“Finding the heroes? Are you sure this is a good idea?” William asked.

Lucas nodded.

“Yes, why not? It’s the only way for us to have a chance of fighting this mysterious man and his organization.”

William didn’t know how to feel about the idea. Sure, it was a good one considering this man was looking for him as well, so having the other heroes back him up would be nice. It meant he’d have a much better chance of surviving.

However, there was something important he wanted to know.

“Do you know where any of them are?” William asked.

Lucas scratched the back of his head, and after a pause, he said, “No… That’s the problem. I only know where the professor is. As for the rest, no idea. They could be anywhere in the world.”

“Anywhere in the world? Damn it, this is going to be hard.”

William paced back and forth inside Lucas’s room, his mind racing through the possibilities. He knew Lucas wasn’t lying—the man couldn’t lie with the demonic energy inside his body.

So this mysterious man who’d killed some of the summoned heroes and forced the rest to flee was in fact real. But William still didn’t feel like he was in danger.

“Why didn’t he come find me?” William asked. “I mean, how is everyone else hiding?”

“Well, the man is powerful, but it’s not like he can know where we are. All the heroes know how to use magic to hide their locations. As for you… well, if the stories are true and you can travel between different times, that’s why he couldn’t find you yet.”

The initial plan had been to use Lucas to fight against the professor, but now everything had changed. William liked where this new plan was going.

“Let’s go talk with the professor then,” William said. “But if he tries anything, I’ll use you to fight against him.”

“No problem, friend,” Lucas said, clapping William on the shoulder. “We’re teammates now.”

They left Lucas’s room, walking through dark corridors with zero security—that was a private area, so it made sense the guards there were nonexistent.

The professor, Thompson, opened the door after a few knocks, and when he saw someone else with Lucas, he frowned.

“Who is this?” Thompson asked.

“Can we come in and talk?” Lucas said.

He opened the door for them to enter. Inside, Lucas explained the situation to him, and when he heard that William was one of the heroes, Thompson couldn’t believe it.

Thompson stared at William’s face for a long time until he finally recalled it. “Man, it has been so fucking long. I mean, we arrived in this world together, and then that guy from the temple just kicked you out. I’m really sorry for not helping you…”

William had been angry with the summoned heroes for not helping him. He understood Kevin, one of the heroes, not helping him—he’d hated William to the bone.

But the rest could have done something.

Lucas could see William’s expression and understood the feelings he harbored.

“We tried to help you, but the guy from the temple didn’t let us. He was much stronger than us, so in the end, we couldn’t help you at all. Then, you simply vanished…”

William decided to trust them, as they were actually treating him well and seemed genuinely sorry for what they’d done.

Also, the idea of finding everyone to have a better chance against that mysterious man excited them, giving them new hope.

“All the heroes who fled are certainly working hard to get stronger, but the higher your level, the harder it is to level up. All of them are over level 100, with a few reaching 120,” Thompson explained.

“As I can see, you’re what, almost level 60? I mean, it’s not bad at all. We had years of training, and you just teleported into the future. But if we want to have a better chance in the future, you need to grow stronger. You’ll have to level up in five years what we did in fifty.”

That was the first problem William had to face. Compared to the other heroes, he was much weaker. And if the mysterious man had easily dealt with them, then he was incredibly strong.

“Do you know what level this man was?” William asked.

“No idea,” Thompson said. “He just kicked our asses fifty years ago. We were already almost level 100 at that point, yet it was impossible to fight him. Now, fifty years later, we’re somewhat stronger, but I don’t think our power comes close to his. At least that’s how I feel when comparing myself to him during training or fights.”

They hadn’t encountered the man again to test their strength a second time, but Thompson was always fighting and pushing himself to new heights, and his power still wasn’t close to the mysterious man’s.

“But what’s the goal? Does he want to control the world?”

“Apparently, yes. The heroes are the only ones with a chance of facing him, so he wants to kill us all before we get powerful enough. Also, I have a feeling he wants to find a way to go to Earth and conquer it too.”

“What?” William said, his tone rising.

Return to Earth! That was something he hadn’t expected to hear. Why would someone want to leave a world of magic to return to that place?

Well, apparently, things were different on Earth. Lucas was the one who explained it to William this time.

“As far as we know, from the guy who summoned us, when he did that, Earth awakened mana as well—like a side effect of summoning us, I think. So basically, you could say Earth is infested by magical beasts too, and people can level up and so on. It’s basically a similar planet now compared to this one.”

William stood silent, processing the information. The idea of returning to Earth had never crossed his mind, as it didn’t make sense to abandon all the magic and power he’d gained just to become normal again.

But now things had changed. It was something to think about in the future.

However, his focus at that moment was to survive against the mysterious man, and more importantly, find the remaining heroes.

Thompson, just like Lucas before, got excited about it.

“So we’re basically a team? I mean, we must be careful, since we can’t draw attention. What about we create a secret organization? The heroes can be the leaders, and we can recruit others.”

Lucas chimed in, “I think the true leader should be William. He’s the strongest among us, at least that’s what we know. He has the highest potential.”

“Right,” Thompson agreed, and then something clicked in his mind. “Wait a second.”

William and Lucas stared at him.

“We know now that William has the highest potential and will be the strongest hero, but we didn’t know back then. Why did that guy from the temple want to expel William so badly, just randomly, claiming he was too weak? Could that guy—Elric, I think—be working with this mysterious man somehow?”

“If so, then why didn’t he kill us right then?” Lucas asked.

“Maybe he wants the power of the heroes to do something? I mean, that’s the only reason I can think of.”

“That could be the case. And he expelled you hoping you would die in the process,” Thompson added.

Now things were starting to make sense for them, at least somewhat. There was still a lot they didn’t know, but it was a start.

“We should leave this place then, and go find the remaining heroes. It will take us a long time to do it, and first we need to start our own secret organization to help us,” Thompson said.

William wanted to destroy the Lich and return control of that kingdom to humans before he left for good.

“Can we help those in the revolution take back control and kill the Lich, and all the undead in this kingdom? Or will it be dangerous for us?” William asked them for their opinion.

“We could do it, but it will certainly draw some attention. For it to work, we must remain in the shadows, and avoid using powers that will link us directly to being summoned heroes,” Thompson replied.

The team was finally formed, and they had some initial ideas of what to do.

The first goal was to stop the whole blood harvesting operation run by those mermaids.

“We only went along with this to find a way to help Lucas, though it wasn’t working very well. It seems your blood was what actually helped him in the end,” Thompson said. “I don’t want to leave knowing these mermaids kidnap humans and do these things. We should kill all of them.”

William was okay with that. The mermaids he’d known back in the past were very different. They’d been kind and tried to live in peace with humans.

The ones in this lake? They weren’t friendly at all. Leaving them alive wasn’t a good idea.

So the trio left the room during the night, preparing to attack and kill all the mermaids that very same night.

A slaughter was about to begin.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep