Abbendis still underestimated the size of the troll tribe that had captured him.
It wasn't just a small tribe of a few hundred, but a medium-sized tribe of over a thousand trolls.
They had hundreds of elite troll warriors, many witch doctors and shamans, and even a priest of the Loa god.
It was the same priest who summoned the thunderclouds during the robot slaughter.
But that wasn't really Abbendis' fault.
Although he had received some military training from his family, he was still a child.
Forest trolls, as their name suggests, live deep in the forest, and most of their buildings blend into the environment, making them hard to spot.
For a child who had never dealt with forest trolls before, it was quite normal to make such a big mistake in estimating their numbers.
Fortunately, Josh didn't let his guard down because of Abbendis' estimate.
He directly arranged for a hundred times stronger force to handle the deal.
Faced with such overwhelming power, even a tribe of more than a thousand trolls had no chance to resist.
The spells of the witch doctors and shamans were strange and could have caused serious casualties if they had fought humans.
But the robot soldiers were completely immune to the trolls' curses, making the trolls' main attacks useless.
Except for a few of the strongest troll warriors, only the Loa priest managed to do some damage to the robot soldiers.
His magic affected a few robots, causing them to shut down, and he summoned a bunch of giant beasts that caused some trouble for the robot army.
But that was all.
In the end, the priest was still captured by the robots.
After about half an hour of fighting, Abbendis successfully wiped out the entire troll tribe, searched the whole place, and even rescued a few prisoners.
After finishing everything and not finding the two missing companions in the troll camp, Abbendis was getting ready to head back to the human area when a robot reported that its search drone had been shot down.
The last image it sent showed that the attacker was an elf.
Upon hearing this, Abbendis immediately guessed that it must have been a high elf ranger.
He wasn't sure if they were coming to rescue him or someone else.
A few minutes later, Abbendis was waiting at the gate of the troll tribe and saw a group of rangers led by a beautiful and gentle high elf woman in a green robe.
When he saw Mograine with the high elf rangers, Abbendis knew that his good brother had come to rescue him.
"Alfred (A/N: Abbendis's name), it's so great that you're safe!" Mograine said happily when he saw Abbendis unharmed.
Not only had he already considered Abbendis his good friend, but it had been his idea to come to the North.
If something bad had happened to Abbendis, he would have felt guilty for the rest of his life.
"Hahaha, of course I'm fine! I'll be a general one day!"
Abbendis laughed as he hugged his brother.
"Child, are these magic puppets yours?"
As the two boys were happily reunited, a soft voice sounded beside them.
It was the female high elf ranger leader who had walked over, curiously watching the robots as they sorted through the dead trolls' heads, tended to some human prisoners, and collected various goods at the tribe's gate.
Robots were nothing new in Azeroth.
Aside from the ancient creations of the titans, goblins, gnomes, high elves, and Dalaran all had experience building robots.
But there were vast differences among them.
Goblins and gnomes made robots through engineering, powered by high-energy materials that generated electricity.
High elves and Dalaran mages, on the other hand, created "robots" through magic and alchemy.
But whether they were engineering robots or magical puppets, none could match the precision and quality of the robots that Josh gave to Abbendis.
So it was normal for the elf ranger leader to be curious.
"Yes, they are mine, but they are engineering robots, not magic puppets, dear lady!" Upon hearing the ranger's question, Abbendis blinked and replied while looking at her beautiful face—she was truly beautiful!
"Then can you tell me where you got those engineering robots? And since you had them, why were you captured earlier?" the ranger leader asked again.
"Hehe, actually, I just got them recently. After I was captured and brought here, a very powerful gnome engineering master came and destroyed this place with a huge army of engineering robots. Before he left, he gave me thirty robots!"
Abbendis scratched the back of his head a bit shyly as he explained—by the time the scout drone was shot down, he had already stored all the extra robots back in the system inventory, leaving only thirty to clean up.
The story about the engineering master was something he and Josh had prepared in advance.
"Gnome Engineering Master?" The elf leader's beautiful eyes widened in surprise.
Had gnome engineering already developed to such a terrifying level?
She thought she should visit the south sometime.
"Yes, but thank you all for saving me. May I know your name, dear lady?" Abbendis asked politely.
"My name is Alleria, Alleria Windrunner. Trolls are our common enemy, so there's no need to thank us," the elf leader replied gently with a smile.
This elf ranger leader was none other than the future famous eldest of the Windrunner sisters.Because it was still early in the timeline, only Alleria was already famous.
Her second sister, Sylvanas, hadn't yet become Ranger General, and her youngest sister, Vereesa, wasn't even a Ranger yet.
As for Turalyon, the human knight who would later become Alleria's husband, he hadn't even been born yet—though he and Tirion Fordring were among the first paladins, Turalyon was almost a generation younger.
The reason this Ranger general was leading troops here wasn't just to save Abbendis.
In fact, Mograine's encounter with this unit of elven rangers was purely a lucky coincidence.
"General, we didn't find any sign of Vereesa in the camp," a ranger whispered in Alleria's ear after she and her companions had finished searching the village.
