Brother, I really said everything. Please let me go. I will definitely change my ways and become a good person."

"If you can report them after discovering that they are cultists, or stop, I can give you a happy surprise.

But it's obvious that you didn't stop after you found out. Every living life was put to death by you. You are also a member of the cult. "

When Lance said this, the man seemed to feel his fate, and his whole body was so scared that he seemed to be petrified.

When Disma heard this, he didn't mean such nonsense. He drew out his dagger and was about to take action.

But at this time, Lance raised his hand to stop him, looked at the man and said, "I won't kill you, but I will give you a chance at last."