"Sir Maximus must have informed you of Her Highness the Duchess's situation. I, Damien de la Tour, would like to thank you all for coming."
Damien bowed his head and saluted everyone.
Everyone also returned the gift.
"You have come a long way. I should have given you a good rest and sent someone to escort you to Beauclair the next day. But now we have encountered a difficult matter."
"I heard that witchers are experts at tracking clues. I wonder if this is the case?"
Damien looked at the witcher with eyes full of expectation and eagerness.
Lynn and Geralt looked at each other.
Then Lynn came forward to negotiate.
"It depends on how long ago the clues were. If the clues are within a few days and have not been deliberately cleaned, you can probably still figure out something."
Damien's tense expression softened slightly, and then he spoke in a heavy tone.
"There have been many serious missing persons cases in the principality recently. There are currently hundreds of missing people. The impact of this case is extremely serious. Now the entire Toussaint is in panic. Even traveling merchants are unwilling to come to Toussaint again in the near future."
"If there were no traveling merchants to bring the fine wines from the various wine estates in the Principality to all parts of the mainland, then those wine estates would be unsustainable and the economy would suffer a heavy blow, which would lead to a series of unpredictable consequences."
Lynn frowned slightly.
The situation has actually developed to such a serious point.
"Have you discovered anything? There's no way there isn't even a witness, right?"
Damien said angrily.
"If there are witnesses, there is no way that we still don't know whether that bastard is a boy or girl."
"I know that the two masters must be very tired after a long journey, but I still want to trouble the two masters and work harder."
"Invite the two masters to take a look at a crime scene we discovered yesterday. If you can find any clues, it may become a breakthrough in these multiple disappearances."
Since everyone's words have reached this point, Lynn and Geralt can't refuse them directly.
Anyway, I just went to the crime scene to take a look, so I won't waste much time.
"Then please ask the captain to lead the way."
"Captain, you didn't send anyone to guard the crime scene?"
When a group of people left the pass and approached the location where the attack occurred...
Lynn, who was walking in the team, suddenly asked a question.
Damien looked confused. "We have buried the bodies on the spot, leaving only a caravan and some goods on the car, but who would think of those things?"
Lynn stopped talking and looked at Geralt.
Apparently the latter also noticed.
The two of them drew out the steel swords on their backs at the same time, and like two ferocious direwolves, they rushed forward fiercely.
Damien and Maximus' reaction was a beat slow.
It wasn't until the two demon hunters had rushed a few steps away that they realized that perhaps the demon hunters had discovered something they hadn't noticed.
So he quickly followed with his soldiers.
A caravan is parked on a forest path.
There were several arrows stuck in the caravan.
Several scavengers were rummaging around the caravan.
It turned out that Damien and the others left after burying the dead yesterday.
But they overlooked one thing.
This caravan and the goods on it are shining treasures in the eyes of scavengers.
When the scavengers saw the two demon hunters holding steel swords and the Duchy Guards who rushed out after them, they immediately fled in fear.
But even if they fled, they were reluctant to leave behind the goods they found in the caravan.
Damien quickly ordered the soldiers to split up and chase him.
Although the soldiers were all wearing armor, these scavengers were all sallow and thin, and it was obvious at a glance that they must have been hungry and had no strength.
So the soldiers quickly caught up with the scavengers.
"Master, please forgive me!"
"Please, have mercy!"
"I don't dare anymore. I'll give you these valuable things!"
Damien looked at the scavengers surrounded by soldiers and suddenly became furious.
Even if he didn't understand how the witcher tracked the traces, he still knew that the game was completely over now.
Being fucked like this by these people, you can still tell the truth.
Damien put his hand on the hilt of the sword and asked sternly, "Aren't you from Toussaint? Where did you come from? Tell me!"
In the past few years, no natural disasters have broken out in Toussaint, and war has never come to this paradise land.
Even in the recent vicious missing persons case, no village was heard to be razed to the ground.
Therefore, these scavengers are definitely not Toussaint people, but have escaped from outside.
The scavengers looked at each other, but no one dared to answer.
I just kept begging for mercy.
At this time, Maximus' tone on the side softened slightly.
"If you are willing to tell the truth, we can consider treating you leniently. But if you refuse to cooperate, we will have to treat you as robbers and send you to the gallows."
A man who looked like the leader said hurriedly.
"I said, I said, Sir Knight, we are indeed not from Toussaint. We... were escaping from Nasser."
Maximus rolled his eyes.
Seems to understand something.
Nasser used to be an independent kingdom before 1232, but was later annexed by Nilfgaard and became a province of the Nilfgaardian Empire.
The Nasser nobles and people who dared to resist were either killed, fled, or became slaves.
The territory of Nasser was entrusted to those Nilfgaard nobles, officers and non-commissioned officers who performed well in the war.
The rest was thrown to the capitulationists in Nasser.
In fact, Nilfgaardian Empire is the most powerful empire in the known world and history.
But in fact, this country was far from this big a few decades ago.
The earliest Nilfgaardian Empire only had the capital City of Golden Towers and the land near the Alba River.
Subsequent territories were conquered by force and expanded rapidly.
Just like they did to the Nasser.
But don't get me wrong. Surrendering to Nilfgaard people doesn't mean you can really have good juice.
Nilfgaard people spared the surrendering faction their lives, but that's not how merciful they really are.
It is to maintain local rule so that they can exploit the local people more efficiently.
The Nilfgaard people never really regarded the areas they occupied by force as part of their huge empire.
Even though those occupied areas have become provinces of the empire, they still act like guests.
There was no construction, no planning, just brutal plundering.
In short, the occupied areas were treated as colonies.
It is for this reason that uprisings often break out in provinces occupied by Nilfgaard.
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