Chapter 4: The Era of the Misty Sea (Because They Already Have Machine Guns, Airships, and Cannons)

Just as Eros was about to give up hope, he faintly heard voices. They were soft, likely coming from a distance.

"Could it be the library staff?" he wondered.

Without hesitation, he followed the sound.

As he got closer, he saw two figures standing ahead.

One had a familiar head of short, golden hair and a broad, imposing back. Wait... wasn't that his father? And who was the person standing in front of him?

Eros glanced once, then twice, then a third time.

The woman facing his direction noticed him almost immediately as he emerged from the bookshelves.

She froze, then nudged the man in front of her—Eros's father, Duke Lenka Orich Nos.

"Someone's here! Someone's here!" she whispered urgently.

The Duke, however, remained unfazed. 

"Relax," he said casually. "I made sure all the servants were dismissed this morning. No one's allowed near the library today. There's no one here."

Despite his words, he turned around to check—and there stood his genius son, the pride of the family and the rising star of the duchy, looking utterly confused.

The Duke froze for a moment, then flashed an awkward yet polite smile and nodded at Eros.

Without another word, he grabbed the woman's hand and hurried away.

So that's why Eros hadn't seen anyone in the library. His father had cleared the place out. 

How irresponsible! The library wasn't a playground. Now Eros had to search for books all by himself.

Fortunately, the section he was in happened to contain the very books he was looking for. 

Rows upon rows of historical records lined the shelves. The discovery made him raise an eyebrow. Were those two planning to desecrate history here? How scandalous!

Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, Eros turned his attention to the shelves, searching for books that documented events from previous eras.

As he scanned the titles, he noticed a pattern: the closer the shelves were to the outer edges of the section, the more recent the books were.

Without wasting any more time, he headed straight for the innermost part of the section. 

There, he spotted exactly what he was looking for: The Annals of the Misty Sea.

The title alone told him it was related to the mysterious Misty Sea.

Without hesitation, he climbed the shelves and pulled down the thick, dusty tome. 

As for dirtying the shelves and other books? Pfft. Even if he decided to do a handstand and relieve himself on the shelves, who would dare scold him? He was the heir, after all.

The book, despite its age, was spotless. Clearly, someone had been diligently cleaning it. Eros couldn't help but marvel at the effort.

The library housed millions of books, and each one was kept pristine.

The sheer manpower and resources required for such a task were staggering.

It was a testament to the extravagance of feudal society—though he wasn't complaining, since he was now on the benefiting end of it.

Opening the ancient, grayish-black cover, Eros was greeted by pages of faded yellow, densely packed with text.

The ink had dulled over time, but the words were still legible.

And as soon as he started reading, he knew he had found the right book.

The book detailed the events surrounding the elves' departure from the Croatia Continent, but with far more depth than he had seen before. 

After the elves left, the two most powerful empires on the continent, long at odds, finally erupted into war.

The conflict dragged the entire continent into chaos, with smoke and death everywhere.

The bodies of the fallen were too numerous to bury, so they were dumped into rivers, left to be carried out to sea and fed to the fish.

But the sheer number of corpses turned the rivers red with blood, and the crimson waves flowed into the ocean, staining the waters.

The war raged on for three hundred years, and during that time, something strange began to happen at sea.

A mysterious mist started to rise, spreading rapidly.

Within a year, the entire ocean was shrouded in fog. Anyone who entered the mist vanished without a trace—no bodies, no survivors.

Even more terrifying, the mist began creeping toward the land. Coastal towns and cities were cut off overnight, their fates unknown.

Panic spread like wildfire. No one knew where the mist had come from or if it would ever stop spreading.

Doomsday prophecies abounded, and the war ground to a halt.

People lived in constant fear, dreading the day the mist would reach their homes.

But just as suddenly as it had appeared, the mist receded.

It stopped exactly 500 kilometers from the coastline, and from that day forward, humanity's exploration of the world was confined to that boundary.

The lands once engulfed by the mist were eerily silent, devoid of all life.

The mist had come and gone without explanation, leaving behind only fear and unanswered questions.

The surviving nations, shaken by the event, ceased their fighting and focused on rebuilding.

The fear of the mist was etched into the memories of every survivor, and thus, that era became known as the Era of the Misty Sea.

The day the mist first touched the land marked the end of the Second Era and the beginning of the Third—the Era of the Misty Sea.