"Are you really here to save us?" a weak young man asked in a hoarse voice, his eyes fixed on the two.
Gandalf nodded, his demeanor as warm as a spring breeze, "That is why we are here."
Luke waved his hand, unlocking the large lock on the cage door, allowing the villagers inside to come out.
Seeing the cage door open, the villagers stumbled out, trembling as if in a dream, their faces dazed.
However, when Luke and Gandalf saw that only a dozen or so people had emerged, their hearts sank.
"Is it just you all?"
The villagers instantly fell silent, enveloped by grief, sobbing softly.
It was the young man who had asked the question earlier who provided the answer, his eyes red and his voice choked with emotion as he said, "Everyone else was eaten by Trolls! Today was supposed to be my turn to be eaten by the Trolls, but my mother convinced the Trolls to let me grow a little bigger before eating me, and then my mother took my place…."
Luke was silent, looking at the young man who was consumed by sorrow and self-blame.
Gandalf walked up to the young man and gently patted his shoulder: "What is your name?"
"Edward."
"Edward, you have a very great mother. She used her life to win you a chance to live. Don't let her down. Live well, carrying her share of life!"
Gandalf's words were concise but full of power, making them convincing.
After rescuing the villagers, Luke and Gandalf began to discuss how to lead them out of the Trolls' cave.
Gandalf's idea was for Luke to protect the villagers, while he would fight the Trolls.
But this plan was rejected by Luke.
Trolls are huge and have extremely strong defenses; they have almost no weaknesses except for being afraid of sunlight. It would not be easy for Gandalf to face five Trolls alone.
Although Gandalf is a Maia, his power was restricted in Middle-earth, and he was forbidden from using overly powerful magic to directly interfere with Middle-earth's natural order and the choices of its inhabitants, thereby breaking the balance of various powers and races.
Moreover, his current body is also flesh and blood, limited by a human body, and he can feel pain, fatigue, get injured, and even die.
Therefore, under various restrictions, Gandalf preferred to wield his staff and sword in close combat, rarely using powerful magic, at most a light spell.
Seeing Luke reject his suggestion, Gandalf did not insist but asked, "Then, Luke, do you have any good suggestions?"
Luke confidently pulled out a Potion, chuckling as he said, "Trolls are not easy to deal with, so we should outsmart them, using the smallest cost to achieve the greatest results."
"What is this?" Gandalf asked curiously about the Potion in Luke's hand.
"This is a Shrinking Potion I refined before. One drop can shrink a horse to the size of a palm. It's perfect for dealing with these Trolls."
Gandalf's eyes lit up, and he immediately guessed Luke's idea.
"Are you planning to put this Potion into the pot and feed it to them?"
"Exactly."
Luke nodded, then pointed his magic wand at himself, becoming invisible again with a Disillusionment Charm.
"Gandalf, you protect the villagers. I'll go and feed them the Potion first, then I'll signal you."
Saying that, he hurried towards the cave hall. He had to administer the Potion before the Trolls finished eating.
And the villagers in the cave, seeing Luke disappear like that, also widened their eyes in shock, while also gaining a bit more hope and confidence of escaping.
As soon as Luke arrived at the cave hall, he happened to see five Trolls fighting over the food in the large pot.
Luke quickly cast a Levitation Charm on his feet and cautiously approached the Trolls.
When he came before the Trolls, Luke felt the oppressive presence of their massive bodies more keenly.
One hand could swat him to death, or swallow him in a single gulp.
Luke carefully moved through the gaps between the Trolls, heading towards the large pot.
But just then, one of the Trolls stopped grabbing food, sniffing around with its nose, and asked in confusion, "Is there a living person's scent?"
Watching the Troll stretch its head towards him, Luke stopped and immediately held his breath, not expecting the Troll's nose to be so keen.
Seeing the Troll about to sniff in his direction again, Luke quietly raised his magic wand and whispered, "Confundus Charm!"
The Troll's expression became a bit muddled. It sniffed again, then immediately angrily punched the Troll next to it, "Was that you who farted? It stinks!"
"Who farted? You farted!" The innocent Troll next to it, who had been unfairly attacked, immediately retorted and punched back.
The two Trolls stopped fighting over food and immediately started brawling.
And the other three Trolls also stopped eating, loudly shouting for them to finish each other off.
Taking advantage of this opportunity, Luke quickly stepped forward to the large pot.
He looked at the half-remaining sticky substance in the pot and smelled the meaty odor.
When Luke realized what it was, his stomach churned, instinctively feeling unwell.
But to deal with these Trolls, he could only suppress his discomfort, quietly approach, then pull out the Potion bottle, open it, and pour it all in.
A single drop was enough to shrink ordinary animals to palm size, but he wasn't sure how strong the Trolls' magic resistance was, so he had to increase the dosage to deal with them.
After adding the Potion, Luke carefully retreated behind a large boulder, quietly waiting for the result.
Soon after, the two fighting Trolls ended their battle and rejoined the struggle for food.
Once the Trolls had eaten all the food in the pot, the Potion's effect began to show.
"Hmm? What's happening to me? Why are you all getting bigger?" one of the fastest-eating Trolls asked in confusion, but quickly realized that he himself was continuously shrinking.
From six meters, he rapidly shrank… five meters, four meters… one meter, fifty centimeters, ten centimeters.
The other Trolls, still shocked and confused about how their companion was shrinking, also began to rapidly shrink.
Finally, five Trolls, only ten centimeters tall, appeared in their original spot, looking around at the enlarged environment with fear and unease.
Then they saw a giant human appear before them, waving a huge wooden stick in his hand, conjuring a cage that trapped them inside.
"Alright, Gandalf, you can bring the people out now!" Luke shouted loudly towards the depths of the cave.
As soon as his voice fell, Gandalf and a dozen or so villagers walked out.
"Resolved?" Gandalf asked.
Luke pointed to the Trolls in the cage on the ground, "It's not over yet. They are currently shrunk by my Potion, and I'm not sure how long the effect will last, so we need to deal with them quickly."
Gandalf looked at the miniature Trolls in the cage and raised an eyebrow: "What do you plan to do?"
"I plan to clear out the Trolls in the vicinity and see if there are any other living people in the hands of other Trolls. These Trolls all live in the Troll Forest, so they should know each other. I want to see if I can interrogate them for information," Luke explained.
"Do you need my help?"
"No, I'll try first." Luke shook his head, then aimed his magic wand at the five Trolls in the cage, and without another word, chanted, "Confundus Charm!"
The magic resistance of the five Trolls significantly decreased as their bodies shrank, and they instantly became muddled and confused.
"Tell me the locations of other Troll caves nearby that you know of," Luke said.
The five Trolls regarded Luke as their closest kin, and in their confused state, they revealed all the information they knew.
After obtaining enough information, Luke no longer hesitated. A small dagger flew out, instantly severing the heads of the five Trolls as if cutting grass.
As soon as the Trolls died, the effect of the Shrinking Potion gradually receded. Their ten-centimeter bodies rapidly expanded back to their original size, and dark, black blood gushed out from their severed necks like a fountain, emitting a foul, fishy smell.
After dealing with five Trolls, they obtained the locations of other nearby Troll caves.
Luke and Gandalf immediately wanted to go and see if there were any survivors in the other Troll caves.
However, looking at the terrified villagers who had just narrowly escaped death, the two of them couldn't possibly leave them unattended.
"Luke, how about you take the villagers out of the forest first, and I'll go find those Trolls alone?" Gandalf suggested.
Luke shook his head. "No need for such trouble." With that, he hissed towards the cave exit.
The cold, slimy sound echoed in the empty cave hall, making the villagers uneasy.
What terrified them even more was a Python as thick as a bucket quickly crawling from the entrance; its enormous body was large enough to swallow them whole.
"Don't worry, it's following my orders now and won't harm you," Luke explained to the villagers, seeing their fear.
Gandalf also came forward to reassure them, which made the villagers feel a little safer, though they still kept their distance from the Python.
"Later, the Python will lead you out of the forest and onto the main road outside. From there, you can follow the road back to your village or go anywhere else you wish," Luke added.
"But our village has been destroyed, where can we go?" Edward, a young boy among the villagers, asked sadly and confusedly, looking hopefully at Luke and Gandalf. "Can I follow you, Mr. Wizard? I can do anything for you, serve tea and water, be your slave or servant!"
The other villagers also looked at the two with hope.
"I'm sorry, we have things to do next and will face more dangers. I'm afraid we can't look after you," Gandalf shook his head, refusing young Edward's request.
The villagers were disappointed at the news, filled with confusion and unease about the future.
"However, after you leave the forest, you can follow the main road across the Last Great Bridge and head west. On the hills west of the wilderness, there is a giant tower a thousand feet high. That is Wizard Luke's territory, and you can settle there."
"Gandalf?" Luke looked at him in surprise, not expecting him to make such a suggestion.
Gandalf sighed and explained to Luke:
"Their village has been destroyed, and it's no longer safe here. Besides the threat of Trolls, Orcs might descend from the mountains at any time to raid. These dark creatures won't be merciful to villagers. If they want to survive, they can only migrate west and find a lord or power to depend on."
"Now, dark forces are stirring. I foresee that the entire Middle-earth will be turbulent and ravaged by war in the future. With you, the black-robed Wizard, stationed at Weathertop, it can become a new haven, protecting them from the devastation and impact of war."
"Gandalf, you praise me too much!" Luke said with a wry smile, shaking his head. However, for Gandalf's sake, he no longer resisted the idea.
Besides, they might not even be willing to risk traveling thousands of miles across the wilderness to settle in a place that has nothing but a tower.
Luke looked at the anxious villagers below, thought for a moment, and then led everyone to the cave where the Trolls hid their treasure, distributing a portion of the gold and silver coins to the villagers.
The villagers, holding the gold and silver coins they received, felt dizzy as if in a dream. They had never seen so much money; the gold coins alone were enough to ensure their livelihood for a lifetime.
"You heard what Gandalf and I said earlier. With this money, you can go anywhere and live comfortably for the rest of your lives, so there are two suggestions you can consider," Luke told the villagers.
"Firstly, you can build boats and travel down the Cangquan River from the Last Great Bridge to the human kingdoms in the south."
"Secondly, you can cross the Last Great Bridge and head west, following the East-West Road straight, crossing the wilderness to the vicinity of Weathertop, or continuing west to Bree."
Then he distributed some of the armor and weapons collected by the Trolls to the villagers, so they would have some means of self-preservation on their journey.
After all this was done, Luke instructed the Python to lead these villagers out of the Troll Forest and return after reaching the main road.
He strictly forbade it from eating the villagers.
To appease the greedy Python, Luke had to personally dismember the Trolls, lest they be too large and choke the greedy snake to death.
Trolls have strong defenses; even though they were thoroughly dead, the thick layer of scales on their bodies could not be pierced by ordinary swords, and the muscles and bones beneath the scales were as hard as stone.
Luke used the sharpest sword and still had to exert a great deal of effort to dismember one Troll.
The giant Python, having swallowed a Troll's arm, contentedly stretched its swollen belly and slowly led the trembling villagers away, planning to return to enjoy the remaining food after delivering these humans to the main road.
Meanwhile, Luke, who was dismembering the Troll, did not stop. He extracted the Troll's nerves and removed its large black heart, sealing them in a glass jar conjured by Transfiguration.
Trolls are dark creatures that turn to stone when exposed to the sun. Luke wanted to see if Troll nerves could be used to make wand cores and if the heart could become a Potion ingredient.
Luke placed the Troll's heart and nerves with the Troll's treasure and hid them with magic.
These items were inconvenient to carry, so he planned to retrieve them later.
Luke and Gandalf did not delay further and headed to the next nearest Troll cave based on the information provided by the Trolls.
When Luke and Gandalf found the second Troll cave, this time it did not bring them good news.
When they stealthily entered the cave using the Disillusionment Charm, they only saw two Trolls and a pile of bones.
The captured villagers had all been eaten by these two greedy Trolls in one go.
Upon seeing this result, Gandalf was furious, and his immense power broke through the Disillusionment Charm, causing him to appear directly.
