CHAPTER 125: CHAPTER 125: DISSIPATE_1

"Do you realize what you are doing is against the law? Don’t do anything stupid." He dispersed the crowd, but the parents who had lost their children were not buying it. Instead, they erupted with great resentment and started accusing and cursing at him.

"You monster!"

"Give me back my daughter!"

"It’s all your fault!"

The head sheriff had led the team to abduct people, and most of the sheriffs under him were involved. This inevitably made the townspeople lose their trust in the sheriffs. Soon, this sentiment spread rapidly among the crowd.

The scene just now had awakened the dormant beastliness in those townspeople. With no outlet for their anger after the death of the bandits, the sheriffs who had just arrived became their targets due to their identity.

The masses are blind, and going with the flow is one aspect of human social behavior. At that moment, they couldn’t distinguish right from wrong, or rather, they didn’t want to differentiate; they just wanted to vent that power.

They didn’t care whether the edge of the knife was facing a good person or a weaker one. At that moment, they had become the ones wielding the butchering knife.

If no one directed this power, it would evolve into chaos and spread further. However, it would dissipate with proper guidance from someone who stood out.

Unfortunately, the sheriffs could do nothing at this moment and had to stand there, passively taking the abuse.

He began to doubt himself. Was he also an accomplice of the head sheriff and his men?

"Everyone, look here, I have an announcement to make!" Lance fired a shot into the air with his musket. The booming gunshot drew most people’s attention.

Everyone momentarily calmed down. It wasn’t because Lance truly had such great charisma; it was because the power represented by the musket instantly suppressed the restlessness in their hearts.

"Our caravan has brought the finest goods from Totnes! Everyone is welcome to come and buy! We’re also purchasing grain..."

Lance didn’t preach grand principles; instead, he directly started advertising for the caravan.

The brewing tension dissipated due to his interference. Most of the people were just spectators, more concerned about whether the caravan’s goods could improve their lives.

Such towns typically relied on grain production, similar to Hamlet. Therefore, the goods they needed most were daily necessities like salt.

The product Lance called Snowflake Salt greatly astonished them. They had never imagined salt could be so beautiful.

And the price, while not much more than regular salt blocks, was still a bit hard for the townspeople to bear; they hoped it would be cheaper.

"Is this salt made of gold, selling for such a high price?"

"Where else can you find such salt now? This is Snowflake Salt from Totnes. You think it’s expensive? I find it expensive myself!"

While saying this, Lance also touted the benefits of eating this type of salt, claiming it stopped headaches, eased back pain, and gave more energy for work.

In fact, this was indeed the case. The coarse salt available contained many impurities, harmful to the body with long-term intake. In contrast, his chemically produced refined salt did not have this concern.

Lance’s earlier actions had indeed convinced the townspeople of his strength. Many bought the salt to try, persuaded by his sales pitch.

After all, this salt was still cheaper than what was available in shops. They just hoped to get it at an even lower price.

Though described as a big sale, it was only three large sacks of salt. By contrast, he collected much more in trade. Grain and hides, these reliable commodities, were all welcome. He even bought a few carts in town to load more goods and harnessed the extra horses to them.

Lance had a plan for the refined salt issue long ago. It wasn’t feasible for him to just naively sell refined salt to others and claim it was produced by Hamlet.

Right now, Hamlet didn’t have the capacity to take over this market, so he needed to disguise its origin.

The bustling trade port of Totnes provided the best cover story. Anyone from the Empire would certainly have heard of that rich Imperial Pearl, so the existence of such fine goods wouldn’t be surprising.

As for the people from these small towns and rural areas, they wouldn’t be able to verify this anyway. They simply don’t have the means, right?

In any case, if I can just delay a bit longer, things will become simple once Hamlet has developed.

At this time, an old man with a head full of gray, cropped hair hurried over. Judging by his relatively fine clothes, one could guess that he was the town elder.

But in such a small town, there wasn’t much authority to speak of. Therefore, aside from his clothing, he wasn’t very different from the common folk.

However, his face now bore a look of aggressive anger. He came over huffing, immediately throwing accusations.

"Are you the leader of this merchant caravan? How come I’ve never seen you before? What are you doing here?"

"We don’t usually take this route," Lance replied. "We’ve only wasted our time coming here this once to return someone. Are you suggesting we shouldn’t have brought them back? Oh, no wonder. Who appointed your head sheriff anyway? It’s quite strange that he could abduct so many people without any repercussions, isn’t it?"

Lance didn’t show a trace of panic. On the contrary, he retorted sharply. The curious crowd turned their attention to their exchange.

Having already been dissatisfied with the small town’s senior management due to the head sheriff’s actions, they started making their own assumptions upon hearing this.

The old man hadn’t expected Lance to be so assertive. He had intended to scold these troublemakers as usual, but found his approach backfiring, with the fire starting to spread towards him.

But indeed, he was unaware of the head sheriff’s activities. He only needed the head sheriff to help him maintain basic order in the town. He usually turned a blind eye to the head sheriff’s corruption, but he still couldn’t believe the man would dare to traffic the town’s people.

He was genuinely shocked to learn the truth—shocked that the scoundrel hadn’t even given him a cut! But so what? It wasn’t as if it had anything to do with him. And even if it did, they were just a few ordinary people. How dare they question his authority? Did these troublemakers intend to revolt?

Thinking this, the town elder was not at all intimidated by the questioning eyes of the public. He started to flaunt his connections to Lance.

"What are you trying to do? My son is a Priest in the Church!"

Others might fear the Church, but Lance was hardly the type to be cowed.

He immediately retorted with sarcasm, "You mean the Church instructed this?"

The old man had thought himself quite firm, but those words made him deflate instantly.

Good heavens, what kind of background did these people have? How dare they try to pin this on the Church?

The townspeople, upon hearing this, also instinctively stepped back, displaying an attitude of "don’t let their blood splatter on me." This frightened the town elder, prompting him to hastily clarify,

"Don’t talk nonsense! That’s not what I meant."

Seeing the situation potentially spiraling out of control, a nearby sheriff stepped forward to mediate.

"Town elder, they are not bad people."