After Noah had examined four locations, he was arriving at the second-last spot. At this point, he was starting to get pretty tired, and his mana reserves had dropped to about half of its original amount. Coming in from a distance, he could see smoke from the skies above what was supposed to be the spot. A few moments after the smoke and red skies came into view, a blinding light filled the area.

Noah's heart rate spiked. This was it. There was no doubt that whatever the cause of the overflow was, it was here. With a transformation to a slime a mere half a meter in diameter, he fell from the skies, let himself get caught in the leaves of the forest, and came to a stop outside the barren circle that was at least a full kilometer in diameter. Surrounded by fire and smoke, he could vaguely make out the two figures at the center, and this was with the elite mana vision of a slime. One of them was a large goliath, a towering figure at least 9 feet tall with an even more enlarged belly. The other was a single man, with just simple steel-mithril alloy dull light armor with blue and gold accents.

The large figure was shocking enough to Noah. Without a doubt, that was an Orc King. An existence that rarely was born among the orc species, an Orc King, had existed for centuries in Verdant Oakwoods. During the period of time when Noah and his friends were training in Verdant Oakwoods, they had chosen not to try to subjugate it as it was too dangerous. After a while, they began to fully focus on demon subjugations rather than provoking monsters that stuck to Verdant Oakwoods and didn't really harm humans, and thus left the Orc King to its own devices.

However, the other figure, specifically his armor, was even more of a shock. Blue and gold accents, with a large emblem of a gold shield on his back.

'Eldoria Kingdom's Royal Guard.

No, they never fought alone. Elara did tell us that successfully summoned heroes would be trained by the Royal Guard. That means-!'

One of the new Heroes. Just four days after the former heroes left Eldoria. Considering that they had probably spent a day in discussion or the like, it had probably been just three days after they had begun combat training. And they were fighting an Orc King?

'And it's a fucking one-on-one, no less! It took us months to be able to do that as a team—four of us against the Orc King! What the fuck?! How many skills—just what skills—did he have to acquire to enable him to do this shit? Fuck, this is bad. No, wait. I could just talk to him about the overflow he's causing, right? From what I know, the summoned must always be between the ages of 15 and 20, and they have to be from the same modern area I came from. I could definitely talk to him. I'll do that. After he's done with this fight, though, I'm not really in any condition to fight right now.'

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As Noah watched the Orc King get melted down by strange laser beams and absurd attacks, many of which originating from the Hero's hand that he shaped like a gun, Noah's face twitched continuously. The Orc King was being absolutely overpowered. This was not a fight; it was a beatdown.

This guy… might just be stronger than Noah.

Just 10 minutes. That's all it took. There was no doubt. Within just three days of being summoned, he was stronger than Noah. Still in his slime form, he watched as the Hero walked up to the King Orc corpse, then cast his gaze upwards to look directly in front of him.

An eerie moment passed where Noah watched from the left of the Hero, over a kilometer away, while the Hero looked straight forward at just the air. The next moment, the Hero vanished. Startled, Noah quietly slid behind another tree, attempting to gain a better vantage point, but his movements froze abruptly. A voice, chilling and dripping with unconcealed bloodlust, reached Noah's ears from behind.

"I don't believe we've met, but I've heard a couple stories over the past few days. Noah, was it? My failed predecessor? Awfully rude of you to spy on me, isn't it?"

Noah's face contorted into a nervous grin as he retorted,

"I'd say its even ruder to be pointing your finger in the shape of a gun at me like that. Never heard of respecting your seniors?"

There the Hero was, right behind Noah, not a meter away, with his index finger pointed at Noah, thumb pointed upwards, and other three fingers balled up, in the shape of a gun. Noah deliberately slowly transformed, so as not to alarm the Hero, into his original form.

"I'm not here to cause trouble, just to ask you to stop what you've been doing in Verdant Oakwoods. A lot of people are suffering because of an overflow of monsters you've been causing through what I assume has been back to back continuous subjugations."

"Hmm? I haven't been told about this. Elaborate"

"Well, this world doesn't have pictures or videos, so I'll use the economy to explain."

Still with his hands in the air and the finger gun pointed at his back, Noah started to talk about how even in Eldoria, plenty of people relied on Verdant Oakwoods to live and that the forest's ecosystem would collapse without the monsters in it, dooming those in Eldoria, as well as many other minor countries, to a fate of poverty.

"I'll take a look. I don't like how you've been spying on me, though, so I'll need you to pay a price. Don't worry, I won't kill you."

Noah's eyes widened. Pay a price? Was this guy a typical anime villain? What was this stupid shit he just said? All this without even giving out his name? The next moment, Noah detected a massive surge of mana swelling up, and the same blinding light that evaporated the Orc King's guts lit up the area. The air crackled with power, and a deafening, ear-piercing, high-pitched buzz reverberated through the air.

Noah looked down slowly, in sheer shock, as his mind raced to try to comprehend what he was seeing. There was a basketball-sized hole in his torso.