Entering an enemy’s stronghold was bad enough already on its own. Entering an enemy mage’s stronghold, on the other hand, was almost certainly assured to be an utter nightmare. A plethora of magical traps and defenses likely awaited whoever dared step within, all of them primed to inflict some particularly horrific fate. Bypassing and neutralizing the defenses was never a fun task, and the odds of suffering some agonizing injury in the process was incredibly high. Which was why they made Qorbin go in first.The assassin had protested, but not very heavily; he seemed to have recognized that Levi and Liliya needed some time to process what’d just happened. As such, he quickly disappeared into Hawke’s cottage, the door shutting softly behind him. It took only a few seconds before bright flashes of multicolored light began shining through the windows, accompanied by the sound of small explosions and muffled invectives. Levi doubted Qorbin was actually getting caught by the traps; more likely, he was setting them off on purpose so that he could disarm and dismantle them afterward.As they waited for Qorbin, Levi and Liliya ended up sitting next to each other on the swing set beside the cottage. The swing was a wooden seat large enough to seat two people. Surprisingly, it had survived the battle despite the destructive spells that’d been slung around. The cottage had survived as well, for that matter…Wait a moment.“Hawke was an Elementalist, wasn’t he?” Levi asked. “Remind me, what does that class entail again?”“Elementalists?” Liliya frowned but answered. “They’re an evolved form of the (...)