On the way back, they did not encounter any trouble, but many people were looking at the six wooden wheelbarrows filled to the brim with unconcealable envy in their eyes.

However, the ten or so earth elementals alone were enough to make ninety-nine percent of the people who had any unscrupulous ideas get rid of their evil thoughts, say nothing of the escorting contestants who were in a buoyant mood. When the remaining one percent saw Reef’s dark gold shield, they instantly knew that the most likely shortcoming of this party no longer existed, so they could only stand there and watch the party leave.

But in truth, the earth elementals summoned by Kulutego were actually not as strong as they looked. They had no problem performing hard labour like pulling carts, but if they were used in combat, the enemy would find that the earth elementals, which were known for their toughness and durability, were surprisingly fragile. A single grenade could make them burst apart. If normal earth elementals were like war horses, then they were like ponies.

At the moment, the Uruk-hai officer in charge of cataloguing, Cisco Dog-ear was not present for some reason. In his place was an Orc whose fangs were protruding out of his lips. His skin was as rough as tree bark and seemed like it was made up of countless little pieces put together; he obviously had the genes of a crocodile or some kind of a giant lizard in him. One could not help but be amazed by the extraordinary taste of his Orc sire. How lustful must one be to procreate with a female crocodile?

Party Ace were very worried if this Orc knew how to count. What if he made simple errors like one plus one equals one? But surprisingly, contrary to the unintelligent appearance of the crocodile-Orc, his efficiency in counting was unexpectedly high. With familiar ease, he split up the stones and wood Party Ace brought back into groups, then generously gave the party 160 contribution points.

“How should I address you, sir?” Sheyan suddenly asked.

“My name is Jeter Fiercelizard. You may call me Mr. Lizard,” the Orc replied. When he spoke, his mouth would let out a foul smell, and foam would drip down between his jagged teeth. A normal guy would probably rather be stabbed ten times than to take a bite from him.

“Mr. Lizard, we’ll only trade in one cart of wood and stones. We’d like to keep the rest to build a camp for ourselves,” said Sheyan. “The enemy attacks are too intense. Without any cover, we simply can’t sleep soundly at night.”

“Are you sure? I gave you 10 extra contribution points,” said Mr. Lizard with his thin scarlet tongue slithering in and out of his mouth. “If that damn dog is here, he’d probably give you less than 130 contribution points because you killed his relatives.”

“I’ve thought over it very carefully. Thank you for your reminder, Mr. Lizard,” replied Sheyan decisively.

Therefore, after so much hard work, they only got 25 contribution points, as well as five full wheelbarrows of stones and wood. As soon as Mr. Lizard left, Zi could not help asking Sheyan, “You’re that skeptical of the quarry’s chances? There are 500 defending Orc soldiers there, as well as the contestants who will keep going there to gather resources. Together, they’re a force to be reckoned with. You’re obviously keeping these five carts of stones and wood to wait for their value to rise, right? But I saw stones and wood being piled up like mountains in the store yard at the back. If the quarry in the vale manage to operate smoothly, these things might become worthless tomorrow.”

Although Zi’s words were stingingly blunt, her doubts were reasonable. Sheyan smiled and assured her, “Your last sentence won’t come true. This war is bound to be a war of attrition; there’s no way it’ll end quickly. After all, this war will decide the fate of the whole continent! As the siege progresses, there’s simply no way the consumption of wood and stone will reach a saturation level. Even if we manage to keep the quarry in the vale, we’ll definitely still be able to sell the stones and wood in our hands; we’ll just hold on to them for a few more days.”

While they were conversing, they moved to the campsite they were assigned to. At the campsite, they skinned the large blue wolves, chopped them up, cleaned them, and threw them into a big pot to make into a stew. Because they had added enough spices and had thoroughly drained the blood, the smell that was produced was the fragrance of cooked meat.

The wolf skin and wolf innards were given to the nearby Orc slaves and Orc labourers as food. The chewing sounds they made sounded like the noises of demon. Even so, when they smelled the fragrance of the stew, they still came over, their eyes glowing like the eyes of hungry wolves.

These Orc slaves and Orc labourers were quite useful; they would do what they were told to the utmost of their abilities. Sauron paid no attention to these weaklings at all, so as long as Party Ace fed them well, the temporary employees could become permanent workers. In addition, establishing good relationships with a bunch of locals was always quite useful for information gathering and other such things. More importantly, the price was cheap – just some food.

There were not that many people who had the same idea as Party Ace, but there were not that few either. They could hear guitar sounds coming from afar; obviously, some contestants were providing the Orcs with food for the soul too. Even the Orcs on their side were stretching their ears to listen to the music. Every contestant truly had their own unique skills.

After stopping the gluttonous Orcs from secretly reaching their hands into the pot for the hundredth time, Sheyan finally nodded his head. The Orcs instantly swarmed in. Fortunately, Sheyan had already expected the Orcs to behave like this, so he did not roast the meat and made stew instead.

The Orcs could eat and taste any food brought to this world by the contestants, but perhaps because they came from a different dimension, the food could never satisfy the Orcs’ hunger. Only the food from this dimension could fill their bellies.

So even though Party Ace had fed the Orcs a lot of canned food, the more they ate, the hungrier they became. Fortunately, the large blue wolves had helped a lot. Even without the skin, blood and bones, they contributed at least seven hundred pounds of fresh meat. Mixed with equal amount of water and sprinkled with about fifty pounds of some dough the Orcs called “lumps”, the whole pot contained more than 1,500 pounds of food, which means every Orc received an average of about seventy pounds of food.

So even though these savage creatures could eat a surprising amount, the meat stew was more than enough to fill their stomachs, and there were even leftovers for tomorrow. The Orcs burped in satisfaction, lay down on their backs, and soon started snoring. Seeing this, Sheyan let out a sigh of relief. This means that these Orcs would continue to be hired by them tomorrow.

Sanzi suddenly stood up and stared in the valley’s direction with a doubtful look on his face. Kulutego, too, stooped down to the ground. Considering the two-headed Cyclops’ affinity with the earth, the fact that he needed to do this showed that he was trying to sense something very carefully.

“The battle has begun,” Sanzi said with certainty. “And the scale is huge. It’s definitely not something impromptu.”

After a while, Sheyan said, slowly, “It’s definitely not something done by the storyline characters. The defending side has a lot more contestants than us, but they’re short in storyline character forces. And to go up against 500 well-trained Orc troops that have the terrain advantage isn’t something that can be done by a mere dozen contestants….”

At this point, Sheyan suddenly turned to Reef and asked, “Do you think it’s possible that before entering the world, someone has predicted that the Lossarnach Vale will become an important strategic spot and performed specific attack drills targeting the place?”

“That’s impossible. We didn’t know which battlefield it’d be until the last moment…” replied Reef with a little hesitation.

“But we knew it’d be one of the three!” Sheyan took a deep breath before he continued, “Everyone can find a map of Middle Earth. The enemy could have carefully analysed the geographical layout of the three possible battlefields and made specific, targeted plans for all three. They might have identified, based on the characteristics of the wars in the Lord of the Rings, the strategic places that must be attacked and the strategic places that must be defended, then performed drills for them one by one!”

“But…that’s simply too much work. How can it be done?” Ronnie asked in shock.

“A small party like us can’t, but that doesn’t mean a large-scale party can’t, too. Don’t forget, this battle is special; it’s a war between the Realms! If the nest is overturned, no egg will remain unharmed. If the Realm is weakened, will the contestants under it have an easy time?” mused Sheyan. “That was admittedly a blind spot in my thought process. Fortunately, we didn’t fall into the trap.”

The camp soon became pretty noisy. Not long after, they heard someone shouting, “The Blu-ray party is going there to help. Should we go too?”

Sheyan’s eyes flickered uncertainly. If Party Ace joined the fight, it would be beneficial for the overall situation of their side as Party Ace alone could kill at least five or six opposing contestants. The chances of Noah Realm C achieving the final victory would thus increase by a few hundredths of a percentage point. However, it would be very disadvantageous for Party Ace. If the Blu-ray party succeeded in this operation, they would surely gain more respect among the contestants of the dark faction and their words would carry more weight. What if, after the siege started, they ordered Party Ace to go to the most dangerous but most unprofitable front line? Should Party Ace obey the order or not?

If they did, they would be getting the short end of the stick, but if they refused, their reputation among their allies would go down the drain. Neither of these results were acceptable to Sheyan.

Therefore, with a decisive wave of his hand, Sheyan said, “Go to bed. I have full confidence in the amazing Blu-ray party. They can definitely resolve this matter beautifully.”

Sheyan sneered inwardly when he said this. If the enemy had really been planning for this for a long time like he deduced, they would certainly be prepared to deal with the reinforcements. There was a saying that true gold fears no fire. Whether the Blu-ray party were real gold or fake gold would be revealed in this battle.