The Lord of the Rings: Lords of Middle-earth.

Chapter 16 Changhu Town

“The Swift River…” the group murmured as they rushed out of the woods and looked at the wide river in front of them.

"Thump!" Suddenly, a knight dismounted and knelt down.

To Roland’s surprise, everyone knelt down. Renault, his eyes red, grabbed a handful of mud from the riverbank, placed it on his chest, and burst into tears.

"The River of Ruins! The people of Lagrange have returned!" Renault cried, tears streaming down his face.

The group wept uncontrollably. In their memories, the empire had crumbled and their homes were destroyed. A group of Lagrange Empire survivors were scattered across the continent like children without a home. Today... they had finally returned to the empire's land...

"Fight for the revival of the empire!" Suddenly, a Swift Infantryman stood up and roared.

"For the Empire!"

"Long live Lagrange!"

"For the sake of the swift-flowing river that gave me birth and nurtured me..."

Seeing this, Roland fell silent. Although they were all living, breathing people, Roland had always felt a sense of distance from them, always thinking of them as NPCs. But now, Roland suddenly felt completely integrated into this world. Each of them had flesh and blood; they could be hurt, they could cry, they could die. Each of them was a living, breathing person; they were his subjects, his family, and he was the last… lord of Lagrange!
"Get up, all of you... Let's reclaim the pearl of the empire's north—Long Lake Town!" Roland's gaze sharpened.

Note: The northernmost city in the history of the Lagrange Empire was Lake-town. After Lake-town was destroyed by Smaug in the Third Age, its inhabitants, led by King Bard, rebuilt Vale, and Lake-town was abandoned. In the middle of the Fourth Age, the vanguard of the then Lagrange Kingdom reoccupied Lake-town and rebuilt it... Until the end of the Empire, it remained a sanctuary and important town for the inhabitants of the northern humans.

Roland subtly shifted the focus here. After all, Laketown wasn't yet part of Lagrange's territory. But Roland had the bigger fist, so he shamelessly decided to occupy Laketown first. After all, can a lord without territory be called a lord? Moreover, there were over a thousand humans there, the foundation for Roland's current development.

"Wait! Smaug's death must be imminent..." Roland suddenly broke out in a cold sweat. He now considered Lake-town his own territory and couldn't just stand by and watch Smaug destroy it.

"All troops, listen to my command! March at full speed!" Roland shouted sternly.

……

By this time, Thorin had arrived in Lake-town, stayed at Bard's house, and paid Bard Bard Bard gold coins to get weapons for the group.

"What are these? We paid with gold coins! We bought weapons! Iron swords and axes!" The dwarves grumbled as they looked at the various weapons made from modified hammers and harpoons.

The dwarves' violent behavior frightened Bard's son Barn and his two daughters.

“Sorin, why don’t we take these with us? After all, we used something even worse before…” Bahrain comforted him.

……

"Swift Infantry! Swift as a torrent!" The Swift Infantry, arrayed in a complete Swift Formation, scattered a group of orcs, launched a fierce attack, and then immediately sheathed their weapons and swiftly advanced along the Swift River.

"Die!" A Battanian archer pierced the eye socket of a wandering orc with an arrow.

"Pass through quickly!" Roland commanded the Swift Infantry.

"Knights! Don't get separated! Disperse the orcs! Disrupt their formation! Leave the rest to the infantry!" Renault shouted, leading the way.

"Padani archers, watch out for the orcs crossing the line! Send them to meet the Dragon God! Don't delay, we don't have much time left!" Caslo was still the rearguard.

"Whoosh!" Roland galloped away on his horse and casually chopped off the head of an orc.

"My lord! The Dark Forest has been invaded! Orcs are roaming everywhere!" Renault said helplessly.

"Then let's fight our way through! No one can stop the Knights' advance, no one can stop the revival of Lagrange!" Roland was like a madman; he had gone berserk. As he hacked his way through, black orc blood had smeared his mithril armor. The once beautiful plate armor was now a purplish-black, its original bright gold-red color completely obscured...

The exhausted Swift Infantry formed a square formation, mounting their chevaux-de-frise on their shields and pointing them forward and to the left. All they had to do now was charge through... "These orcs are really like cockroaches. There must have been at least several hundred of them along the way," Caslo gasped.

Given Roland and his group's current strength, they could wipe out hundreds of orcs with a wave of their hand. However, the infantry couldn't withstand their boss's exploitation of their labor. They had been traveling for several days straight, marching at breakneck speed. It was already a feat to even lift a weapon, let alone keep up with the cavalry. It was only thanks to Roland and Renault taking turns casting their aura skill, Divine Inspiration, that the Swift Infantry were able to keep running.

Divine Inspiration: A special skill of Paladins or Priests that grants an inspirational aura to friendly units within a 100-meter radius. Units with the aura continuously regenerate health and mana, and gain increased magic resistance and stamina. Lasts 30 minutes.

"Divine Inspiration!" Roland rode up to the Swift Infantry and cast a group aura on them, continuing to exploit their labor.

"Bang bang bang!" The swift infantrymen's originally scattered steps gradually became orderly, and even their panting gradually subsided.

"Brothers! Keep going! Long Lake is just around the corner!" Roland encouraged.

A moment later, a silver light suddenly illuminated everyone; it was the sunlight reflecting off the shimmering lake!

"Wow! Long Lake!" someone exclaimed excitedly.

"It's Long Lake! The pearl of the empire's north!"

"The busiest trading hub in the North!"

We've arrived!

A group of people were chattering excitedly about the shimmering lake, their joy spreading among them.

"But how are we supposed to get across?" Suddenly a voice cut through the crowd's discussion.

Instantly, the entire hall fell silent...

“Sir, I hope you have a way to get us across… Reaching the land entrance to Longlake requires us to cross the entire Longlake… We no longer have the strength or time to accomplish this feat; everyone’s physical strength has reached its limit.” Renault looked at Roland with a grave expression.

Phew! Thank goodness! I got a vehicle for checking in yesterday. Roland felt extremely fortunate. He waved his hand and released 10 galleons from the Ring. Everyone cheered as soon as they saw the ships.

Note: The reason why Roland's subordinates were not surprised when Roland took out 10 huge galleons out of thin air is because the system had injected the memory of Roland having a storage artifact with huge storage space. They would think that Roland had prepared this in advance.

"Board the ship!" Roland waved his hand.

"Oh!" The crowd cheered and jumped into the lake to wash off the blood and swirl toward the boat. Since the boat had a draft and there was no proper dock, some of them had to swim over to get the boat moving.

"Chop some wood and build a simple dock. Don't forget, we still have warhorses!" Roland stopped his men's revelry.

……

"Is everyone on board?" Roland looked at the shore.

"Don't worry, sir, not a single person was missed!" Caslo patted his chest and assured him.

"set sail!"

Under the sunlight, a floating city appeared before everyone's eyes.

"Changhu Town, here I come!" Roland murmured, gazing ahead.

Second update! Thank you for your support, readers. The first climax of the book—the Battle of Five Armies (now it's the Battle of Six Armies)—is about to begin. Feel free to leave comments below. Finally, I'd like to ask for your recommendation votes! (ω)


(End of this chapter)