Chapter 124: Memories and the Ring

Unlike most people who have no memory of their time in a coma after waking up, Allen had a profound memory of what he encountered while unconscious; he not only remembered his attire at the time but even recalled what he had been thinking, as well as the scenes presented by those various images.

Although Allen at this very moment would not change his personality because of memories similar to images, he still felt a sense of melancholy in his heart watching a young man with a powerful Simulator and full of enthusiasm be educated to the point of being battered and bruised by the extremely dark reality of the Calradia continent over the course of two years.

To give a simple example, in the real Calradia continent, the kings who rule the six nations will not generously grant you a fief just because your renown has reached a certain level; as an outsider, it is very difficult for Allen even to become a courtier to a king, for those intricate noble forces will not easily accept a strange foreign noble within a year or two, even if you have achieved a high enough ranking in the tournaments.

Those nobles who lost their fiefs in the war are all eagerly hoping for the king to turn their fortunes around; who would give an opportunity to a stranger? So what if you can fight? Without backing, without connections, and without long-term loyalty, everything is illusory.

To give another example, a village, as a noble's fief, is the lord's sacred and inviolable property; recruiting soldiers is not something you can do by running into a village, finding the local elder, and asking if there are any young men willing to earn a future with their blades—the result of doing so would only be being beaten out by villagers wielding clubs.

Without the permission of the nobles, what right do you have? Yet, how easy is it to obtain the consent of those nobles?

Of course, there are many such examples; for instance, bandits, Greenwood Bandits, and Sea Raiders cannot be killed off completely—there are only so many people, and if you kill too many, you will be ambushed by bandits who have gathered together; they are not stupid, especially the Sea Raiders, the vast majority of whom are professional soldiers from other continents who came to Calradia to make a fortune, not to provide Allen with his first pot of gold for development and enrichment.

And while the soldiers under his command are stronger than the average person and increase in strength more rapidly, they will still be maimed and die; you need to provide living security for disabled soldiers and pay a hefty pension for the dead ones—of course, you could choose not to pay, but the favor you worked so hard to accumulate in the villages would be lost in an instant, and at the same time, your image in the eyes of your subordinates would plummet.

This is not to mention the extremely tragic and horrific things Allen saw; in a Calradia continent similar to the Middle Ages, dark rule and endless death were simply commonplace; compared to that place, the few years Allen spent in Middle-earth were simply peaceful and quiet.

In short, reality is not a game; if he were controlling a game character, Allen could unify the Calradia continent and possess thousands of troops within two years of game time—that would be no problem at all.

However, in reality, two years is only enough for Allen to become an excellent mercenary leader on this war-torn continent, and even then, he is only called "young and promising" by those hypocritical nobles.

They are not wrong, because on this continent, there are indeed very few young people who have started from scratch and earned such a large family business in such a short time, but to those nobles, what does this amount to? In their eyes, these mercenaries are nothing more than crows picking at carrion on the battlefield.

And all of this was already the end of the line for Allen in the short term; the huge disparity, the pressure of leading the team forward, and the lack of a bright future left him breathless, and in the end, he even thought about saving money, defecting to some upright lord, and becoming a vassal who was half-warrior and half-merchant.

Of course, these are all things of the past, and Allen does not quite understand whether this memory was fabricated by the Simulator based on his save file, or if he experienced it personally and then, for some reason, treated it all as a save file.

It is just that for the friends who were able to stand firmly by his side during these two years, Allen's impression of them has undergone a complete change, which naturally includes Yamila, who served Allen for two years to repay his kindness.

Besides these images, when Allen was pulled upward by the white light, his peripheral vision caught a glimpse of a black claw reaching out from the gray light gate, although he was immersed in a strange state at the time and did not react to it.

But thinking about it now, if he had been grabbed by that black claw, he would likely have entered the Unseen World and been at the mercy of the Ringwraiths and the Dark Lord Sauron.

