Wizard:Start as a Potion Master

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By the next morning, Baron Frank followed his usual routine, instructing his personal servant—a high-ranking household staff member—to bring him a basin of hot water.

After washing, he summoned a soldier recently promoted to his personal guard (as his previous guards had all perished). He inquired about the state of the Bulgars in his territory.

"Are they still laying siege to the castle? Have they continued pillaging the villages around my lands?"

Frank wasn't expecting any encouraging news. In fact, he was bracing himself for the possibility that the Bulgars might break through his castle walls and trample him to death under their monstrous beasts.

To his surprise, the soldier hesitated before replying, "M-My Lord... the Bulgars are not besieging us anymore."

Baron Frank froze, pulling the towel from his face to reveal a look of astonishment. "What? They've retreated? Impossible! They're not adept at prolonged sieges, but... I thought I'd have to pay them a ransom just to make them withdraw. This is... wonderful! Finally, I can have fresh vegetables and meat again. Do you know what I've been eating these days?"

The soldier glanced at the baron, bewildered that even now, the man's thoughts were fixated on his own dining prospects. Did he not realize that most of his citizens, even his family, had perished?

Hesitating further, the soldier continued, "My Lord, they didn't retreat. They... they all died. Every single Bulgar soldier in the area perished overnight."

Frank's eyes widened in disbelief. "What? How is that possible?"

The soldier nodded grimly. "Not only that. Their idols—those strange statues they carried wherever they went—disappeared as well. Everything they looted vanished alongside them."

Frank stared at the soldier, his face a mask of utter incredulity. He had fought against the Bulgars before, joining the kingdom's forces in employing traditional Storm Kingdom tactics: iron infantry phalanxes and cavalry wings. But against the Bulgar riders—mounted on swift, powerful beasts—those tactics had been laughably ineffective. The infantry phalanxes were clumsy, and the cavalry brittle.

Engagements with the Bulgars often ended in utter rout, the Storm Kingdom forces suffering devastating defeats.

How, then, could such a formidable force be wiped out in a single night?

The baron's thoughts raced. "If they're all dead, who will the Bulgars target next?"

His gaze turned southward, towards Baron Peter's lands. Muttering to himself, he said, "No wonder... no wonder Lord Su Nan refused to see us. He didn't need to intervene at all."

"My lands are devastated. Even without the Bulgars, the other lords in the region are my potential enemies now. And the remnants of the Eastern Empire's population within my territory—they'll surely rebel."

Fifty-seven years ago, the Eastern Empire had welcomed the Storm Kingdom's knights, believing they would deliver them from a corrupt and oppressive government.

But the knights of the Storm Kingdom had proven far worse. They abolished corruption only to impose feudal rule, extracting even heavier taxes. They eliminated weakness but brought with them a brutality and crudeness far exceeding the bureaucrats of the Eastern Empire.

Now, dissent simmered across the Storm Kingdom's territories.

"I need an ally," Frank thought grimly. "Without one, my family will be wiped out."

The soldier broke the silence, adding, "We inspected the corpses, my lord. They were covered in wolf bites. At both sites, we found a medallion bearing the emblem of the Peter family from Mapleleaf Town."

---

In Baron Simon's territory, Simon, who had lost an arm in a Bulgar raid, drowned his sorrows in drink daily to numb his pain and fear.

When news arrived at midday of the mass deaths in Frank's lands, he was so stunned that he stood up abruptly.

Upon learning the details, he muttered under his breath, "Who could have done this? The most likely suspect is..."

His thoughts turned eastward, toward Baron Peter's lands. "It has to be them. From now on, no one in my territory is to provoke the Peter family. Spread the word—no trespassing, no provocations. Anyone who disobeys will face my wrath."

"Do you hear me?" Simon bellowed. "Disobedience will be met with death!"

---

That afternoon, in the Bulgar Tugor Clan's encampment near the mountains of Northern Thrace, the clan chieftain interrogated a survivor.

The man had been away from the camp during the attack, robbing villagers under cover of night. By sheer luck, he had escaped the slaughter. When he returned to the camp, he found everyone else dead.

The survivor recounted his story nervously.

The chieftain's fury was palpable. "So, two of our finest herds and their leaders are dead, and you have no idea who is responsible?!"

"By the Beast Lord, I swear I will crush the skulls of whoever did this!"

The Tugor Clan was small, with only a few hundred members. The loss of two herds was catastrophic.

But this wasn't a battle—they had merely been raiding the weak inhabitants of the Storm Kingdom, who were nothing more than sheep to the slaughter. How could such an annihilation happen?

The other herd leaders exchanged uneasy glances. They weren't here to die. They had come for loot, not war.

The chieftain himself was considering retreating. They had plundered enough and had no intention of settling here as lords.

At that moment, another Bulgar entered the tent, bringing news from the north.

"Great Chieftain, the Grass King Kaloyan has struck again. He has slaughtered another Storm Kingdom city of a hundred thousand souls—White City, in the kingdom's central region. He even burned their pride, the St. Sophia Cathedral, to the ground."

"The Grass King claims the Storm Kingdom people are treacherous. Priests within the cathedral attempted to assassinate him under the guise of surrender. In retaliation, he has ordered us to slaughter everything we see—surrendered or not. The Storm Kingdom must feel pain!"

The tent erupted in low, guttural roars of approval.

The chieftain, emboldened by the news, dismissed his earlier hesitation.

"We will not retreat. For now, we'll avoid that direction and attack other territories. Once more clans and tribes arrive, we'll combine forces, reopen the raid route, and burn every field and kill every lord along the way!"

Laughter filled the tent, mingling with bloodlust and the promise of more destruction.

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