Astartes of the Bear School

Chapter 51 51. Clues to cured meat

These three rotten soldiers gave the young demon hunter a deeper understanding of the world.

 Who were the soldiers he saw in the past?

 Law enforcement team, a pursuit team of elite soldiers.

 Philip's full horse squadron, the baron's castle guard and direct force.

These people may be rude, brutal, or ignorantly prejudiced.

 But there is no doubt that these people are capable and superior to ordinary people and ordinary soldiers of this era.

 They are proficient in killing, tracking, driving horses, and operating military equipment.

These abilities give them status and also give them rules.

Being a baron's guard means you don't have the time and space to do whatever you want in the countryside.

 Once you become an elite soldier, you don’t have the energy and opportunity to be a highwayman.

 For ordinary soldiers, the three guys who were hammered to death by Lan Ensheng with his fists today may be the norm for soldiers in this era.

 Lazy and undisciplined, he thought he had mastery of force in remote areas just because he had a sword in his hand.

Then he would act unscrupulously, rob and kill people on the road, and only follow the tax collector to do some serious business during the annual tax collection.

 In the eyes of most people, they are just bandits wearing the national emblem.

Lan En didn't feel anything wrong with his violent actions.

The young man originally wanted to beat these scumbags to death and walk away, continuing to do his own business.

 But during the fight, an overturned storage box under the large tarpaulin caught his attention.

Lan squatted half-crouched on the edge of the box, reached out and picked up a dark, hard piece of bacon strips.

The cat's eyes turned, and there was still half a box of such meat bars in the storage box. Considering Willen's average living standard, it was really not a small amount.

 According to the traces, this bag of bacon was put in less than two days ago.

The witcher's fingers rubbed the surface of the meat strips, and the reflection of the grease could soon be seen on the tips of his gloves.

“Is this what they call ‘tired cured meat’?”

 Lan En's eyes narrowed slightly.

"There are at least hundreds of military stations like this in the whole territory of Velen. If every military station has supplies of this level, can Viselad afford it?"

Mentos took over Lan En's idea in the blink of an eye, calculated the total amount of supplies, and judged the approximate scope of Wesselad's assets based on his only trip to the crow's nest.

"Sir, based on calculations, I don't think Sir Wesselard is capable of supporting the troops at this standard. In fact, being able to support 700 to 800 people is his limit."

“So, this is not a standard configuration that a military depot can have.”

 Lan En stood up from a half-crouched position and looked around.

 The place was in a mess with corpses and signs of fighting.

 But the [Trace Detection] that he has mastered now, combined with his extraordinary senses, and Mentos's image recording ability, are enough for him to complete a scene analysis.

“Except for me, no one has left a trace of bloodshed here in a week. There was a businessman passing by three days ago, but it was a flower buyer.”

Lan En walked to an inconspicuous rut, picked up a handful of soil and sniffed it.

“The merchant’s car only smells of flowers, and even if the soldiers extort money, they can only give out coins.”

 The answer is clear.

  The source of the cured meat is not official supplies, nor is it extortion money, nor is it possible to come from "donations" from villagers.

 In this hilly area, what else is possible?

"We should have thought of it earlier, Mentos." Lann's eyes were lowered.

“How could such a criminal gang not say hello to the local ‘officials’?”

　　It takes a lot of effort for criminals to cover up their traces.

 But as long as you have a good relationship with these three rotten soldiers who represent the official force, let them say "everything is normal" when reporting to their superiors.

Wouldn’t this save more than half of the effort?

As for whether these three soldiers knew that the people who were "honoring" them were a group of cannibals, they probably didn't care. Looking at the three tattered corpses again, Lan En did not do anything drastic.

The person is dead, and he will not vent his anger on the corpse.

"suck-"

Putting the bacon strips under your nose and sniffing gently, Mentos in his mind tried very hard to block out the smell of the bacon itself.

 A smell belonging to the carrier of jerky stands out.

 Fortunately, these dried meats had only arrived two days ago, and the residual smell was still enough.

The witcher's extraordinary senses are not unreasonably strong. If another day passed, Lan En would probably not be able to get any clues no matter how hard he tried.

The pair of slightly bright cat eyes also followed the direction of the smell on the ground and found intermittent footprints as road corrections.

Lan En led Poppy to follow the footsteps.

 At least today, young people are lucky.

   ~~~~~~

 Sgt. Philip Strenger wiped the beard from his face, wiped the wine from it, and let out a sigh of relief.

Although he was still riding a horse, he couldn't help but take out his wine bottle and take two sips.

 These days he feels that he is becoming more and more inseparable from alcohol.

 In the past, he used to drink alcohol just to vent his family's depression, but now that he doesn't have the bottle in his hand, he feels like he's starting to feel uncomfortable all over.

 He became addicted.

 He knows it too.

  But the reason why "addiction" can be called "addiction" is because there is no solution.

 But fortunately, he is still strong, able to kill people and ride horses.

 That's all his immediate boss asked of him.

 “How far are we from that, Kang, Quill?”

Philip, smelling of wine, asked the cavalryman beside him, Halberdier York.

“That village is called Condale, boss. We have half an hour to reach the military station.”

York was originally not very outstanding among a group of veterans on the battlefield. It was because of his relationship with the capable demon hunter that he was spotted by Philip in the last mission.

 While drinking, after the sergeant toasted him two more glasses, this group of veterans knew that this guy's status was different.

So even in the formation of horseback, he can line up next to the sergeant.

“Damn it, those **** human traffickers are getting more and more rampant, and I can’t even drink at ease!”

 Philip belched a wine-smelling belch, with a fierce look on his face.

 The number of abducted children is still increasing, and the scope of abductions is also growing.

 The matter itself is not big, the key is the big impact.

The farmers had no intention of farming, and the knight lost his temper in the crow's nest.

It’s all his money! His money!

So Philip's team could only run around and explore.

　　According to Sir's original words: "Even if you go to the most remote mud and swamp in Wellen to dig up the swamp witch's shit! You still have to find the human trafficker for me!"

There are indeed only remote places left that I haven’t looked for yet.

But no one wanted to go to the swamp, so they could only go to a remote village like Condale to explore the situation as a business trip.

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 (End of this chapter)