Chapter 93: Rescuing Slaves, Discovering a Gold Mine

Grim, walking at the very front of the group, stopped at a fork in the path; from a pitch-black tunnel leading downward nearby, he faintly caught the scent of Humans.

A bear's sense of smell is several times keener than even a hound's, and after transforming, Grim had inherited this trait quite well.

Upon smelling the human scent, Grim stopped moving forward; he turned back, sat down on his haunches, and began gesturing with his two front paws while communicating with Cress.

Before transforming into a great bear, Grim could speak with animals, but after becoming a great bear, he could only speak the language of beasts.

At this moment, Cress, who had come along, became the best translator.

"My Lord, Grim says that there is the scent of people in this downward path on the left, and the Orcish should have run off through this upward path."

Grim's low growl sounded once more.

Cress continued to translate: "Grim says, can we go see these people first? Their physical condition is not particularly good."

Amidst this faint scent, Grim smelled the stench of blood and the rotting odor of untreated wounds.

Grim understood that once such a scent appeared on a human body, they were not far from death.

The only exception was the hospital in Wilderness Town; Grim had once seen such injuries healed there, and the patients had recovered very well.

The fifteen-year-old and kind-hearted Grim knew that the humans imprisoned in this tunnel were likely slaves. Between the two tasks of hunting down the Orcish and saving the humans, he decisively chose the latter, even though his orders were to track the Orcish.

After stating his deduction, Grim's massive bear head revealed an eager expression as he looked expectantly at the King he served, hoping Allen would rescue these injured people first.

Under the glow of the torchlight, Allen felt very strange; why could he see a look of pleading in a pair of bear eyes?

But this did not hinder him from making his decision immediately, which was to go and rescue those humans at once.

"Grim, lead the way."

Seeing his request granted, the relieved Grim stood up nimbly and moved his sturdy limbs, walking down into the tunnel on the left, with Allen and the others following behind him.

Compared to the other wide and interconnected passages of Orc Town, this one was slightly narrow, and the further down they went, the more stifling the air became, with foul odors rushing toward them.

It was clear that this was a separate cave where the air likely did not circulate. Feeling this atmosphere, the hatred in Allen's heart for the Orcish grew even more intense.

By imprisoning humans in such a living environment, they were clearly just letting them die; it was only a matter of time.

As the Secondborn Children of Ilúvatar, the Humans of Middle-earth actually had excellent innate physical constitutions and a very high potential; in ancient times, there were many who could go toe-to-toe with a Troll.

Now, even without mentioning the blessed Númenóreans, there were many powerful individuals among those they called Middle Men, such as the Northmen or the people of Rohan.

For example, the ancestor of the people of Rohan, Fram, the fifth leader of the Eothiod, was someone who could kill the dragon Scatha, though such a powerful human eventually died at the hands of the Dwarf.

Because of this, until the end of the Third Age, the people of Rohan had no fondness for the Dwarf, and their relationship only eased with the appearance of Gimli.

Yet, no matter how powerful or small humans were, they needed to bathe in warm sunlight and breathe fresh air; in the current environment, Allen did not find even a trace of these two things.

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He was now somewhat worried about how many people could tenaciously survive the abuse of the Orcish.

As the firelight gradually dispersed the darkness in the distance, numerous figures were revealed in the light. Appearing before Allen's eyes, this scene shattered his understanding of the word "misery."

To conserve their strength, the vast majority of them were resting with their backs against the stone walls, their physical condition very poor.

"Clothed in rags" and "emaciated" were not enough to describe the tragic state of some; most terrifyingly, among them, some bodies were not even complete, and those fresh wounds still had spots of blood remaining.

Knowing the habits of the Orcish well, Allen did not even dare to think in detail about where the missing parts of these people had gone.

These battered humans were not overly excited even upon seeing the firelight; they merely lifted their expressionless faces and looked powerlessly at the light, until they discovered that the ones holding the torches were actually their own kind. After the shock, their despair-filled eyes leaked a glimmer of hope.

Among them, some who were in relatively good condition suddenly stood up from the ground, the violent movement causing the shackles on their bodies to make a "clattering" sound.

They widened their eyes, looking in disbelief at their own kind walking out of the darkness, their mouths opening and closing repeatedly, unable to speak a single word.

Allen looked at the tragic scene before him, took a deep breath of the turbid air, suppressed the stinging sensation in his heart, and shouted loudly: "Everyone, you are saved."

Subsequently, those who had just stood up collapsed back to the ground, and before long, the large cave was filled with the sound of weeping.

Allen then said to Holimion beside him: "Go and have Bandak come see me."

Before long, Allen's hundreds of soldiers began to help these imprisoned kin leave Orc Town.

