Leonard Magnolia let a long sigh of enjoyment as he took another sip of the calming and satisfying Blue Lake tea. As he basked in the late-morning sun that was taking away some of the autumn chill, while relaxing on the balcony of the top floor level of his mage tower, he thought back to what had happened earlier on, before dawn, when he was performing one of his magic experiments, in his magic tower's alchemy lab.

Even back then, he knew that today was going to be an unlucky day for him when the mind-enhancing magic potion he created caused the goblin's head to explode.

In the beginning, everything was going smoothly. He had brewed the magic potion with no problem. The potion even had a strong glow of magic light in it which proved that it would be a powerful magic potion.

And so, with blooming hope, he administered the potion to one of the imprisoned monsters that he normally used for testing—this time was a goblin. The potion proved to be working—for some time—with the goblin showing some improvements in its mental abilities. Believing that this was a breakthrough in his research, he had begun to record all that was happening with great excitement. For a moment there, it seemed like he might have managed to successfully create another valuable commercially viable product for the magic potion market.

Unfortunately, that was when it happened.

The goblin suddenly collapsed on the floor, and it began to thrash about and foam at the mouth. The little monster soon started bleeding from its orifices, and its little red eyes bulged out more and more, until it burst with bloody, gory bits flying about. Its head exploded soon after.

Leonard stood there shocked for a couple of minutes with goblin brains smeared all over his face and clothes. Then with a wry smile, he cast a spell to clean himself up. He ordered a clay golem to clean up the test room, then left for his living area which was located on the top level of the tower.

And so here was twenty minutes later, standing on south-facing balcony which had a view of the town below trying to shake off the feeling of disappointment from his most recent his string of failures in his research to create a new magic potion product that could boost and enhance an intelligent being's mental abilities either temporarily or permanently. The research was proving to be very difficult for him to complete, but it was also very important to his plans for the future.

Leonard leaned against the balcony, looking at the town sprawled in the valley below the small mountain on which his magic tower was built, as he thought, 'Thinking back now, the potion wasn't a complete failure. The goblin showed some signs of its mental capabilities having been enhanced a little for some time, but it died too soon, so the potion has proved itself to have some of the desired effects, but it has also shown itself to be too dangerous—to have such horrible and fatal adverse effects—for it to be used for such little benefit. I will try diluting the potion further while also continuing to attempt to maximize the enhancement effect. Maybe it will be safer that way. This will bring down its effectiveness some more, but at least it should be useful for something this way.'

Enjoying the calming effects of the tea, he looked down at the town. With the all-around boost to his body, which he had gained due to his legendary might and which enabled him to see much farther than the average person, he watched the tiny distant figures of people moving around in the town and going about their business.

A slight smile appeared on Leonard's face as he remembered how he had been so skeptical about the town when the mage council had assigned him to be the town's mage guardian—a job which was given to most high-rank and low-level legendary mages of the Magic Nation, Arendell.

As the ruling class, all mages of high enough rank were required to temporarily take residence for a particular period of time in city or town within Arendell and guard and protect this city or town, including the surrounding villages—or towns in the case of cities from any dangers that would be too much for the normal city guard—most especially, dangers of the magical kind.

Leonard, being the more magic research-driven type, had always considered such duties to be bothersome. He much preferred to remain in the magic academy, so he had always used his teaching job in the magic academy to postpone him being allocated such duties. But this time was different—he had accepted his duty and had agreed to come and guard this town.

But he had only agreed because he had reached a point in his very important magic research where he needed test subjects for his latest research in order to obtain more progress, so he asked to be assigned a town or city that was close to a monster-infested area.

And so, here he was—Forest Town. A town which would have been completely unimportant and ignored by the rest of the nation if it was not for it being so attractive to adventurers due to its close proximity to a part of the Great Forest.

*****

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