"No?" Hearing her subordinate's report, Alleria frowned, her face filled with worry.
"Madam, has something happened?" Seeing the concern on Alleria's face, Abbendis asked.
"Child, have you seen any of our elves in this troll camp?" Alleria asked.
"I'm sorry, but except for a few human prisoners, I haven't seen any of your people," Abbendis shook his head seriously.
"Sigh, maybe this is just fate," Alleria said sadly with a sigh.
"General, maybe Vereesa wasn't captured by the trolls... we can still keep looking," a ranger comforted her.
Just then, a whistling arrow sounded.
"What happened?" Alleria quickly recovered from her sadness and asked alertly.
"General, it's a large group of human soldiers. It looks like they're coming for this troll camp, too!" a ranger scout replied quickly.
"What's going on today? Is this troll camp really so important? Or... do you two have a special identity?" Alleria asked, looking at Abbendis and Alexandros.
"They must be the reinforcements sent by Tirion!" The two children quickly explained their identities and cheered happily.
Listening to their explanations, Alleria understood. No wonder—besides Abbendis, Fordring and Mograine were some of the most powerful and noble families in the human kingdoms, second only to the royal families.
If something happened to them, it was not surprising that the humans would react strongly.
With Alleria leading the way, the two boys happily went to greet their reinforcements.
"Noooo!"
But when Mograine clearly saw the face of the human commander leading the troops, he immediately let go of Alleria's gentle hand and turned to run.
The human commander also reacted quickly.
He rode his horse straight at the fleeing boy, grabbed him lightly, and slapped him hard on the butt with his heavy, gauntlet-covered hand.
The blow made Mograine scream miserably.
Since the man wore steel gauntlets, if this had been an ordinary Earth child, half his life would have been gone.
Even though Azeroth humans were stronger, it was still a heavy hit.
Even Alleria frowned at the sight.
Elves had a low birthrate, so they rarely hit their children, let alone with such force.
But even though she didn't like it, she didn't step in—she even stopped her subordinates who wanted to intervene.
For she knew who the man was—the current head of the Mograine family, Lord of the North Valley, and the top military leader in the northeastern part of the kingdom of Lordaeron.
Simply put, this was little Mograine's father.
So the beating was completely justified.
And as the human soldiers all pretended not to see, it was clear that this was a family matter that no one else could interfere with.
As for Abbendis and Tirion, seeing their friend get beaten made them both extremely nervous...
Would they get the same treatment later?
"I apologize, General Windrunner, for the trouble my unruly son has caused," Old Mograine finally greeted Alleria after beating his mischievous child, looking a bit cheerful.
As guardians of the borders of their respective kingdoms, they knew each other well. Even though Alleria looked young, due to the long life span of the elves, her age and seniority completely overshadowed Old Mograine—she had already made a name for herself in the middle of the Troll Wars, several centuries ago.
So when facing this ranger general, Old Mograine didn't dare to put on airs at all. (TL/N: In WOW the name of Alexandros father was not revealed thats why author is using Old Mograine)
"No worries. Clearing out trolls who harass our kingdom's borders is our duty, and as long as the children are safe, that's what matters," Alleria said easily.
"Besides, in this case, we actually didn't do much." Then she repeated what Abbendis had told her.
Hearing this, Old Mograine looked at Abbendis with great surprise.
Gnome technology had already become so powerful?
At this time, humans and gnomes didn't have much contact yet.
Their deeper interactions and alliances wouldn't really begin until after the orc invasions, after all, Gnomeregan was hidden deep underground in remote mountains.
Aside from the dwarves, the human kingdoms didn't know much about the gnomes or their technology.
Their black-tech creations hadn't attracted much attention from the other races.
But if gnome technology was this far along, perhaps the kingdoms should start taking it seriously.
Old Mograine looked thoughtfully at Abbendis.
That deep, heavy gaze sent a shiver down Abbendis' spine.
After all, the way this bearded man had beaten his son had been absolutely terrifying.
Abbendis felt as if his young heart had been severely traumatized.
After Old Mograine and Alleria exchanged some information about the trolls, they parted ways—both were busy people, and with the matter resolved, there was no need to waste any more time.
The three troublemakers, naturally, were taken back by Old Mograine.
When they arrived at the North Valley Fortress, he strictly separated and locked up all three children.
Especially Alexandros, who was beaten so badly that he could barely move, was lying on his stomach and needed a priest to take care of him.
Tirion wasn't doing much better either—it was said that Lord Fordring was already on his way, furious.
Only Abbendis, because of his robots and the fact that he had no family in the Northlands,ended up getting the best treatment among them.
Taking advantage of this rare alone time, Abbendis opened his system again to talk to Josh.
"Is everything settled?" Josh asked, glancing at the environment Abbendis was in.
"Yes, it's all handled—everyone's safe... Oh yeah, Josh, do you want some elves? Really beautiful high elves!" Abbendis said with a mischievous grin. (TL/N: Bro became hu—elf trafficker for chocolates)
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