After Arthur and his two companions confirmed that the so-called mercenaries were orcs in disguise, they did not linger and immediately left the vicinity.
Bilbo looked at Arthur and Millison with some confusion, subconsciously glancing in the direction of the Mayor's: "What should we do now?"
Arthur pondered for a moment, then said to Bilbo and Millison: "The situation is too complicated right now; we need to split into three groups to increase efficiency."
Bilbo blinked, waiting for Arthur to continue.
Arthur first looked at Bilbo: "Bilbo, I need you to return to the inn right now and tell Thorin and Gandalf what we've discovered, so the dwarves can remain vigilant. Azog and Thorin are blood enemies; our entry today certainly hasn't spread yet. If those orcs hear about it, I think they will definitely go looking for Thorin's trouble."
Bilbo nodded, then looked at Millison: "What about her?"
A gentle smile graced Millison's lips as she looked at Arthur and proactively said: "I think you want me to go to the Lake-town market to protect Balin, Fili, and Kili, right?"
Arthur praised: "You guessed correctly, Millison. Compared to Thorin and the others at the inn, Balin and his group, being fewer in number, are more likely to become targets for those orcs. Not to mention that townsperson who warned us earlier that the Mayor might cause trouble for the caravan. Once you see Balin and his group, immediately take them back to the inn. If the Mayor's men try to stop you, I allow you to use forceful methods if necessary."
Millison nodded: "I will judge the situation accordingly."
Bilbo tilted his head: "What about you, Arthur? Aren't you coming back with me?"
Arthur shook his head, then looked in the direction of the Mayor's, saying coldly: "I need to go to the Mayor's and see what exactly is going on with him. Frankly, I'm not good at playing schemes, so my usual approach has always been to eliminate those who play schemes."
From Bilbo's perspective, Arthur merely turned a corner and disappeared.
He had seen this before; when they were at the Prancing Pony Inn, Arthur had also disappeared like that to catch those who intended harm towards Thorin.
Bilbo instinctively reached into his pocket and lightly touched the golden ring within.
He wondered which was harder to detect: the invisibility granted by wearing the ring or Sir Arthur's invisibility.
Half an hour later, inside the Mayor's.
The Mayor of Lake-town was like a puppet bloated by greed; he was wrapped in an overly wide purple sable-collared brocade robe, with gold-threaded wave patterns twisting into comical arcs on his corpulent waist, as if even the fabric resisted encasing this body swollen by mead.
His doughy, round face was set with two raisin-like eyes, and his eyelids, from years of feigned smiles, had accumulated three folds, maintaining a hypocritically amiable curve even when silent.
And his secretary, Alfred, had a lean, rat-like facial contour, a sharp nose like a probe sniffing out power, and a stiff, fake smile perpetually plastered between his sunken cheeks.
The townspeople of Lake-town all called him "Sycophant" Alfred, but in reality, he was more like a parasite crawling within the Mayor's.
But whether it was the bloated, obese Mayor or his sycophant Alfred, both were now prostrate on the warm wooden floor.
The ornate wooden chair that should have been occupied by the Mayor had been kicked over by a tall orc, its filthy left foot stepping on it, staining the velvet seat cushion.
"There aren't enough hands yet; we need more orc troops. You must let more of our people enter Lake-town so those arrogant Dwarven scumbags can taste the pleasure of being attacked from both sides," this orc, whose skull was indented and embedded with black iron plates, commanded the Mayor in a superior tone, using poorly-practiced Common Tongue.
After saying this, its ugly eyes darted around, adding: "These are all commands issued to you by the great Smaug."
Upon hearing the name "Smaug," the Mayor seemed to lose his soul, and he and Alfred heavily knocked their heads against the wooden floor several times.
Then he straightened up, revealing vacant eyes, yet with an effusive, fawning smile on his lips: "Of course! Of course! I will certainly make my great master satisfied. Please, Lord Bolg, speak many good words on my behalf to Master Smaug. The golden statue I am forging for him will be completed very soon!"
Bolg, son of Azog the Pale orc, had come this time with his master's command, leading a contingent of elite orcs hidden in Lake-town.