"Luke, lend me Blazefury!"
Luke did not hesitate and immediately drew the Blazefury and handed it to him.
As the Blazefury fell into Gandalf's hand, it immediately ignited with golden flames, emitting a dazzling, sun-like glow.
"No, it's sunlight!" The Trolls showed expressions of terror when they saw the dazzling light. Their grayish-green skin began to show signs of petrification upon contact with the light, becoming grayish and stiff.
However, the light emitted by the Blazefury was not true sunlight. Although it had some restraining effect on the Trolls, it could not truly turn them into stone.
Gandalf moved with great agility and dexterity, swinging the Blazefury and striking at one Troll's ankle.
Instantly, he cut a gash in the Troll's leg, leaving burn marks.
"Ow, that hurts! My foot!" The Troll let out a painful shriek.
The Troll tried to stomp on Gandalf, who was attacking it, but Gandalf quickly dodged and inflicted another wound on its foot with his sword.
The other Troll, seeing its companion injured, grabbed a giant log a dozen meters long and swung it like a club at Gandalf.
"Expelliarmus!"
Before the club could strike, it broke free from the Troll's hand and flew away.
The Troll didn't react at first, but when it saw its weapon gone, it vigilantly shouted, "Who? Who's there?"
However, Luke was still invisible due to the Disillusionment Charm, so no matter how the Troll searched, it couldn't find any trace of him.
"Petrificus Totalus!" A white light suddenly struck the Troll.
The Troll's body instantly paused and stiffened for a moment, but it immediately broke free from the magic Petrificus Totalus's restraint, becoming even more alert and wary.
"Who? You damned bug, I smell you, come out!"
"What the heck, is its magic resistance that strong?" Luke was a bit surprised; he had easily dealt with five Trolls before using Shrinking Potion, which made him feel that Trolls were nothing special.
He hadn't expected to be caught off guard now.
Immediately, Luke cast several more magic spells, but they only lasted for a few seconds.
Seeing that magic spells weren't working, Luke quietly approached and used magic power to control the dagger at his waist, shooting it towards the Troll.
The dagger was sharp and managed to pierce through the Troll's thick scales, but besides the scales, the Troll also had muscles and bones as hard as stone, which directly embedded the dagger into its flesh, making it impossible to pull out.
"Ah, that hurts! You damned despicable bug, I'm going to eat you!" The injured Troll roared furiously, grabbing surrounding boulders and throwing them everywhere, attempting to force the invisible Luke out.
This move by the Troll was quite effective; the flying boulders smashing against the invisible barrier formed by the Shield Charm instantly revealed Luke's whereabouts to the Troll.
The Troll revealed a ferocious, hateful smile, widened its eyes, and swung its fist towards Luke's direction, as if it could see him being smashed into a meat paste the next second.
The Troll possessed immense strength, and its full-force strike directly shattered the defensive barrier formed by the Shield Charm.
But to the Troll's astonishment, there was no one behind the Shield Charm, causing its punch to strike empty air.
Before the Troll could react, two daggers shot towards it with lightning speed, directly piercing into its most vulnerable eyes, instantly splattering black blood and a deafening scream of agony echoing throughout the entire cave.
The eyeless Troll stumbled around like a headless fly, and Luke used a Leg-Locking Curse to make its feet trip over each other, causing it to fall heavily to the ground.
"Wingardium Leviosa!" Luke re-enacted Ron Weasley's act of knocking out the Troll, levitating the Troll's thick wooden club and smashing it heavily onto the back of the Troll's head.
Once wasn't enough, so he did it twice. Under continuous smashing, the Troll could no longer stand up and directly passed out.
Evidently, when dealing with creatures with high magic resistance like Trolls, physical attacks are most effective.
Just as Luke finished dealing with the Troll, Gandalf was not to be outdone.
Gandalf used his Blazefury to directly sever the Troll's two Achilles tendons. After the Troll could no longer stand and fell to the ground, he directly jumped onto the Troll's chest and plunged the Blazefury deep into the Troll's heart, directly burning the heart to ashes.
Having dealt with his Troll, Gandalf threw the Blazefury over: "Luke, catch the sword!"
