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

Chapter 185 Searching
"Your Majesty King Lagrange, King Redeemer cannot come in person because the recklessness of the dwarven dragonhawk knights has caused unprecedented panic in the entire city of Los Sannier. The residents have fled to seek refuge, and countless people have rushed out of the wasteland. Now, only one in ten of the city's residents remain. Due to limited military strength, we cannot send a large number of soldiers to search for them. We can only send our most mobile cavalry to search for the people, but our cavalry is so few that it is simply a drop in the ocean in the current situation..." The Akvia envoy was in tears.

"So you need to use my cavalry to find your people and send them back to each other?" Roland immediately understood his meaning. Just as he had guessed, the White Wing King had come to borrow cavalry.

"So... your answer is..." The envoy nervously looked at Roland's face, trying hard to discern his expression, afraid of seeing even the slightest displeasure.

“Of course, helping the White Wing King is what we, as allies and neighbors, should do. How about this, aside from the soldiers Lance took and the defensive soldiers, I can give you about 300 fully armed horse archers (Batanian archers). What do you think?” After considering it for a while, Roland decided to offer all of his mobile forces except for the knights.

Thanks to the evil system, Roland was rewarded with over 400 warhorses. Among the random rewards from daily check-ins, he often received useless rewards like Shire horses. Without a knight training camp, Swiftstream City couldn't train knights on its own, and cavalry was still too extravagant for Roland. Given that their functions overlapped with knights, their cost-effectiveness wasn't high. So, in Roland's hands, these warhorses could only be used to arm his skilled Battanian archers.

"Thank you for your kindness, we will remember your kindness," the messenger said, his head almost touching the ground, extremely humble.

"No need for formalities. Just remember to give my regards to King White Wing," Roland said, waving his hand dismissively.

"I'll send someone to mobilize troops right away, Caslo! You go with the soldiers!" Roland still trusted his loyal henchman. As a dragon knight, Caslo had the strongest reconnaissance ability. Could anyone see further than a dragon's eye?
"Yes, Your Highness." Caslo lightly pounded his chest and immediately accepted the order and left.

"Thank you for your kindness! May your good name be sung throughout the land!" the envoy said gratefully.

……

"Be careful to search for human residents! Don't spread out too much, search in small teams of five to avoid being attacked by orcs!" Caslo instructed the soldiers who were about to set off.

"Understood!" the soldiers shouted in unison.

"What a nuisance! The Dark Forest is right next to Los Santo Niel. Most of the residents should have gone into the woods to hide, and quite a few should be lost!" Renault, who was traveling with him, said with a dark face as he pulled on the reins.

"You just realized? I knew a long time ago. I saw a lot of people running into the woods." Caslo sighed helplessly.

“Perhaps we should build a bridge over this river,” Renault said, changing the subject as he watched the soldiers cross the river in batches by boat.

"How convenient... for orcs to attack?" Caslo joked.

"..." Renault was speechless.

"Alright, I need to go up to the sky and see if the orcs have come over!" Caslo's expression changed, and he took out his dragon flute and began to play.

"Roar!" With a long howl, Kaldo carried Caslo into the sky.

"Riding a dragon is something?" Renault looked at the swirling dust with disdain.

……

"Brothers! Gather together! Head into the Dark Forest!" Caslo commanded as he flew over the soldiers.

Beneath him were fully armed Battanian archers, riding Shar horses and transforming into horse archers. These Battanian archers, skilled in close combat, were absolutely formidable in the woodlands, and no one wanted to be intimately harassed by their armor-piercing hammers.

"Dragon God! This damned forest!" Caslo grumbled in dissatisfaction. The dense green canopy completely blocked their view; even with dragon eyes as powerful as theirs, they couldn't see through to the people hiding below at such a distance. The dragon flew silently through the sky. Caslo didn't even allow his dragon to roar; he knew that the terrified people of Los Saint Neil would panic and continue their advance into the forest upon hearing a dragon's roar.

"Heavens! We should have left Baldr and his men here. I hate the jungle!" Reno sighed and drew his sword to cut the branch that was tangling around his lance. Regular knights would never venture into the jungle, not only because the intertwined trees would slow them down, but also because the obstacles in the jungle would snag their weapons and armor. Except for knights in a state of honor who might carve a path through the jungle, no knight wanted to fight the enemy in the jungle.

"My lord, you should put away your lance! It's too long; a sword is sufficient here!" the Battanian archers beside him kindly reminded him, brandishing their mithril fighting swords and steel shields.

"Oh! Young man, thank you for the reminder!" Renault shrugged angrily. Apart from the old forest path, there were no proper roads in the Dark Forest. They were all small paths trodden by elves or hunters, which were obviously not enough for a fully armed paladin to stretch his muscles.

With a "whoosh," the sharp longsword was drawn, and Renault quickly chopped down more than ten large trees within dozens of meters in front of him, demonstrating the paladin's terrifying offensive capabilities.

"Getting in the way!" Renault said irritably.

……

"Captain! There's someone here!" A Battanian archer was overjoyed to discover signs of life in the burrow ahead.

"Unlike the burrows of orcs, the soil is very fresh! It must have been dug recently. Let's go down and take a look," the captain said after glancing around a few times.

"Thump!" The Battanian archer, who had just jumped down with his steel shield, was hit by a powerful blow. Fortunately, the blow struck the shield and had no effect other than leaving an inconspicuous dent.

"I am human!" the Battanian archer shouted immediately.

Sure enough, the people inside immediately stopped moving. The Battanian archer who went down looked closely and, good heavens! There were nearly 20 people crawling in the hole, which was less than 10 square meters in size. Looking at their terrified faces, the soldier didn't know what to say.

"Come on up... the dragons are gone!" After a long pause, the soldier finally managed to say, and then climbed out first.

"You are not Akvia warriors..." a little boy said timidly. The Battanian archers, clearly equipped by the system, were clearly better geared.

“We are soldiers from your friendly nation—the Kingdom of Lagrand! We live on the other side of the river. Feel free to come and visit us anytime!” The soldier smiled kindly and patted his head.

"Ladies and gentlemen, could you please tell me where the others are? This forest is dangerous! We need to get them home as soon as possible!" the captain asked as he approached.

"I know a group of people ran that way!" the boy suddenly pointed in a direction.

"Good boy!" the captain praised, ruffling his hair.

"Send two men back! Tell the rest of the team to continue searching along our route! We'll leave markers along the way... unless we're killed in action!" the captain ordered, pointing at the soldiers.

"Keep searching forward, speed things up! Maybe after we finish this we can go to the king and ask him to change our class to rangers! Hahaha!" The captain laughed loudly.

"Hahaha!" The other soldiers also burst into laughter. Their current task was exactly the same as that of rangers. It has to be said that only the Battanian archers under Roland's command could be competent in using archers as rangers. The soldiers' slightly bitter smiles precisely showed that the most important link was missing in the current military system of the Lagrang Kingdom - the ranger!
This is a supplement to yesterday's chapter. Today's update should be around noon or in the afternoon.

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(End of this chapter)