Because Allen was focused on the images, he did not notice the barrier protecting his soul; as a gold finger developed from a higher dimension, the Simulator naturally could not just watch its player have their soul forcibly snatched away by others.

If the player were acting of their own free will, the Simulator would not stop them; it simply faithfully records everything that happens around the player; in other words, it has no requirements for whether the player is righteous; if Allen were to lose his mind one day and want to cooperate with Sauron to turn around and deal with the Valar of Valinor, it would not stop him, and it would continue to execute all commands as usual to help the player achieve their goals.

And that bolt of white lightning was a protection left on Allen by Varda; as the Vala whom Morgoth hates and fears the most, Varda has enough power to blast Sauron into slag, but caring for the creatures she loves is one thing, and personally taking action to eliminate the greatest threat in Middle-earth at this time is quite another.

Allen did not know this; after his body could move, he instead became extremely interested in the Ring of Power that belonged to Khamul, thinking that if he were prepared, wearing it for a little while should be no problem.

He wanted to study how the ring's abilities were activated; for example, with the One Ring, Bilbo, Frodo, and Sam all entered an invisible state after putting it on, but Sauron did not when he wore it.

And the ring before him was the same; at first, Khamul did not enter an invisible state, only using this ability when the battle reached a stalemate, which aroused a certain curiosity in Allen about this magical item.

However, before that, Allen made all the preparations he could; he not only secured his hands but also had Holimion stand by his side, instructing his Captain of the Personal Guard that if any abnormalities occurred ten seconds after he put on the ring, he should remove it from his hand according to his memory.

Furthermore, to prevent Sauron from initiating a remote call after he put on the ring, Allen also put on the Ancient Rune Helm, and then slipped the ring, which had automatically changed size, onto the index finger of his left hand.

The moment he put on the ring, Allen felt the energy in his body surge toward his palm along his left arm like a provoked beast, and then the two forces engaged in a duel within Allen's strong palm.

Feeling his palm go slightly numb, Allen quickly took the ring off his index finger, turned his head to look at Holimion, who had a look of confusion in his eyes, and said, "Go bring an Easterling prisoner here."

It was clear that the power within Allen's body had spontaneously resisted the ring's encroachment on his body, but at the same time, the ring's miraculous properties could not be unleashed; let alone invisibility, Allen did not feel even a shred of the physical enhancement.

Soon, Holimion brought over an Easterling who did not look like a prisoner; this guy was the messenger who had once been in charge of the Akad Tribe, captured while trying to flee with troops; as for the other ordinary Easterlings, as Yamila had said, they were all mining in the Orc Town, but this person, due to the uniqueness of his status, Allen intended to trade him for some Northmen prisoners when the time was right, so he hadn't mistreated him much, though this matter would depend on whether Ashur was willing.

However, for now, it wouldn't hurt to let this guy be a guinea pig; Allen looked at the bound, sinister-looking Easterling and forcibly put the ring in his hand onto the man's finger, and then a living person disappeared right in front of the two of them.

Holimion raised his eyebrows slightly as he watched the person disappear, but seeing that his lord was not the least bit surprised, he suppressed the urge to ask; having lived for some time on the Panda Continent, Holimion had seen a thing or two, and the place where he lived was in an invisible state to ordinary people, and it also had the function of identifying friend from foe.

But that was something that could only be accomplished by a massive magic array; seeing that a tiny ring could have such a function, he was still somewhat surprised.

Allen had been gripping the ring tightly at first, but he soon let go; the slightly illusory figure before him confirmed to Allen that he now possessed the ability to see the unseen.

In Allen's memory, those who could see the unseen were all from the Blessed Realm, that is, Light Elves or Maia who had lived in Valinor; at this time in Middle-earth, besides those who were more famous, perhaps only some Noldor Elves still lived in Lindon or Rivendell.

Then this suddenly acquired ability must have come from the Star Queen, Varda.

That would mean that the figures and scenes Allen saw before he was injured and when he had just woken up were not hallucinations, but real existences.

