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

Chapter 3 finally got the location sorted out.

"Are you full?" Roland asked, clapping his hands.

“I’m done eating, sir,” Caslow said.

“Let’s go then. Hopefully we can find a village or town today and figure out where we are…” Roland sighed.

“Yes, sir,” Caslow replied.

……

"My lord! We may be in trouble!" Suddenly Caslo grabbed Roland's horse's head.

“This is the feces of the Gangdaba dire wolf!” Caslo explained.

“So…” Roland’s expression turned grim.

"That's right, there are orc wolf riders lurking nearby!"

"Damn it! Be on alert!" Roland suddenly raised his tower shield.

"Bang!" An iron arrow was deflected by the shield.

"Caslo! Summon your dragon! Go! Quickly!" Roland exclaimed.

In the distance, shadows rippled through the woods, and one after another, orcs rode out on dire wolves, followed by a steady stream of orc infantry.

"My lord! We seem to have entered orc territory!" Caslo said bitterly, as he quickly took out his dragon flute and summoned a flying dragon.

"For the glory of knights! Charge!" Roland, his battle aura surging and covering his entire body and horse, rode his armored Shard towards the hundreds of orcs.

"Whoosh!" Roland sliced ​​off the ugly head of an orc with a single sword stroke.

"Bang!" Roland blocked the curved blade that was slashing at him with his tower shield, and then thrust his sword forward. The sharp Dragon Slayer Sword easily pierced through the orc's chest.

"Roar!" A powerful dragon roar resounded. Caslo rode his dragon into the sky.

The orc army was visibly stunned for a moment, allowing Roland to take the opportunity to chop off a few more heads. The next second, a wind blade several meters wide was spat out from the dragon's mouth and quickly turned into palm-length wind blades. The dozen orc wolf riders covered by the wind blades were quickly torn to pieces along with their dire wolves, making Roland feel nauseous.

As the obscure dragon language rang out, Roland immediately turned his horse around and ran away. Good heavens, staying within the range of the dragon language magic—how crazy must one be to do such a thing?

With a flap of its wings, the wind-winged dragon unleashed a tornado that grew increasingly thick and powerful. As the tornado surged forward, nearly half of the orcs were sucked up and tossed hundreds of meters into the air before falling like raindrops...

"Roar!" Caslo spurred the dragon to chase after the orcs, and wind blades rained down from the sky, tearing the orcs below to pieces. Roland, who was following below, could only stare blankly at the corpses, without even a chance to finish them off. After all, the orcs on the ground were either torn apart or turned into pieces, which was quite cruel.

Finally, the last orc was blasted to smithereens at the edge of the forest, and Caslo descended from the sky, satisfied.

"My lord, it's all taken care of!"

"Okay, put the dragon away! You ride this!" Roland pointed to a Shire horse next to him, which was the first blood achievement that the system had just rewarded him with.

"Not a blade of grass grows: Completed. Successfully annihilated the orcs, leaving not a single one alive. Reward: 10 fully armed apprentice knights."

Roland had already seen the final reward and was quite satisfied. After all, apprentice knights with extraordinary strength were much stronger than the most powerful cavalry, and there were a total of 10 of them. Most importantly, they were fully armed.

Sure enough, after summoning these 10 apprentice knights, Roland immediately felt incredibly satisfied! They were all Sharma, clad in three layers of armor: steel plate armor, steel cross shields, steel longswords, steel lances, ironwood bows, and even a mithril melee pickaxe (specifically designed for armor penetration, perfect for smashing metal cans). They were truly armed to the teeth, and most impressively, each of them wore a cloak adorned with the dragon emblem from his own adamantite armor. The group of 12 looked majestic and imposing!
...5 days later...

"Holy crap, is this a village?" Roland thought he was seeing things.

“Yes, sir. It’s a village, but it doesn’t seem very friendly to us…” Caslo said, looking at the closed wooden gate and the militiamen standing guard on the wall. With his sharp eyes, Caslo could even see their hands already on the bowstrings of their hunting bows.

“Oh God! Men, put your weapons away and relax!” Roland ordered.

Upon hearing this, everyone put away their weapons.

Roland rode his horse toward the village gate and looked up at the villagers.

“Excuse me, we’re just travelers and we’d like to find a place to stay. We can pay,” Roland said sincerely.

"Really? Where are you outsiders from?" an older villager asked.

“Uh, I come from an empire in the east, and these people are the squires I recruited in Gondor.” Roland said, removing his helmet.

Sure enough, upon seeing Roland with his black hair and black eyes, the villagers above began to discuss it. After a while, they should have finished their discussion.

"Yes, you can come in and rest, but we hope you will not use weapons to fight in the village and will not disturb the villagers."

“As you wish, we are willing to comply,” Roland readily agreed.

"Creak..." The wooden door was slowly pushed open, and Roland hurriedly called everyone to dismount and go inside. But as soon as they entered, Roland had a guess in his mind.

"I'm afraid I'm not in the Shire..." Roland thought to himself, because he found a row of little "dwarves" standing in front of him, or more accurately, hobbits or the "Hobbits" that everyone is most familiar with!
"Excuse me, where is this? We've lost our way in the wasteland." Roland quickly grabbed someone to ask for directions.

After some inquiries, it was confirmed that Roland is currently in the northernmost part of the Shire, and not Middle-earth as depicted in the movies, but the continent from The Lord of the Rings.

“That makes things easier. I know the map of Lord of the Rings very well!” Roland said, rubbing his chin.

"By the way, what era is it now? Caslo, go and find out."

"Okay, my lord."

……

"What! The Third Era, 2940!" Roland exclaimed in surprise.

"What's wrong, sir?" Caslo asked with concern.

“There’s something very interesting I’m considering whether we should get involved in.” Roland was referring to the Dwarf Expedition, which is the plot of The Hobbit.

“Thorin Oakenshield is a decent friend. If we want to establish ourselves in this land, we still need to unite these forces that we can win over,” Roland muttered to himself.

Because it's a heavily modified Middle-earth, the power system has changed significantly, most notably the absence of gods! Plus, there are numerous spellcasters (at least more than the original Middle-earth with only five wizards). No one knows what the outcome of this expedition will be, especially since in the original game, many lord players led teams to help Thorin and his allies successfully reclaim Lonely Mountain.

“Let’s go! To Hobbiton!” Roland finally decided to lend a hand.

(End of this chapter)