Of course, Bolg's master was not Smaug, but Sauron the Dark Lord.
If the Dwarven army from the Iron Hills did not notice Lake-town, then when the dwarves clashed with his father's orc army, Bolg would lead this ambush to give the dwarves a big surprise.
If that damned Dragon had been willing to act, Lake-town would have been destroyed long ago, and even capturing the Iron Hills would have been easy.
But after that Dragon accepted his master's goodwill, he merely came to Lake-town, circled once, and then lay down in the gold ocean of the Lonely Mountain, snoring away.
Such a greedy lazybones did not deserve his master's goodwill at all.
Bolg thought of this, and his gaze towards the Mayor of Lake-town and Alfred was filled with disgust.
Hmph, two puppets whose souls are controlled by the Dragon, truly pitiful fellows.
Bolg narrowed his eyes and said: "Don't worry about Lord Smaug's statue for now; prioritize fulfilling its commands. Where do you have enough gold to forge a statue for Lord Smaug right now?"
The Mayor immediately said: "I do; this morning my guards told me that a Dwarven caravan entered Lake-town. They have many good things, many jewels and gold coins."
Bolg frowned and asked: "dwarves?"
The Mayor maintained his fawning smile and nodded vigorously: "That's right, dwarves. They came in this morning, and they're currently staying in the only inn near the West Gate. Please rest assured, I will definitely keep all their goods and gold coins here."
Bolg thought for a while, a sinister grin spreading across its lips.
It remembered that its father, Azog, had been punished by the master for losing a group of elite Warg Rider warriors.
And Bolg also knew why those Warg Riders had disappeared.
They had been sent by his father to pursue and kill those dwarves of Durin's line; Bolg knew this clearly, and the destination of those dwarves was the Lonely Mountain.
Therefore, Bolg suspected that this Dwarven caravan was the very dwarves his father had failed to kill despite paying a heavy price.
If he killed these dwarves, wouldn't it prove that he was already stronger than his father?
Then he could gain more power and authority in the presence of his master, instead of hiding like a coward in a human town as he was now.
But Bolg also remembered that among those dwarves was a powerful wizard.
It was precisely because of the wizard that the elite Warg riders were completely annihilated.
Therefore, Bolg cautiously asked, "Are there any men wearing white wolf armor in their group? And is there a very old grey-robed wizard?"
The Mayor was startled for a moment, then stealthily kicked Alfred, waking up the parasite who was sprawled on the floor, almost asleep.
"Wake up, you idiot! Lord Bolg is asking you, were there any men wearing white wolf armor or grey-robed Wizards in the dwarf merchant group that entered the town this morning?" the Mayor cursed in a low voice.
Alfred looked at Bolg with his equally dull eyes, then thumped his chest confidently and said, "I swear to you, Lord Bolg. When that dwarf merchant group came in, I was nearby and saw everything clearly—besides the dwarves, there were only two knights in worn-out armor, a dirty old man, and a very beautiful red-haired female swordswoman."
Bolg narrowed its browless eyes and threatened, "Are you sure? If I find out you human scum are lying, I'll throw you into the icy lake of Lake-town to feed the fish."
Alfred quickly said, "Everything I said is true; I saw it all with my own eyes. There were only four humans in the merchant group, definitely not the two people you mentioned."
Without them? Then these dwarves are practically walking into a tiger's den.
Bolg's eyes gleamed, and it eagerly hid its face back inside its helmet, then swiftly prepared to call its subordinates to raid the inn.
"Where are you going?"
A human voice asking a question reached Bolg's ears, and it turned its head, glaring impatiently: "Mind your own business, human."
But Bolg immediately realized that the voice just now was not from the Mayor or Alfred at all.
At the same time, a sharp, cold light flashed before its eyes, causing a terrifying palpitation in Bolg.
"Clang—"
The black dagger collided with the black orc longsword, producing a crisp sound.
Bolg barely managed to draw its weapon in the nick of time to block the sudden sneak attack.