According to Allen's situation, he did not know if it was good or bad to have gained the attention of the Valar, but Allen also thought of another possibility: if he were recognized by the Valar, did that mean he might have a chance to go to Valinor to take a look in the future?

The Blessed Realm was just too intriguing.

The Easterling lying on the ground entered a magical world immediately after putting on the ring, and at the same time, under the ring's enhancement, he felt his strength greatly increased and actually began to try to break the ropes binding him.

Allen, who was standing right next to him, soon noticed the guy's behavior, and the sound of the ropes straining also let him know that after putting on the ring, this guy really might be able to snap the hemp ropes wrapped around him several times.

Not wanting to experience just how powerful a Ringwraith was, Allen quickly took the ring off the Easterling's hand and then ordered Holimion to take the somewhat exhausted Easterling away.

Regarding this ring, Allen thought of another possibility; at this time, Saruman, who resided in Orthanc, seemed to be engrossed in the study of the forging of the Rings of Power, so could he use this ring to obtain another item, namely the "Star of Earendil"?

Allen was not particularly keen on these magical items, but the "Star of Earendil" was the symbol of royal authority for the Kingdom of Arnor; obtaining it would surely earn him extremely high favor with the Northern Rangers, and then, whether becoming allies or spending some wealth to hire them, it could greatly increase Allen's fighting force against the Easterlings.

Moreover, Aragorn was only ten-something years old at this time, which was an excellent stage for cultivation; this child possessed the legal right to inherit both the kingdoms of Gondor and Arnor, the only one in Middle-earth, and was born with powerful strength.

Allen wondered if, with his help, he could inherit the throne of Gondor early or rebuild the Kingdom of Arnor, which would surely be of extremely beneficial help in resisting Sauron's rule.

If nothing else, once the Kingdom of Arnor was rebuilt, they could use the North-South Road to deter the Dunlendings living in Dunland, and even rely on stronger equipment and higher military technology to bully these barbaric, gloomy fellows, cutting off one of Saruman's arms in a few decades.

At the same time, it could also provide some labor for Allen's mines in the Orc Town; a win-win situation.

Of course, if these fellows were willing to submit, Allen would also be happy to provide them with a stable life; after all, they were not Dark Men who believed in Sauron and could still be saved, but their long-standing feud with Rohan meant it would likely be difficult for both sides to live in peace, let alone fight side-by-side.

For now, this was just an idea; wanting to realize it could be said to be fraught with difficulties; after all, sneaking into a Wizard's stronghold to steal something was inherently an extremely difficult task, especially since this Wizard already had faint thoughts of betraying his allies at this time.

Allen never thought about the possibility of an exchange; the cunning Saruman would surely deny that he had ever found the corpse of Isildur, and what worried him more now was whether Saruman, if he knew that he had a master ring in his hand, would travel thousands of miles from Orthanc to Wilderness Town to demand the ring from him using his voice that could bewitch people's hearts.

What Allen felt fortunate about was that the speed of information dissemination in this era was still very slow, and very few people knew that he possessed the ring—only himself, Holimion, and Yamila knew, which could fully guarantee that the news would not be leaked.

"No, that guy just now seems to have known too, this..."

Soon, the gallows, which had not been used since the construction of Wilderness Town, welcomed its first guest today; the residents, who had never watched an execution, had always thought that the frame was just a decoration.

The bustling crowd, upon hearing the news, quickly gathered in the open space in front of the gallows to watch the spectacle; seeing such a scene, some of the sharper-minded townspeople actually began to peddle homemade pastries in the crowd, as if what was being performed was a rare circus act rather than a killing.

Soon, the Easterling who had once worn the ring was led by soldiers to the center of the gallows, and an official with a very loud voice began to hold a tin megaphone, telling the townspeople below how evil the Easterling behind him was and what heinous crimes he had committed.

After all the residents on the scene were filled with righteous indignation and the atmosphere reached its peak, this Easterling, who hadn't even left a name, became the first criminal in Wilderness Town to be publicly executed and hanged for crimes such as aggression and murder.