CHAPTER 114: CHAPTER 114: VERBAL CONTROL_1

"You..."

Dismas, of course, understood the woman’s meaning. So, it’s permissible to offend *me*, but what’s this about offending the Lord?

He had just opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted by Lance raising his hand.

"Money is not a problem. Let’s talk inside."

Having said that, Lance pulled the woman inside. It would be trouble if they started arguing and attracted too much attention in this kind of place.

"OUCH! What are you doing? Let go of me!"

The woman also realized something was wrong and tried to free her arm by twisting it, but Lance had no intention of forcing her; he released her immediately.

However, at that moment, the woman noticed the two other men had also followed them in, and then one of them shut the door behind them.

Upon entering, Lance scanned the room first. It was so shabby and run-down one could see everything at a glance, with no place to hide anyone.

But off to one side, he noticed a very unexpected sight: an infant lay in a wicker basket in the corner.

What is this situation?

The woman saw Lance walking toward the child and immediately began to question him.

"What are you going to do?"

"You bring a child with you for this kind of work?"

Not only was Lance puzzled, but even the well-informed Dismas had never seen such a situation.

"None of your business!" The woman’s expression was strange, filled with an inexplicable rage. "If you want to play, pay up. If not, get lost!"

Lance paid no attention to her reaction and, while she was arguing, stepped forward and picked up the child.

"Boy or girl?"

The woman instinctively wanted to snatch her child back, but seeing the gentle smile on Lance’s face as he looked at the child, she paused mid-movement and subconsciously answered.

"It’s a girl."

"She’s a lovely child." With that, the smile on his face became resigned. "But she shouldn’t be in this place."

Lance, looking up at the woman, asked, "Tell us, what’s going on here?"

His tone was not one of command or coercion, more like casual conversation, but it made the woman unconsciously comply.

"It’s all my own wrongdoing; I can’t blame anyone else..."

Quite simply, she was pregnant before marriage. In this religiously controlled environment, she was naturally driven out by her parents and discriminated against by those around her.

As for the child’s father, things were alright at first, but after the baby was born and he saw it was a girl, he stopped caring for them. She was forced into this line of work.

This kind of work is met with disdain everywhere; thus, anyone possessing some self-respect would not engage in it.

In fact, most women who become prostitutes are driven there by life circumstances, with no other means to make a living.

"What exactly are you doing?" the woman kept asking. Lance slightly tilted his head to look at the man beside him, signaling him.

"We’re not looking for you. As for why, ask him."

The man understood the hint and, since the conversation had already begun, explained the situation.

When the woman heard that Heretics were living in the house across from hers, she was stunned. She, of course, knew how serious the accusation was—it was punishable by burning at the stake.

"Have a lot of young girls been disappearing in the town recently? It’s those Heretics doing it. They’re holding sacrifice rituals, and more and more people are falling into corruption. Soon the whole town will be under their control, and by then, everyone will be killed and sacrificed, including you and your child."

"We must quickly inform the Church! The church is right in the town center!" The woman’s first reaction, upon realizing the danger, was to seek help. It was evident that the Church’s rule had been very successful, and people were accustomed to placing their hopes in it.

But Lance would not allow such thinking to spread in his territory and immediately let out a low shout.

"The evil cult has already spread through the town, and the Church will surely erase the whole place. Do you want to see yourself and your child on the pyre?"

The woman didn’t understand these things; she blindly needed a pillar of support and gazed at Lance pleadingly. "Then what should we do?"

"Don’t worry. We came specifically to deal with this matter. As long as you do as I say, I guarantee you will be safe."

As he spoke, Lance handed over the child, and with a sincere expression, he said,

"For your sake, and for the child’s, cooperate with us to find those Heretics and save this town."

The woman looked dazed, staring blankly at the baby in Lance’s hands. Then, she slowly reached out her trembling hands to take it, tears of fear streaming down her face as she began to speak with a choked voice.

"I understand..."

Lance was observing. From the start, he had treated everyone in the town as potential Heretics, and naturally, this woman was no exception. That is why he checked the surroundings as soon as he entered and then immediately seized the child.

But he found the child to be normal, showing no signs of corruption, and the woman’s reaction was also quite ordinary. He determined she was likely just an ordinary person caught in the middle, not a Heretic.

Otherwise, what he would have handed over wouldn’t have been the child, but a knife.

Considering the current situation, those Heretics wouldn’t dare to show their faces yet, so the corruption must be on a small scale.

Lance, being unfamiliar with the area, urgently needed to control someone with local knowledge, and this woman was a good candidate.

She lacked family support, felt despair about her reality, and also had an obvious weakness—her child. She was already in a phase where she desperately needed someone to rely on.

Lance caught her emotional state. He didn’t hurry to soothe her but instead dealt a direct blow, letting the news of the evil cult further shock her reason. He subtly used the child’s safety as a threat before finally calming her and shifting her dependency from the Church onto himself.

In fact, Lance was heavily manipulating her, and she was unaware, instead placing her hope in him.

Everyone uses similar tactics. If an evil cult can develop followers, why can’t I develop one?

"Who lives across from you?"

"It’s the warehouse for the store on Front Street."

"Who usually comes and goes? Have you noticed anything out of the ordinary?"

"I’m not sure, but now that you mention it, I haven’t seen anyone going in or out recently."

She didn’t know much, and Lance didn’t find it strange.

After all, the fact that the Heretics chose bandits to capture people instead of doing it themselves showed that they were also afraid of being exposed. If it were so simple to uncover them, the many disappeared people would have already been found.

"My Lord, what do we do now?" Dismas asked.

"Wait..." Lance pondered for a moment and slowly spoke. "They brought offerings, so they must perform a sacrifice. At that moment, all the Heretics in the town will gather. We just need to follow them, and we can wipe them all out in one fell swoop."

Some things couldn’t be rushed. For now, Lance needed to understand the town’s power structure even more.

"What’s the situation like in your town?"

As the woman narrated, Lance began to understand the gist of it.

In fact, the situation here was not much different from that of Hamlet. The mayor managed the town, and a few farm owners controlled several farmsteads around it.

Oppression from various sides also existed. Although the common people lived in somewhat harsh conditions, they could still survive since they weren’t being pillaged by bandits.