However, the strangely shaped dagger still cut Bolg's forehead, and black blood gradually dripped from the wound, blurring its eyes.
"Oh? Interesting moves, you're not an ordinary orc, are you?" The human's slightly surprised voice rang out, causing Bolg, whose eyes were blurred by its own blood, to look in the direction of the sound.
Unbeknownst to it, a human knight in worn-out armor had appeared in the Mayor's house, while the Mayor and the human named Alfred, who had been conversing with it not long ago, had both fallen unconscious on the ground.
Bolg's reaction was quick. He did not ask who the other party was, nor did he hesitate.
Instead, he planned to swing his longsword to make noise, letting his orc compatriots outside know he was under attack, while simultaneously fleeing towards the exit.
Bolg originally intended to do so, but he suddenly felt a soul-deep sharp pain from the place where the dagger had cut his brow, followed by black-red flames filling his vision.
And then, Bolg didn't know what happened, because its consciousness plunged into eternal darkness.
Arthur slightly opened his mouth, reached out his hand, then pulled it back.
He hadn't expected that just a slight use of the Black Knife Dagger would cause this orc to ignite like fuel meeting a spark, lit by a tiny bit of the Black Flame of Destined Death.
Not even a corpse was left, it directly turned to ashes.
Arthur had originally only wanted to incapacitate this orc so that it wouldn't make noise and draw attention to the situation inside the house.
After all, he still wanted to pry some information out of this orc, but how did it just die all of a sudden?
More than ten minutes ago, Arthur had infiltrated the Mayor's house using the Concealing Veil.
Originally, Arthur was going to use some extreme methods to directly interrogate the Mayor about what he intended to do, but before he could reveal himself, he saw this orc, which was burned to death by black flames, swaggeringly kick the Mayor from his seat and arrogantly occupy his position.
Only then did Arthur suppress the urge to act, waiting until their conversation was over before knocking out the Mayor and his secretary, then capturing this orc alive to attempt an interrogation.
When the other party barely managed to block Arthur's inevitable strike, Arthur felt in his heart that an orc with such skill must be a big fish.
But it just died.
Arthur looked at the Black Knife in his hand with a conflicted expression, shook his head and put it away. After confirming that the Mayor's room was locked, he prepared to wake up the Mayor and the Mayor's secretary, whom he had knocked out, to interrogate them.
When the Mayor was splashed awake by Arthur with cold water, this tarnished immediately noticed that his eyes were off.
"You, you are... Mmm mmm mmm—" The Mayor, upon seeing Arthur, a stranger, immediately wanted to timidly and frantically scream, but Arthur firmly covered his mouth.
Alfred was still unconscious, but even if he woke up, he wouldn't be able to help the Mayor call for help.
Because Arthur had already tied this scrawny secretary up tightly, his mouth was stuffed with a cloth, and several layers of cloth strips were wrapped around it, ensuring he couldn't make a sound.
Arthur looked at the Mayor expressionlessly through the Vagabond Knight's helmet.
He found that the other party's eyes seemed to have lost their soul, and were very inconsistent with the expression on his face.
It was this strangeness that made Arthur frown, and he used his hand to pry open the Mayor's eyelids to observe carefully.
He murmured, "This state is somewhat like the puppet dolls made by that old man Seluvis... Does Smaug actually have a way to enslave human souls?"
Arthur was a bit troubled; if the other party's soul was enslaved, then he definitely wouldn't be able to interrogate anything from them.
Then he knocked the Mayor out again and woke Alfred, wanting to see the Mayor's secretary's condition.
As a result, Arthur found that Alfred, just like the Mayor of Lake-town, had also had his soul enslaved by Smaug.
Just as Arthur was at a loss, a raven's sharp cry suddenly came from outside the window. Alfred's body convulsed like a marionette, his neck bending backward at an incredible angle.
His current appearance was as if a Dragon had just woken up, perched on a mountain of gold and raising its head.
"Oh, another weak human? What did you do to my enslaved minion?"
Alfred's face showed a cunning and evil expression, but Arthur knew that it was not he himself who was speaking to him, but the Dragon in the Lonely Mountain.