I don't know how long it had been, but no one had said a thing since the start of our carriage ride to Fort Vozal. If I had to guess, they were probably still processing what they had seen that morning, and I couldn't even bme them. We're dealing with some sick bastards, I thought to myself as I remembered those children. Their pleading looks still haunt me even now, I thought while resisting the urge to bite my lip. How did he even manage to do it? Sages were magic units, but that enemy commander inflicted heavy physical wounds. It was a type of magic I was unfamiliar with, but that was barely the beginning of the questions I had.

  "Has anyone learned anything new about the Empire?" I began, trying to break the ice. And Lucia, who was sitting to my right nodded. We needed all the information we could get about the monster we were facing, so I was happy to learn as much about them as I could.

  "This goes back to Batti's question, but reading through its history books, I found out why the Empire has not yet colpsed despite its constant wars," She said with a difficult look on her face.

  "Why is that?" I asked.

  "There's a method to their madness. They call it the War and Peace Cycle, and it's what has kept them for so many years."

  "War and Peace Cycle?" Batti asked with one brow raised.

  "Yes, the Empire always finds itself in one of the 'two eras', as they like to call them. Essentially, they allow their manpower and resources to recover in an era of peace, only to funnel those resources back into expansion in an era of war. Of course, their extensive trade network with the nations they've conquered also helps keep them afloat, but that's the basic gist of it."

  "An endlessly repeating cycle," I muttered in sheer amazement. Either they were geniuses who found a clever way to prevent their eventual destruction or one of the two powers Isis told me about was backing them. I'm guessing that's the Goddess they believe in, I thought, but that led to another question, Who is backing Camelia? And what are his intentions? No matter how much I thought about it, I couldn't figure it out, so I chose to ask the second most pressing question on my mind,

  "Do 3rd tier csses exist?" It was such an innocent question, but the looks they all gave me made it seem like I had broached a taboo topic.

  "That's a difficult question to answer," Lucia began.

  "Some cim they exist while others deny their existence," Hertz added.

  "Yeah, this division in opinions has led to countless arguments among schors about the great Sage Leo," Lucia expined.

  "So, Leo was a 3rd tier css?" I asked, and she nodded, saying,

  "I believe he was an Archsage, a css that no longer exists, but many would disagree with me, stating instead that he was the greatest Sage to come out of the Kingdom. That assertion is correct, but his power definitely surpassed that of your average Sage," She looked like she was having a field day as she expined all of this.

  "What kind of magic did he use?" I asked, finding myself more and more intrigued.

  "Archsage Leo wielded two legendary tomes, the Space Tome and the Camity Tome. These tomes were said to contain power that could affect the nations on a global scale and at the peak of his power, he could destroy entire Empire divisions with a single spell from the Camity Tome. However, it was lost somewhere along the line, and no one knows where it is to this day. I'd love to find it!" She gushed with excitement as she told us many more stories like these, and I became increasingly convinced as she did so. 3rd tier csses exist. This is going to be a real headache.

  I'd been training them all this time to ensure our ultimate survival. I thought that if we all got to level 100 we'd be able to coast the storm, but... This changes everything, I thought to myself, resisting the urge to groan as we continued on our way to Fort Vozal.