When Lance spoke about the truth, many people in the audience fell silent, perhaps because they didn’t believe it, or perhaps because they had experienced something similar.

They might be victims, or perhaps perpetrators...

This wasn’t a story Lance made up on the spot; its source is quite interesting.

It was a bureaucrat caught a few days ago, and during interrogation, he confessed that he was one of those villagers.

But after the woman was judged, the drought didn’t end; instead, like a curse, even the last water source dried up, and the village chief was of no use.

Cracked earth, dry wells, withering vegetation, as if everything was engulfed in despair.

Related rumors became increasingly terrifying, and even the Church came by, but found nothing.

They were forced to leave the village and, like countless refugees, embarked on the road to exile, suffering greatly along the way, until finally rescued by the Lord and brought to Hamlet Town.

He dared not speak much about the past at all until he was caught and interrogated this time, and he confessed uncontrollably.

What amused Lance was that the man said these things to prove he wasn’t a traitor, claiming that his actions weren’t his true intention but that he was cursed.

But Lance could feel that he understood and knew the woman was innocent, but he just didn’t want to admit it.

This was a very distorted and bizarre emotion, further confirming the despair of this world.

Ignorant and foolish, ruthless and crazy...

This made Lance vigilant, as he would not allow vigilante justice to run rampant; the power of judgment must be restricted within the law.

"As this shows, many so-called religious judgments are not initiated by the Church, but are vigilante acts by some people driven by envy, jealousy, hatred, fear, and other twisted psychologies, leveraging the Church to act against other innocent people."

Lance’s words stunned everyone, as many had a look of incomprehension.

Even outsiders knew that Hamlet Town had an inexplicable aversion to the Church, to the extent of not even having a chapel.

In the stories circulated among the populace, there are tales of the Church teaming up with monsters to destroy Hamlet Town, only to be defeated by the Lord leading the people.

But now the Lord is defending the Church?

If Lance really were such a good person, that would be strange; his words seemed to clean up for the Church, but in fact, he was denying the legitimacy of the Church’s judgment itself.

He subtly suggested that the Church’s judgments were such absurd truths, harming countless people.

And he took the opportunity to state that judgments need to follow procedures and investigations require evidence, to cool down the agitated populace.

"Many ill-intentioned people attempt to undermine Hamlet Town, but we will offer a just outcome, and everyone’s lives will return to peace."

Under Lance’s explanation, the people understood, and with this stir, the pressure mysteriously disappeared.

The situation was brought under control, with work and life pulling their attention back.

But things were far from over; Lance had reasons for not taking direct action initially and dragging it out until now.

Apart from buying time for investigation and preparing for action, there was also the progress of wilderness development.

"The road to the ruins has been cleared and will be opened in the coming days, so please pay attention to the announcements."

Why have so many people come to Hamlet Town? Apart from the small portion from surrounding territories or spies sent by various forces, most have come for the ruins.

It could be said that the overall attraction of Hamlet Town to them was even less than a brick from the ruins.

Lance hadn’t opened it previously because the road wasn’t fully repaired, and the construction of the wilderness town was just starting; now it was finally time.

Lance had already thought about how to appease those outsiders after the actions; it was simple, just open up the ruins, like now.

Just releasing the news, without even fully opening it, instantly overshadowed all prior topics; no one paid attention to corruption, law and order, spies – all attention was immediately diverted.

Most of these outsiders would shift to the wilderness town, reducing the pressure on law and order while injecting vitality into the new town, as the locals didn’t want to go over there.

Lance stood on the platform in the square, watching the dispersing crowd below, realizing there were still many issues to resolve before he could relax.

If it were at the start, Lance would have unhesitatingly grabbed a few people to be executed and displayed, letting them vent their grievances, also deterring those enemies.

But it’s different now; Hamlet isn’t the same run-down small town that couldn’t gather even a hundred people back then.

Calling it a small town, its actual population exceeding ten thousand could indeed be considered a city, although these people were spread out everywhere.

If Lance took such simple actions now, without a doubt, it would provoke hatred between locals and outsiders.

They would blame all problems on the outsiders, believing they brought chaos and depravity.

Once this animosity forms, it’s very challenging to resolve.

But they were actually immigrants themselves, just arriving earlier and getting registered under Hamlet Town, thus becoming locals.

Hamlet still had a shortage of population, at least compared to the million inhabitants it once had.

If the territory wished to develop swiftly in a short time and complete its development, it had to absorb outside population to fill the labor shortage.