I opened an adventurer's guild in another world.

"After the previous mayor was killed while exploring the forbidden forest, I came here to take office, and this thing has remained here ever since."

I still don't understand what this is for. Does Lord Anno know?

Anno shook his head and said, "I don't know the specifics either, but could you give me this?"

Upon hearing this, Ria replied without hesitation, "It's just an ornament to me. If Lord Anno needs it, please feel free to take it!"

For Ria, exchanging a stone disc of unknown purpose for Anno's favor was well worth it.

Moreover, if the goblin elites really attacked, they wouldn't take this decorative stone slab with them when they retreated.

Anno took the palm-sized stone slab and examined it carefully.

Aside from the magic runes on it, there was nothing particularly special about it.

"Does it have to be placed in that dent?" Anno wondered to himself.

Upon exiting the council chamber, Anno found Liz waiting outside.

Seeing that Anno was holding a stone slab in his right hand, Liz asked in confusion, "Master, why are you carrying a stone slab with you?"

"This should be embedded in the center of that church!"

"Huh, this size...it really does seem to be true."

"Let's ignore that for now and go check out the situation outside town!"

Anno walked to the Wind Wolf's side, and the latter bent down on his own initiative.

After Anno and Liz got on, the wind wolf panted and ran out of town.

On the streets of the town, the workers that Ria had sent out were shouting that monsters might attack the town and urging everyone to go back and pack their things to be ready to flee at any time.

Upon hearing the news, all the townspeople rushed home.

Along the way, Anno has only seen chaos.

After arriving at the entrance, Anno continued walking for a while until he reached an observation point from which he could observe the edge of the Forbidden Forest.

The forbidden forest was only a few hundred meters away, and three guards were looking nervously toward it.

"What's going on?" Anno jumped off the wind wolf and asked the guard beside him.

The guards all recognized Anno. One of them pointed to the forest and said, "A few dozen goblins rushed out just now. After we saw them, we were planning to return to Gruul Town, but we found that they went back into the forest and then there was no more movement."

"Did they rush out and then turn back?"

Anno frowned, then rode his wind wolf in another direction and summoned a harpy where the guards couldn't see him.

The harpy flew towards the Forbidden Forest to begin investigating.

As they flew to the edge, Anno saw several shifty-looking goblins through the harpy's vision.

These low-level goblins were at the edge of the forest, looking outwards.

"What's going on? Why do they seem afraid we'll break in?"

Those goblins were clearly acting as sentries, observing the situation outside the forest.

This left Anno somewhat bewildered.

"Liz, are you sure there are nearly two thousand monsters in the Forbidden Forest?"

"This is what the Goblin King told me himself. If he's not lying, then it's two thousand!"

"Did the Goblin King tell you why, with so many people, it doesn't just launch large-scale attacks on human villages and towns?"

Liz nodded and said, "The Goblin King said he didn't receive orders from the Ai'er Mountains. However, I don't think that's the reason. Although I haven't had much contact with the Goblin King, he seems very cowardly to me. Even though he's already level 11 and still in his lair, he's always accompanied by a group of level 10 guards wherever he goes."

Anno looked puzzled after hearing this.

However, judging from the current situation, the monsters of the Forbidden Forest will not rush out of the forest to attack the villages and towns.

This could be an order from the cowardly Goblin King.

"We can't jump to conclusions too early. It's daytime now; they could very well attack the village at night!"

Anno licked his lips and sent the harpy flying into the forest to continue gathering intelligence.

To Anno's surprise, the elite goblin group seemed to have really retreated back to the core area. The harpy flew all the way to the church ruins without seeing any monsters above level 6.

"Have they really retreated?"

After thinking for a while, Anno summoned a level 5 goblin again—the previous kobold had been pierced through by Sharp's spear and died after a short while, freeing up a summoning slot.

The summoned goblins ran into the Forbidden Forest, found the few goblins on lookout duty, and began to gather information.

The goblins on guard duty never expected that the goblins in front of them were summoned by humans.

When they heard that the summoned goblins had just woken up from some secluded corner and rushed over, the sentry goblins began chattering away, explaining Anno's summoned creatures.

What? The human advance team just entered the forest and killed many monsters, but many humans were also killed.

This includes instances where humans were hunted down by goblin races in the core area and forced to flee the forest.

All of this is something Anno knows.

When Anno, controlling the goblin, asked why they didn't chase after them, the other goblins looked at the summoned goblin with puzzled expressions.

"Are you still half asleep? Once we reach level 6, we need to live in the core area. Without a mission or the King's permission, no one above level 6 can leave the forest!"

Why?

"Rules are rules, why ask so many questions?"

"So, does that mean the goblins that came out of the core area have all retreated?"

"Of course! We were sent here to keep watch. If any more humans come in, we'll report it to them immediately."

Hearing this answer, Anno, who was hiding in the distance, breathed a sigh of relief.

He returned to his previous observation post and told the guards that the crisis was over and the goblins would not attack the town of Gruul for the time being.

Then they quietly crept to the edge of the forest and killed the few low-level goblins on guard.

Logically, this is a time when the goblin population is on high alert, and they shouldn't continue venturing into the Forbidden Forest.

However, Anno had just obtained the Mysterious Stone Tablet. If he didn't put it back now while the goblin elites were returning, it would be much more difficult to do it again if the Goblin King later sent a group of high-ranking goblins to use the church ruins as a base.

This situation is not impossible!

Using the safe route explored by the harpy, Anno quickly arrived at the church ruins.

Reaching the central area, Anno found the depression, took out the stone slab, and inserted it into the depression.

"Buzz~!"

After the stone slab was inlaid, it suddenly emitted a faint white light.

Then Anno had an idea!

He offered his collected monster souls to the stone slab!

"this......"

Anno suddenly widened her eyes, shocked by her own thoughts.

I tentatively offered the souls of ten white-level slimes.

Anno then discovered that the souls of ten slimes flew out of his body and were sucked into the stone slab.

The stone slab shone even brighter after absorbing the soul.

"This must be related to the God of Summoning!"

After having a guess in his mind, Anno offered up the remaining hundreds of white-level souls one by one.

When the five hundredth white-level soul was offered, all the magic runes on the stone slab lit up and connected to the twelve stone pillars around it through several magic runes on the ground.

To Anno's astonishment, the bases of the broken stone pillars also emitted light, forming a six-pointed star array when connected.

Anno, who was inside the hexagram array, clearly felt that the speed at which his magic power was recovering was accelerating.

During the previous battle, Anno's magic power was almost completely exhausted.

However, it is currently recovering at a rate of 5 points per second!

At this rate, Anno's 1000 points of magic will be fully restored in less than four minutes!

In addition, Anno's consciousness once again entered that void.