Bilbo Baggins led some soldiers toward the front of Orc Town, where he would use the dry rations brought by the soldiers to boil some thin porridge for these Big Folk.

This was proposed by Allen; he knew that for humans who had been in a state of starvation for a long time, it was better to consume liquid food at first, and they could not eat too much at once, as eating too much could easily cause their fragile stomachs and intestines to rupture.

Allen had gone to great lengths to save them, and he did not want to kill them with his own hands out of pity.

Bilbo Baggins did not understand this point; perhaps the Hobbit living in the Shire did not understand this, as the produce there was extremely abundant, leaving them with very little experience of hunger.

But the habits formed on the expedition made Bilbo Baggins subconsciously follow Allen's requirements; after all, this Big Folk friend of his rarely made mistakes.

When Gandalf, having failed to track Fimbul, found Allen by relying on his extraordinary five senses, he was directing his soldiers to escort these rescued humans away from here.

To Allen's surprise, there were many humans in Orc Town; even though a portion had been drafted away by Yazini'ge the year before, hundreds had still tenaciously survived here.

For those with more serious injuries, Allen immediately arranged for Horse Archers to send them back to Wilderness Town for treatment on horseback, while the rest, after eating a meal, would follow the soldiers led by Bandak back to the vicinity of Old Ferry.

Allen did not leave. Among these rescued people, there was a man named Malherbe who was revered by most of the humans; even while imprisoned, he had still done everything he could to help many people survive.

This man, who claimed to have the royal blood of Rhovanion, remained calm after being rescued and did not exhibit behaviors lacking in etiquette such as crying or shouting. For a human who had been imprisoned for a full five years, this temperament was extremely rare.

Moreover, Malherbe was eloquent and spoke with great logic. When facing Allen, he fully expressed his gratitude, and then in just a few sentences, he clearly explained his background and encounter.

He came from Red River Town in the east of Rhovanion; this town was located at the intersection of the west of the Redwater River and the north of the Running River, and it was a secluded and prosperous place.

Possessing abundant water resources, they mainly lived by agriculture, and the barley they grew would be brewed into ale and sold to other tribes or towns of Northern Men.

Not only that, in the last few hundred years, they had maintained long-term trade relations with their kin in Long Lake Town, as well as the Dwarf of the Iron Hills and the Lonely Mountain—though in recent years, only the Iron Hills remained.

Malherbe proudly claimed that his family was a cadet branch of the Rhovanion royal line. When the Northern Men were defeated in the great war against the Wainriders, his ancestors led a portion of the residents to flee to that River Corner.

From then on, they settled there, and it had been over a thousand years until now.

In the process of trading with the Dwarf, Malherbe learned of the existence of Eriador. At that time, the young him had always hoped to go and see the Shire, which was rich and peaceful in the words of the Dwarf, and he was also full of curiosity about the various specialties there.

If possible, he hoped to organize a caravan traveling between Eriador and Rhovanion, using the specialties of both sides to bring more wealth to his family and also allow the people of Red River Town to have a better life.

However, being in Orc Town, he naturally also indicated the consequences of that bold act: not only were the caravan's goods seized, but his men suffered heavy casualties in the battle with the Orcish and had all died by this time.

As for him, he relied on his decent eloquence and the gold he had secretly bribed the Orcish guards with to survive the initial period peacefully, and by using these advantages, he helped quite a few people.

Finally, Malherbe, in a rather humble posture, begged for Allen's help, hoping that this young leader before him would send him back to Red River Town.

In Allen's view, Malherbe's words had a certain degree of credibility, because the Orcish's desire for wealth was no less than that of other races, and among the various settlements of the Misty Mountains, there were also the Orcish's own ways of trading, with items ranging from armor and weapons to slaves.

Some Humans who have slipped into darkness will even sell information about Humans or other goods to the Orcish for wealth, so gold and silver are likewise symbols of wealth in the eyes of the Orcish.

Furthermore, the composure Malherbe maintained at this moment was enough to make Allen look at him with new eyes, and the fact that he could help others in such an environment and gain the recognition of most people was enough to prove his excellence and character.

Putting himself in those shoes, if he didn't have his golden finger, Allen would absolutely not have been able to do better than Malherbe.

However, according to Allen's temperament of fearing no danger and refusing to compromise with evil, the possibility of him dying in battle was far greater than the possibility of being captured.

In the firelight, Allen, who was listening to Malherbe recount what happened, also carefully observed the middle-aged man's face; there were some fine scars on Malherbe's face, and there was also a sickly look of malnutrition from his days in captivity.

But Malherbe's face was by no means ugly; on the contrary, it gave people a sense of approachability, and this appearance indicated that Malherbe had not been corrupted by the Dark Lord's power.

