The Witcher: Make the Witcher Great Again

Chapter 143: Wine is Sacred

"I presume Sir Massimo has already informed you all of the Duchess's situation. I, Damien de la Tour, thank you for your arrival."

Damien bowed his head to the group.

The others returned the gesture.

"You have traveled far and should have been allowed to rest properly before being escorted to Beauclair tomorrow. Unfortunately, we are currently facing a difficult matter."

"I have heard that witchers are experts at tracking clues. Is there any truth to this?"

Damien looked at the witchers with expectant and eager eyes.

Lynn and Geralt exchanged a glance.

Then Lynn stepped forward to negotiate.

"That depends on how old the clues are. If they are within a few days and haven't been deliberately cleaned up, we can probably still discern something."

Damien's tense expression eased slightly, but then he said in a heavy tone, "Recently, there have been multiple heinous missing persons cases in the Duchy. The number of missing people has already reached several hundred. The impact of this case is extremely serious. Now, the entire Toussaint is filled with unease, and even traveling merchants are reluctant to come to Toussaint recently."

"If traveling merchants don't bring the fine wines from the Duchy's various vineyards to the rest of the continent, then those vineyards will struggle to survive, and the economy will suffer a severe blow, leading to a series of unpredictable consequences."

Lynn frowned slightly.

The situation had actually developed to such a serious extent.

"Do you have any leads? Surely there must have been at least one eyewitness?"

Damien said indignantly, "If there were eyewitnesses, we wouldn't still be unsure whether that bastard was male or female."

"I know you two masters must be very tired after your long journey, but I still have to trouble you for a little more effort."

"Please, take a look at the crime scene we discovered yesterday. Any clue, no matter how small, could potentially be the breakthrough in these multiple missing persons cases."

Since the other party had put it so plainly, Lynn and Geralt couldn't directly refuse.

Anyway, just taking a look at the crime scene wouldn't take too much time.

"Then please lead the way, Captain."

...

"Captain, didn't you send anyone to guard the crime scene?"

As the group left the pass and approached the location where the attack had occurred...

Lynn, who was walking in the middle of the group, suddenly asked a question.

Damien looked puzzled. "We've already buried the bodies on the spot. All that's left is a wagon and some goods on it, but who would be interested in those things?"

Lynn said nothing more but looked at Geralt.

Clearly, the latter had also noticed.

The two simultaneously drew their steel swords from their backs and charged forward like two fierce icefield wolves.

Damien and Massimo were a step behind in their reaction.

It wasn't until the two witchers had already run several steps ahead that they realized that perhaps the witchers had noticed something they hadn't.

So they quickly led the soldiers to follow.

A wagon was parked on the forest path.

Several arrows were sticking out of the wagon.

A few scavengers were rummaging around near the wagon.

It turned out that after burying the dead yesterday, Damien and his men had left.

But they had overlooked one point.

This wagon and the goods on it were shining treasures in the eyes of the scavengers.

When the scavengers saw the two witchers holding steel swords and the Ducal Guard rushing out behind them, they were immediately frightened and scattered in all directions.

But even as they fled, they couldn't bear to abandon the goods they had found in the wagon.

Damien quickly ordered the soldiers to chase after them in different directions.

Although the soldiers were wearing armor, these scavengers were all sallow and emaciated, clearly having irregular meals and little strength.

Therefore, the soldiers quickly caught up with them.

"Lord, have mercy!"

"Please, have pity on us!"

"I won't dare to do it again! All these valuables are yours!"

Damien looked at the scavengers surrounded by the soldiers and was instantly furious.

Even if he didn't understand how witchers tracked traces, he knew that things were completely ruined now.

With these people messing around, there was no way anything could be discerned.

Damien's hand rested on his sword hilt, and he sternly questioned, "You are not Toussaintois? Where did you come from? Speak!"

In recent years, Toussaint had not experienced any natural disasters, and war had never reached this paradise.

Even with the recent heinous missing persons cases, there were no reports of any villages being razed to the ground.

Therefore, these scavengers were definitely not Toussaintois but had fled from elsewhere.

The scavengers looked at each other, but no one dared to answer.

They just kept begging for mercy.

At this moment, Massimo's tone softened slightly.

"If you honestly confess, we might consider leniency. But if you refuse to cooperate, we will have no choice but to treat you as bandits and send you to the gallows."

A man who looked like the leader hurriedly said, "I'll talk, I'll talk, Sir Knight. We are indeed not Toussaintois. We...we fled from Nazair."

Massimo's eyes flickered.

He seemed to understand something.

Before 1232, Nazair had been an independent kingdom. Later, it was annexed by Nilfgaard and became a province of the Nilfgaardian Empire.

The Nazair nobles and people who dared to resist were either killed, fled, or became slaves.

The territory of Nazair was distributed to those Nilfgaardian nobles, officers, and non-commissioned officers who had performed well in the war.

The rest was given to the pro-Nilfgaard faction in Nazair.

Actually, don't be fooled by the fact that the Nilfgaardian Empire was the most powerful empire in the known world and history.

In reality, this country was far from being so large just a few decades ago.

The earliest Nilfgaardian Empire only consisted of the capital city of Genta and the land near the Alba River.

The subsequent territories were all conquered by force through rapid expansion.

Just like what they did to the Nazair people.

But don't misunderstand. Surrendering to the Nilfgaardians didn't necessarily mean a good outcome.

The Nilfgaardians spared the lives of the pro-Nilfgaard faction not because they were particularly benevolent.

But to maintain local rule so that they could more efficiently exploit the local people.

The Nilfgaardians never truly considered the areas they had forcibly occupied as part of their vast empire.

Even after those occupied areas had become provinces of the empire, their actions still resembled those of a guest.

No construction, no planning, only brutal plunder remained.

In short, they treated the occupied territories as colonies.

It was precisely for this reason that uprisings frequently broke out in the provinces occupied by Nilfgaard.

(End of this chapter)

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