And so, here he was—Forest Town. 

Forest Town was a relatively small town located close to the Northern border region of Arendell. The town would have been completely unimportant and ignored by the rest of the nation if it was not for it being attractive to adventurers due to its close proximity to a part of the cold, dark, and always-snowing Great Forest of the North. 

The presence of adventurers and the establishment of a branch of the Adventurers Guild in the town, had attracted a constant flow of merchants and peddlers to the town. These merchants and peddlers were usually of the kind that dabbled in the monster body parts and monster products trade, so they came to the town because they wanted to buy the useful and valuable parts of the monsters that the adventurers killed while hunting in the forest.

And with the merchants building a market, restaurants, hotels, among other things, came an influx of other common folk from the neighboring villages and towns who wanted to take advantage of the new money-earning opportunities and the promises of the new jobs available in the town. The influx of these commoners into the town helped to slowly increase the town’s population over time.

Finally, the increased population of the town attracted some of the deity churches to come and establish a small temple in the town. Still, the number of altars and temples that had been established in the town had slowly increased over time until there were about six or seven of them. Though any deity church that had to travel all the way to this remote part of the mage nation was most likely one of the less important churches that worshiped a weak deity and that was not doing very well—Arendell, the nation of mages, had a notorious reputation among the deity churches for it being a nation filled with atheists and agnostics who valued magic the most, above even the gods.

The influx of these new people had added a surprising and unexpected hustling and bustling tempo to this little border town. 

And today as he was watching all this from high up on the balcony of his magic tower, Leonard believed that there may be hope for the town to grow into a full-fledged city after enough time. And with so many monsters being captured alive regularly by the adventurers he had employed to constantly replenish his stable of living test subjects and which enabled him to test all his research theories, he had also developed a fondness for this little town. 

Leonard swirled his tea cup slowly, a happy smile playing on his lips.

He hoped to stay here for a long time.

Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

A warning siren suddenly went off in the tower, blaring with deafening loudness and breaking Leonard out of his thoughts. 

‘Today is really not my day.’ He quickly gulped down the remaining tea, then he went back into the magic tower and proceeded to go check the magic-sensing device he set up in the tower.

The magic-sensing device in the tower was a magic artifact that constantly monitored the surrounding of the magic tower for any and all suspicious mana fluctuations—which was a pretty good sign of magic being used or a magic spell being casted in an area. It used the power that the magic tower had gathered to greatly increase the size of the area from which it can sense any potentially dangerous mana changes in the area. The device then showed the location of the mana fluctuation as a blinking light dot on a map, with the rapidness of the blinks being an indication of the scale or magnitude of the mana fluctuation. 

This magic-tower feature had always been one of the major reasons why mages loved to build and take residence in magic towers. The magic tower could help them detect large-scale mana fluctuations—which were caused by the casting of powerful spells—which were also often very destructive spells. 

Leonard saw a yellow light dot blinking on the map placed on the sensing device platform. The map showed the area surrounding his tower, including: Forest town, the nearby towns and villages, and the outer part of the Great Forest.

‘Yellow. This is a spatial fluctuation. And with how fast it’s blinking, it must be a massive fluctuation. And it’s a few kilometers north, in the outskirts of the forest. The only thing that can cause such a massive mana fluctuation is large-scale teleportation magic.’ Leonard thought with a frown as he looked at the map. ‘But there’s nothing at that location; it’s just wilderness there and some weak monsters. Why would someone set the destination of their large-scale teleportation spell there? Still, I will have to check it out. A mysterious large-scale teleportation spell suddenly appearing in one’s backyard is never a good sign.’

Having decided to investigate the area where the spatial fluctuation occurred, he walked up to a golem and said, “Inform Clyde that I want him to find Gundahar and tell him to come back to the tower to see me for an urgent matter. Tell Clyde to look for him first in the Adventurers Guild. He will most likely be there—or a tavern in the town—right now.”

After the golem left to deliver his orders to the servant, Leonard put on his combat mage robe, took his magic staff, and got himself ready for anything he might encounter while he was investigating the area. Of course, he strongly suspected that such a mysterious large-scale teleportation might have a malicious intent and purpose behind it. So, he was going to prepare for any possible fighting. And that was why he wanted his best friend, Gundahar, to accompany him there. 

There was no one that was better than Gundahar to have with him in a fight.

He harrumphed at his thoughts. ‘I’m sure he will like this situation. Lately, he has been complaining about the Adventurers Guild not having any interesting missions for him to complete and that he was bored.’ He rolled his eyes while remembering his friends complaints the previous night when they were drinking and relaxing in his tower.

Just then, Leonard heard heavy, thudding, fast-paced footsteps approach the door to the tower laboratory. 

‘Speak of the devil…,’ he thought.

The door was pushed open, and a huge man walked in. 

“Leo, my friend! I heard you have some good news for me! Finally! I have been itching for a good and exciting fight for so long!”

***

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