In this world of Middle-earth, the saying that "the face reflects the heart" represents a certain truth; any Human who defects to the darkness will inevitably undergo a change in form, and they will only grow uglier.

As long as this Human's appearance has not undergone any major changes and conforms to the general aesthetics of Humans, it means that he is at least a normal person who still harbors light, rather than a minion serving the Dark Lord.

Through his appearance, Allen ruled out the possibility that Malherbe was a servant of darkness, so now that he already possessed a certain amount of strength, he did not mind arranging for soldiers to send Malherbe back to his hometown.

Doing so had certain benefits; his own influence could radiate to that place, and after the two sides had a certain friendship, trade might even occur, which would also have certain benefits for the development of Wilderness Town.

It was just that the distance between the two sides was a bit far; under the current circumstances, a round trip would be impossible to achieve in less than two months, and whether the road in between was safe was also an unknown, so Allen prepared to shelve this matter for now and talk about it after waiting for a period of time.

After finishing the introduction of his own encounter, Malherbe began to quietly observe Allen's facial expressions; at this moment, he needed help, and being rescued had indeed greatly improved his current situation and also allowed him to escape from a predicament where he faced life-threatening danger at any time.

But he still needed to return to Red River Town as soon as possible to ensure that his inheritance rights had not undergone any major changes; as the eldest son of the Lord of Red River Town, Malherbe was competing with his two younger brothers for the title of Lord of Red River Town.

The living environment there forced his family to choose someone sufficiently excellent to become the Lord, rather than some primogeniture system.

Part of Malherbe's intention in organizing the caravan back then was to prove his excellence to his father, yet huge profits also represented huge dangers; he failed, and at the same time, he wasted five precious years in Orc Town.

Therefore, he was particularly anxious at this moment; if he could return to Red River Town even a moment earlier, the possibility of gaining recognition again would be that much greater.

But all of this required the help of the young man before him; from Allen's expression, Malherbe had already sensed that it was unlikely he would be able to go home immediately.

He could not wait for Allen to speak the words of refusal; Malherbe knew deeply that once a leader had stated his decision in public, the possibility of changing it would be very, very small, and even if it could be changed, he had no conditions to pay such a price.

So before Allen could refuse, Malherbe's voice rang out again; he prepared to reveal some things to Allen that he had originally been unwilling to say, in order to exchange them for the help of the young Human before him.

In such a situation, he did not have much room to bargain.

"Respected Lord, during my many years of captivity, I made a small discovery here. To thank you for your rescue, I am willing to report my discovery to you as a token of my heart, and I also hope that this discovery can be of a little bit of help to you. Are you interested in taking a look?"

Allen, who was thinking, had his interest piqued by Malherbe's words; he could understand what this middle-aged man meant.

He was so humble and hardworking for nothing more than wanting to go home a little earlier; if his information was indeed very useful, then Allen would not mind sending his strongest troops to send him home.

The exchange of benefits is a very normal diplomatic behavior.

"Fine, lead the way."

At this time, there was almost no danger left in Orc Town; the scattered, sporadic Orcish could not threaten Allen and his personal guards.

And Malherbe led Allen, walking through the tunnel with many twists and turns, and soon arrived in front of a mine.

This was the iron mine of Orc Town.

"My Lord, I once worked as an apprentice in the Iron Hills for a period of time and have a certain understanding of the distribution of minerals. Look here, my Lord."

Subsequently, Malherbe raised the torch in his hand and waved his hand to wipe away a little bit of the soil covering the wall.

Under the illumination of the firelight, a golden glow was revealed there.

"My Lord, what I want to tell you is that besides the iron ore, there is clearly also the existence of a gold mine here. I think this news will definitely be very useful to you."

Allen looked at that little bit of golden light, not showing an overly excited expression, but instead showing a grave look.

In fact, upon learning that there was iron ore, Allen had been preparing to contact the Dwarf to rebuild Orc Town.

Now that this golden light had appeared, Allen felt that this matter might have to be delayed.

"Indeed, this information is very useful to me, and I also understand what you mean. I will arrange for people to send you home as soon as possible."

Allen looked at Malherbe with a serious expression and said in a deep voice: "However, before that, I hope you can swear in the name of Eru Ilúvatar that you will never tell anyone else about this matter."

Malherbe was naturally reluctant to part with this gold mine, but this wealth buried deep under the great mountain was of no use to him now; going home was his primary goal.

So Malherbe immediately announced the oath according to Allen's request.

After hearing the oath, Allen was visibly relieved; compared to the wealth that the gold mine might bring, he was more worried about the danger and conflict that would follow.