CHAPTER 490: CHAPTER 468: THE DAYS OF THE DEMON HUNTER ARE NOT EASY

To be honest, Favalari was quite annoyed by Aijia Lang’s actions.

Unlike other Demon Hunters, since becoming a labor leader for humans, farm owners generally hired through him as a middleman.

Because of his shady background, Favalari couldn’t go overboard, which ironically made many laborers feel he was fairer.

Even though it was just a small bit of power in allocation and dispatch, it still earned him flattery and admiration from the workers.

This made even Favalari, who was usually held in disdain, feel somewhat complacent.

But he was still clear-headed, knowing that once something happened, it couldn’t be undone.

Despite his reluctance to part with his current life, ultimately, they still had to work for the noble masters, as this was the domain of the heretical devils.

"Alright, have you really forgotten what you came here to do?" Favalari coldly interrupted the other Demon Hunters’ complaints.

"Boss Favalari, we were doing just fine, and because of those two, our income is at least halved."

Favalari stood up, his cold gaze sweeping over everyone: "Do you know who you’re working for? Do you want to lose your head? Are you really planning to work until the New Year Festival?"

Several veteran Demon Hunters fell silent. Unless they stayed on Autumn Dusk Island forever, defying the Church would mean having no place in the entire Empire.

Thinking of this, the few veteran Demon Hunters felt a bit saddened.

Like the Demon Hunters in storybooks, the days of traveling around taking contracts to hunt monsters would not appear again in this advanced 15th century.

As the number of Demon Hunters increased, and with cooperation from the Church’s nobility and officials, something akin to a Demon Hunter Guild gradually appeared.

In the Grand Duke Conference of 1355, led by then Pope Innocent (actually Ruo’an), the Demon Hunter Castle was established.

Afterwards, every province would have one or two Demon Hunter Castles, with each castle hosting dozens to hundreds of Demon Hunters, subsidized by the local Metropolitan Bishop.

Whenever there was a monster incident somewhere, and the local lord couldn’t handle it alone, they could report it to the local Church.

These "orders" would be consolidated by the Church and sent to the Demon Hunter Castle, with the Church and nobles jointly financing the Demon Hunters to hunt the monsters.

Of course, if a monster was successfully hunted, the materials from the monster, such as meat, blood, and even bones and brain crystals, had to be divided with the Church proportionally.

But by Favalari’s time, it became that when monsters appeared, they’d wait until a significant number accumulated before sending out a batch of Demon Hunters for a round of hunts.

The first reason was for efficiency, and the second was to give monsters the chance to grow, reproduce, and spawn.

If we cleared out the monsters all at once, what would we eat and drink later?

Or if monsters were killed before they grew, wouldn’t the spoils of materials be much reduced?

As for those civilians harmed by the monsters, they could only be seen as casualties of fate; no one else could be blamed.

In this model, organizations like the Demon Hunter Corps that collectively took on assignments emerged, and specialist monster order subcontractors within the Church followed suit.

As the number of monsters decreased and efficiency improved, the success rate of assignments increased, and the mortality rate of Demon Hunters decreased.

As a result, the number of Demon Hunters couldn’t keep up with the order volume, leading to wining and dining, undercutting each other, and even delayed payments.

Demon Hunters face high risks; if things were to drag on, the one owed wages might end up dead.

Thus, down-and-out Demon Hunters had no choice but to take assassination, espionage, formula theft, and intelligence trading tasks to make a living.

The decline in the reputation of Demon Hunters started from that time.

While Demon Hunters previously engaged in such activities, the numbers were small, and their prices were high.

Favalari’s team was considered relatively better; at least they still had monster hunting orders to take every year.

They only earned about 10 gold pounds a year; without monster hunting orders, this income would be even less.

Moreover, often the final payment for an order would take a dozen or twenty years to come through, leaving them with just 10 gold pounds on paper.

In reality, the annual actual income was only 7 or 8 gold pounds, unless they were hired by other nobles as bodyguards.

But that was the exclusive domain of the Lion Faction Demon Hunters, because Lion Faction Demon Hunters only accepted noble second sons and illegitimate sons as Hunters.

Lion Faction Demon Hunters were different from these Wolf Faction and Snake Faction Demon Hunters.

If they were laborers on Autumn Dusk Island, they wouldn’t need to risk their lives, wouldn’t need to lick the blood off the blade, and wouldn’t need to pay the price of sterilization and illness.

They could have sons and daughters, a home and a wife, and still earn four or five gold pounds a year.

Yet they were paying such a high price just to earn an extra 3 gold pounds, was it really worth it?

"This time the order is from the Oslar Clan." Seeing the rest calm down, Favalari sat back down on the beam, poking the fire with a stick, "The Duke was very forthright with payment; we can get the rest of the money when we go back, no need to bother with working on Autumn Dusk Island."

The other Demon Hunters remained silent.

Though the words were nice, the problem was that things were not that easy.

The Oslar Clan’s request was to teach the Salvation Army a lesson, make them know the consequences of killing the Oslar Clan, and let them know this was just the interest.

The Church, on the other hand, hoped they would take the opportunity to collect some intelligence, disrupt the Salvation Army’s internal unity, and if possible, kill a few of the upper echelons to shed some blood.

With such a volume of tasks, the veteran Demon Hunters thought of themselves as the Demon Hunter Corps -- each Demon Hunter being worth ten men.

"Don’t worry about Aval’s matter for now." Picking up the charred stick, Favalari drew on the ground, "We need to plan a major move before we are exposed."

"We can’t even get close to Horn, those gendarmes have been trained by traitors and are very familiar with our tricks." An old Demon Hunter rubbed his waist, gesturing on the map.

He was speaking the truth, but Demon Hunters have managed to hide until now not because their disguise or infiltration skills were great, but because they made no moves at all.

Even when fighting over territory with Beastman laborers, they never killed anyone.

"If only we had a heavy crossbow." An Eagle Faction Demon Hunter croaked, "No problem for me to go kill a few damn elders, the Pope is too heavily guarded."

"We have hunting crossbows, but they can’t penetrate chain mail." Favalari pointed to the oil paper package hidden in the hollow of a tree.

"Or poison. My poisons are too strong and their smell is too obvious, while those with no smell have low toxicity."

"No."

"Do we have holy capture balls?" Aijia Lang asked, "We could kidnap an elder and take him away."

Favalari pulled out several fist-sized iron-framed balls from his coat: "The Church gave us some Holy Water Grenades, but they said they’re not very effective against these demons..."

"Holy water not working on those demonic lackeys? Are they really devils at all?"

"Heretics, after all; it makes sense holy water wouldn’t work."

"This doesn’t work and that doesn’t work, isn’t this the Oslar Clan’s order? Aren’t they being stingy? Not providing anything at all?" A disgruntled Demon Hunter flung a few stones into the fire.

"I also got the order from Old Fu Wan, but I suspect we’re not the only group, considering it’s from the Oslar Clan, it’s no small task, yet by the time it gets to us it’s just about 50 gold pounds."

"50 gold pounds? Wait!" Aijia Lang jerked his head up, "You gave each of us 5 gold pounds, kept 10 for yourself, that’s 35, so where’s the other 15 gold pounds?"

Unfazed after revealing his miscalculation, Favalari replied: "Don’t you need to grease some palms? You blockhead, taking a 30% cut is already decent, I might even have to pay out of pocket."

Aijia Lang finally understood, but though he accepted it, the eyes of the other Demon Hunters were growing more suspicious.

Favalari shot them a resigned look, stopping them from exposing him.

"Regarding intelligence, we found that the Salvation Army has a new Witch, and we can make up some random abilities to deceive them.

As for the assassination, killing a couple of Beastmen and claiming they were collaborators with the heretic high command would do, they have lots of kings, after all."

The experienced veteran Demon Hunter broke down the tasks a bit, and then turned to Favalari, questioning: "Lastly, about disrupting their internal cohesion..."

"Let’s do this." Favalari seemed to make a decision, "Everyone pack your things in advance, take one dead and one living Beastman to the cave over there.

I heard that recently, the Kush Noble Youth from Jinhe Town are coming to Autumn Dusk Island, we shoot a few arrows, if we can damage the relationship between the Jinhe Town Kush Nobility and the Salvation Army, we’d have served the Master Bishop well...how does that sound?"

"Alright then, spend a bit more money to grease the wheels, whatever works for a day is a day."

With the plans settled, a few of the old Demon Hunters slowly stood up, looking half resentfully, half longingly at the moon in the sky, as they gradually disappeared into the forest.