The joy that came when we got back home, and when I say home, I mean a small town near the border far enough away to not be targeted by the enemy kingdom, is gone.
After we popped into a small inn, I found myself in a relatively small common room with Mia and Raven, but the atmosphere in the room was anything but cheery. Being within the realm's territory, Raven decided to contact her superiors through a magical brew.
Usually, she avoids doing this and prefers to use messenger birds, but as the matter she has to deal with is important she decided to use this method of communication.
Unfortunately, the massages transmitted by magical tools of this level are very limited, even using a language in code that aims to expect more meaning using fewer letters and sounds, hiding the meaning of the conversation is very secondary for the person who creates this language, it is still difficult to have a conversation about a complicated subject.
And her explaining the existence and agreement she made with Mathias started out being a bit funny scene, but ended up turning into a very tense situation when she started to actively argue with the person who was on the other side of the conversation.
Using Mia as the operator for the magic tool, Raven would argue and insult the person on the other end of the conversation, but obviously Mia only sends the arguments and explanations through the magic tool, I'm not even sure in that secret language the ways to insult the other party.
It is a code created to be used in serious situations and emergencies, the creator may have even thought about how to put insults on it, but I doubt that this would be passed on.
The reason I'm here is for safety too, unfortunately any magic tool has flaws, although it's extremely unlikely and possible to intercept the signal or modify it if you're close enough to the magic tool.
It is a completely unlikely scenario, but my presence in the room is to ensure that the signal is not being copied or compromised. I believe Raven would be more than capable of noticing if someone interfered in her conversation, but since she's focused on the discussion, she's made me be on guard.
But taking away team members only low-level civilians close enough to be able to interfere with the mana signals released by the magic tool. But this easy task allowed me to have access to very up-to-date and important information about what happened and will happen.
I was quite surprised to learn that the war didn't stall as Raven thought it would, the movement of rebel slaves and exposure of a necromancer cult within the Mirue realm didn't have the effect she'd hoped. Unlike the scenario where the stable realms negotiate a pause in the conflict because of the cult, the current reality of war is that it is more intense than it should be.
The reason for this is that a newly promoted first class commander decides to screw with one of the enemy kingdoms, near the main front of the conflict, not only he invaded the territory of Mirue kingdom and killed a good number of soldiers and slaves, he destroyed a secret convoy and fire two small towns causing serious damage to the logistics of the army of the kingdom of Mirue.
All of this happened in a short period of three days, when the news that one of the secret lines of resources was passing through one of the cities destroyed by soldiers led by such a rookie commander, many officers and nobles of Mirue's kingdom wanted revenge.
Few of them seem to have attributed the cause for this event to happen to bad luck making it a unique event that was quite unlikely to ever repeat itself, I have to agree with the part of the luck Commander Brain Sunshine had to find himself in such a unique situation.
Not only was he lucky enough to find a secret convoy full of valuable resources from the enemy kingdom, he was also able to extract infamy from the route of the captured soldiers' convoy or from some secret map retrieved from the soldiers killed by his unit. He doesn't hear a detailed explanation as to how he managed to discover that a medium-sized village called Kitus was used as a secret stash of resources for the enemy kingdom.
But he hears a more detailed explanation of how he plundered and destroyed this village, to attract the soldiers who were secretly protecting this village he destroyed an even smaller village near Kitus in an extremely cruel manner.
The survivors who were intercepted by the soldiers who were in Kitus served to deliver the message that their small village would likely be the target of the cruelties of a group of wild and uncontrolled soldiers.
Something like this can be seen as common in a war between realms, but not so much at this stage of the war and when both realms know that the templars and priests are close to the conflict. But I think these abnormalities did not make the person responsible for the protection of Kitus village suspect that he was walking into a trap.
When he advanced with most of his men to eliminate the squad of crazy soldiers from the enemy kingdom who seem to be targeting small villages, what should normally be faced like this ended up in a massacre, even though Mirue's kingdom's elite troops had the quality advantage, but that wasn't enough when they were ambushed by Commander Sunshine's troops.
After that the village of Kitus was completely looted and destroyed to no longer be able to be used that way. Great victory, but many people on both sides didn't like Commander Sunshine's initiative so much, unfortunately they couldn't harm someone who comes from such an important family in the capital and who just made such a profitable move.
And this event made the conflict between the three kingdoms more intense and bloodier to the point that the news of our team's success wasn't all that useful, the plans to use the rebel slaves and Mathias better embody a long war of wear and tear and not in the massacre that has taken place in recent weeks.
With Mathias' forces in place, he could at most use his slaves to put some fear into the smugglers, attacking some supply lines as he has done before with the cult's assistance and trying to wait for some slaves who are really furious about being a slave. revolt on the front lines.
This last one can even have a big package if the slave decides to revolt at a really opportune moment, but he also has to be very brave and suicidal, unfortunately this type of slave is very rare to exist.
Many may hate to fight for the realm that enslaved them, but scorching death this way is complicated, because the fear of death is not just about dying, it's also about how you will die if the slave is captured after trying or succeeding in sabotaging a fight battle, he will suffer a lot before dying.
But even with all these advantages Raven is struggling to get the army to release a number of resources to fund the men and women led by Mathias, but the person on the other side is not very willing to do that.
Waste of resources, helping them would put the spies inside Mirue's kingdom in danger, secret bases in the kingdom became targets for the kingdom's army, they wouldn't be very useful now and to finish the goddess church Elena wouldn't be happy, so needing a certain bishop could be a big problem for the kingdom if it finds out what Raven has done and wants to do.
But after a long argument and Raven almost creating some holes in the wall from being angry, but she managed to control herself and convince the army to send the resources she promised Mathias, plus the poor table where the magic tool was being operated by Mia. was not so lucky.
The edge of it was broken when Raven squeezed her when she insulted someone a sightless idiot and a coward, it was amusing to see Mia drag the magic tool away from Raven when the table was destroyed.
"Coward bastard, do you believe that little shit's audacity? Did he really think he had the authority to censor my message? When I get back to the capital, I'm going to have a good talk with this shit."
"Try not to destroy all the furniture in the room, they can be cheaper and better not to attract attention like that."
"Just an excuse for the owner of the inn, the wood is very cheap. A few gold coins for the innkeeper and that problem disappears, unlike the problem we have now with Mathias."
"Because of this damn Sunshine our plans are going to have to change a lot and to do that we need to spend even more money to finance the slaves, only a violent uprising involving many explosions can disrupt the logistics of the army of the kingdom of Mirue."
"I doubt it's allowed to smuggle large amounts of rune arrangements into Mirue's realm, and it's easier to use these materials directly in battle."
"If the church hadn't censored the tactics of warfare that can be employed during war, yes, but we both know that's not going to change. The damn bishop doesn't want this war to end so quickly or be responsible for natural disasters in the region, the cretin will just let the kingdoms kill each other later and get the artifact he wants."
"Shouting in person or from a distance will not convince anyone in the capital that you are right, you will have to be creative as always."
"I know, and I already have the idea of how to do it. Submission of materials has been approved, but that does not mean that we cannot accurately choose materials and use them before they reach the slaves."
The way Raven is looking at me makes me uncomfortable, I think I'm going to be buried in a ton of work in the near future.