After buying a few potions, they turned into a dark alley for a moment. Raiden began to fix their backpack with the potions while Iri was reading the piece of paper. She furrowed her eyebrows when she read the contents... she wondered why her mother didn’t tell her that they had some contacts in that town... with an elf, at that.

"We need to go," Iri said while she hid the paper away.

Raiden wanted to know about the message, but he decided to exercise his patience. In the end, Raiden assumed that their mother didn’t say anything since she wasn’t confident that they would walk around without looking for their informant. It made sense... they were newbies at that kind of job, after all.

Having secret informants in various towns and cities, especially during times of war, serves several crucial purposes. Informants provide valuable information about enemy movements, plans, troop deployments, supply lines, and strategic objectives. This intelligence can be vital for military planning and decision-making.

They can alert commanders to imminent threats or attacks, allowing for preemptive defensive measures or strategic maneuvers. It isn’t the same. In addition to gathering information, informants can conduct sabotage or subversion operations behind enemy lines. This can disrupt enemy operations and weaken their effectiveness. It wasn’t the same thing with their current situation since the enemies were beyond the ocean, but it worked to some extent.

Eventually, they returned to their camp, trying to look as unsuspicious as they could. When they found Lenore, Iri passed the message and then waited for some explanations, but Lenore just ignored it.

"You are smart enough to know why I did that, at least I think so..." Lenore said and then furrowed her eyebrows after she read the message. "This is annoying."

"What does it say?" Raiden asked. "There are some predictions of the enemies’ attacks based on the current politics of this country."

"How are they connected?" Iri asked.

"... Although the ordinary elves are pretty homogenous, they also have their own factions," Lenore said while holding her chin and studying her kids’ expressions a bit. "Some of them are pretty... harsh when it comes to the other variants of elves, but a few of them aren’t. That is all I can say out loud."

"Do you think the biggest faction wants to wipe out the smaller ones by collaborating with the enemies?" Raiden asked.

That idea seemed insane since the elves and dwarves would get weakened quite a bit in that process, but it made sense. Raiden thought that they weren’t numerous enough to do something like that, but it seemed that they felt that it might be worth the hassle.

"This is all conjecture. Our informant didn’t inform this with one hundred percent of accuracy," Lenore said and then smashed the letter before throwing it in the fire. "We will soon learn of that once we see the next attacks.

Raiden didn’t expect that he would have to consider the politics of another country so soon. This unexpected situation made him appreciate why his mother hesitated for so long before deciding whether to join the war. The political landscape in that nation was incredibly messy. Some factions within the country were so divided and ruthless that they were even contemplating purging their own people to gain more power or maintain control.

Raiden realized that if they could entertain such brutal thoughts against their own citizens, it wouldn’t be hard to imagine them doing even worse to their allies. This internal strife and potential for betrayal added a layer of danger and uncertainty that went beyond the battlefield. It meant that alliances were fragile and could be broken by hidden agendas and power struggles.

"Making us an enemy of them wouldn’t be a good idea since we serve as a defense to one side of their territory, so I don’t think that they will go that far, but..." Raiden thought while rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

Lenore must have understood that entering into an alliance with such a volatile and divided country was a significant risk. The internal politics of that nation could easily spill over and create complications, or worse, turn their supposed allies into adversaries. Raiden now saw that war wasn’t just about physical battles and strategies; it was also about navigating complex political landscapes, understanding the motives and machinations of others, and always being wary of potential treachery, even from those who were supposed to be on your side.

In the end, the group was told to move when the enemies attacked another port city, but they arrived too late to do anything aside from helping the wounded. By the look of Lenore’s expression, it didn’t seem that the attack alone could confirm anything.

It made sense that reading the enemy’s intentions wouldn’t be so obvious. Later, Raiden confirmed that the port didn’t below to one of the small factions that was considered a nuisance for the bigger ones.

At that point in time, Raiden realized that thinking about that kind of stuff would do him no good, so he just focused on his training and helping when it was necessary for the wounded.

"What about your friends, did they make any progress?" Iri asked while she saw Raiden training.

"I am not sure, they are still clinging to their parents like super glue," Raiden shrugged. "We were at the same pace before, so perhaps they did it."

Since it seemed that they were going to stay there for a while, the tension was wearing down on everyone, even more so on those who didn’t have much experience. It was only natural, so Raiden didn’t let that bother him.

In any case, it looked like things would be a bit different from now on since Lenore had a lot of meetings with Cailu, and after a lot of talking, she finally convinced him of something and called everyone to inform the news.

"After the last meeting, we decided that we will split our forces to defend some points of the border with more ease," Lenore explained. "We can’t stay here forever, so we need to destroy the enemy’s fleet whenever they show up to attack. We will reinforce the five port towns, and we will split into five groups to do so."

While that seemed like the best option, it was also a pretty bold move... it would be hard to work in coordination, and that would weaken them as a group as well. To make things more balanced, the most experienced warriors and the kids between 10 and 15 were all put on the same group, so Raiden, Ruth and Javier soon began to move to the port town on the extreme East of the Lunaria kingdom.