Luke reacted quickly, caught the Blazefury, jumped onto the unconscious Troll, gripped the sharp sword with both hands, and forcefully plunged it into its chest over its heart, releasing blazing flames.
The unconscious Troll instinctively struggled for a moment in its final throes before directly perishing.
After dealing with the two Trolls, Luke and Gandalf briefly inspected the cave, finding that apart from a pile of various bones, there were very few valuable items in the cave.
One could only say there were differences even among Trolls.
Luke silently grumbled about the poor creatures in his mind before continuing with Gandalf to the next Troll cave.
However, before leaving, Gandalf used magic to collapse the Troll cave, burying a pile of white bones and the Trolls inside.
Subsequently, the two found two more Troll caves.
The first cave contained only one Troll, which was even poorer than the previous two Trolls, lacking even an iron pot for cooking.
Gandalf and Luke easily dealt with it together and immediately moved on to the next location.
But the next cave was the one with the most Trolls Luke and Gandalf had ever seen, housing a total of twelve Trolls!
This group of Trolls had clear divisions of labor and even a distinct hierarchy, surprisingly even having a Troll leader.
The Troll leader was even taller than the other Trolls, standing seven or eight meters tall. He sat on a tall stone platform, holding a ten-meter-long iron great hammer, and wore a tattered, rusty armor, served by the other Trolls.
And on the cave walls, there were carved-out cages, enclosed by wooden bars, holding over a hundred humans.
The humans in the cages were emaciated, their eyes numb and lifeless, like a group of living dead.
When a Troll carried a bucket of sticky, unknown substance and poured it into the wooden trough in front of them, the group of humans scrambled for the food like irrational livestock.
The Troll leader here was clearly smarter; they captured humans from outside the forest, but didn't immediately eat them. Instead, they caged them like pigs, then regularly slaughtered them.
To ensure a continuous supply of food, they even kept human men and women together, forcing them to bear new human infants.
Seeing this, Gandalf and Luke's expressions became very solemn.
They had never seen such intelligent Trolls before. If given a chance, it might truly unify the entire Troll Forest in the future and become the King of Trolls.
This time, Luke and Gandalf were very cautious and did not choose a frontal assault.
After some discussion, Luke decided to use his old trick, using Potions to deal with them.
However, he had run out of the Shrinking Potion he carried, so Luke chose the Hypnotic Potion he had previously refined.
But when Luke finally managed to stealthily sneak to the large cauldron and pour an entire bottle of Hypnotic Potion into it, this large pot of medicated food was surprisingly eaten entirely by the Troll leader, not leaving a single drop for the other Trolls.
"Tsk," Luke cursed inwardly.
"Eating alone, aren't you afraid of retribution?!"
"Didn't it just come true?"
The Troll leader, who had eaten an entire pot of medicated food, quickly felt the effects of the Potion and lay on its seat, snoring loudly and deafeningly.
The other Trolls, seeing this, were not surprised. Instead, they began to set up a large pot, pouring a pile of green worms into the pot to cook with other seasonings.
This was their food.
As for the caged humans, they all belonged to the Troll leader. No matter how much they drooled, they dared not touch them. After all, the Troll leader was not only the strongest and smartest among them, but also the most brutal.
Those who had tried to challenge the Troll leader's authority had long become souls under its great hammer, their bodies even being completely devoured by them.
Watching the eleven Trolls scrambling for the pot of sticky substance made from worms, Gandalf quietly asked Luke, "Do you still have that Potion from before?"
Luke smiled wryly and shook his head.
He had originally refined five types of Potions: Scabies Potion, Shrinking Potion, Oblivion Potion, Soothing Potion, and Hypnotic Potion. The Shrinking Potion and Hypnotic Potion were both used up, and the remaining Potions were not of much use at this moment.
Could it be to use Scabies Potion to help the Trolls get rid of scabies? Or use Oblivion Potion to make them forget their memories? Or use Soothing Potion to treat the Trolls' illnesses?
"Oh, right, I almost forgot there was one more Potion!"
Luke quickly pulled out a bottle of green Potion from his pocket.