After his ’riveting’ conversation with Trevor, Dale left the latter’s room.

Now that he had completed his task and had to wait until his weapons were ready before he could take them, there was nothing urgent on his mind.

Granted, there were still the renegade recruits but he was no closer to knowing their identities not to mention actually catching them.

Obsessing over them would quickly turn him into an obsessed maniac.

And he didn’t want to return to his room so soon. It was at moments like this that he wished he actually had a phone.

’But what did people do before phones? Read? Yeah... read.’ He was pretty sure that the boot camp had a library.

Austin had been there a couple of times. His roommate had invited him by he had always managed to avoid going.

Who knew that one day he would find himself going there himself?

He walked slowly through the camp. There was no hurry.

They were just approaching the winter solstice so there was still quite a bit of time before the second year began.

Dale stepped into the library and the air left his lungs.

The Library was a room as large as it was magnificent.

Thousands of 5-meter-tall shelves stood neatly beside one another with letters hanging above each row.

The library was divided into various sections, each one with a sign: fiction, history, philosophy, science, healthcare, and so on.

And under each section were shelves labeled A - Z.

’Impressive.’ Dale couldn’t imagine how long it had taken them to find all these books, arrange them into each shelf, and document them.

’This place is no different from a labyrinth.’ With how large and monochrome everything was, he could easily see himself running into here to hide from people.

’Perhaps...’ He tucked the thought to the back of his head. It wasn’t like he’d actually go around looking for someone to be after his life.

The one he already had was a handful in and of itself.

With nothing else to do and no real destination, he started wandering through the history section.

Dale absentmindedly noticed the mention of previous world wars pre-pool discovery.

’World War 1. World War 2... Huh? Why were these people naming world wars like movie franchises?’ The absurdity of it wasn’t lost on him.

War was a dastardly thing. Even he knew and he hadn’t experienced one yet.

Though that was bound to change very soon.

Dale couldn’t imagine the entire world being at war with one another... at least that’s how he imagined it.

Because if it were just some countries fighting and they called it World War. He stopped, surely no one will be that narcissistic.

’Either way, it’s the world leader’s fault. Because why would you assign the world war numbers as though you were anticipating another one?’

He briefly scanned their dates. ’Are these people crazy?! It wasn’t even up to 50 years between the first and second!!’

Dale shook his head. No wonder only a few nations were left intact.

Well, he couldn’t blame them. The real reason was technically the beasts but he was sure human stupidity had a play in it!

He had never seen the appeal of war. Sure he knew that humans were often selfish and greedy.

If someone tried to encroach on his possessions, he’d fight but to involve an entire nation? That was too much.

It would be better if the leaders of each nation got in a ring and wrestled it out. He almost laughed at the bizarre thought.

Nonetheless, he wasn’t there to contemplate the nuances of war and battle. If anything, he was here to fight off boredom.

Dale turned away from the history books and continued walking.

Eventually, he came across the maps and outline section of the library.

He walked to the end of the very last shelf and picked up a rolled-up map.

With nothing else to do, he walked to the nearest table and removed the map from its case.

Dale unfolded it until the paper covered the entire table.

He stared at the outline of the world and the three nations.

A map of Earth lay bare before him with only three continents bearing a nation’s insignia.

What was once known as North America now bore the familiar bronze eagle atypical of the Utra nation.

On the far end was Asia, now with an image of a snake coiled around a golden scepter. The Rima Council.

Then finally, South America. Their enemy in the upcoming war.

Their flag and insignia were merely occupied by a crown. The symbol for the head of the Aereon kingdom.

Each of the continent-sized nations had a different ruling party and structure.

For the Utra nation, it was the government — and the military — that led it and provided whatever aid was needed by the people.

But according to the information he had gotten from Trevor, there were also the family heads involved in the ruling of the nation.

The Rima Council took a different approach to its ruling caste. Though Dale wasn’t too sure what that was.

His eyes landed on the Aereon kingdom. Every single recruit within the Utra nation knew all there was to know about the Kingdom.

Not that it was outside expectations... knowledge was power and power won wars.

The Aereon kingdom was strictly led by its Royal family and their strict, borderline obsession with the purity of blood.

According to what they had been taught, the late King Aereon had apparently singlehandedly saved the nation from condemnation during the initial arrival of the beasts.

That set his family’s power in place. How they have managed to keep power though was unknown to everyone.

Just because those were the only nations didn’t mean that those were the only expanses of land.

In fact, there were still three more.

There was Africa whose structure seemed to have lost more than half of its landmass.

Australia had been completely wiped off the map.

Antarctica was completely marked in red as a death zone. It was completely overrun with bloodthirsty beasts.

Then the last standing place was Europe. Nobody knew for sure what was there and neither did they bother themselves with investigating.

Dale shuddered. Compared to how the world was now, even the world wars seemed basic.