The intelligence room was the largest organization in the general headquarters of the First Army. This organization was responsible for screening and storing tons of information. Lotus and Fran created an underground chamber specifically for the General Staff, and 70% of the 200 General Staff members were working here.
At the same time, it was also the most energy-consuming office. The room was not only illuminated with the Stones of Lighting, but the workers here were also offered free Chaos Drinks at night. Many other departments were envious of the intelligence agents.
However, only the intelligence agents themselves understood the hardship they had been going through every day.
After Edith proposed the intelligence collection plan, they started gathering information. Every week, they received two to three encypted letters from the Kingdom of Everwinter and the Kingdom of Wolfheart, and now, they had collected nearly 100 so far.
Although the General Staff’s main duty was to analyze information, most of the time the letters were from the scouts, which were usually well-written, concise and easy to understand. However, the 100 messages they had recently received were all pieces of information written in broken sentences. It took them quite a while to first decipher the messages. As such, the screening process was as boring and time-consuming as playing a puzzle game.
This was, nevertheless, not the worst part.
The hardest part lay in handling the encrypted letters.
The agents did not understand why there was an increasing number of messages all of a sudden, as it was quite hard to obtain information now when the demons had closed the border of the Red Mist area. Yet after Hill Fawkes became the main intelligence officer, his agents started to use various strange ways to get the messages out.
For example, the letters could be hidden in animal skins or the interlayer of a shoulder pole. Sometimes, they could be inserted in the stomach of a pickled fish. Trading merchants in the occupied area became a fantastic channel to communicate information. A lot of times, those noble merchants unknowingly became the couriers.
Because of this, the encrypted letters were sent in all kinds of manners. The agents, for instance, had to take out a silk ribbon from the stomach of a fish while enduring the terrible odour. Before reading the message, they had to clean up the letter first.
Everybody would feel resentful when their work suddenly switched from writing reports leisurely while sipping the tea to transforming a variety of garbages into useful letters and information.
Nevertheless, although full of complaint and disatisfaction, nobody slacked off, as both Edith and Iron Axe were keeping an eye on this department. Therefore, nobody would be foolish enough to delay the work under these two people’s noses.
Edith saw Ion Axe discuss something with Hill Fawkes as she entered the intelligence room. There were around dozens of pieces of paper on the desk in the center of the room. Apparently, the clerks had made a copy of the letters.
She skimmed them through and found that most of them were from the Kingdom of Everwinter.
A large part of them seemed to be useless information providing few clues, such as “a new troop of demons garrisoned in the northern city today”, “a noble suddenly passed away, and someone inherited his title”, and ” a giant stone monster is lurking around the border area”.
Edith was not surprised that the intelligence collection plan could go so well in such a short time. The success was not only attributed to Hill’s hard work but also the “Black Money”.
After she suggested Iron Axe making contact with the sender of the black card, the mysterious man agreed to work at the front. Although he only sent a messenger, he overtly expressed his wish to provide help to Graycastle. The “Black Money” was started in the Kingdom of Dawn and also had certain influences on the Kingdom of Wolfheart and the Kingdom of Everwinter, mainly on the underground market and the Rats.
Rats could not collect very useful information due to various rumors and misinformation circulated in the neighborhood, but it was better than nothing.
Edith also noticed a particular message that indicated that “sailors were forced to work” in some cities.
“What do you think of it?” Iron Axe asked as he also noticed what Edith was staring at.
“If I remember it correctly, the third princess, Garcia, brought many ships when she attacked the Kingdom of Everwinter,” Edith said thoughtfully. “If the church didn’t destroy those ships, they’re probably still in somewhere in the Kingdom of Everwinter.”
“It appears that you’re quite concerned about this matter.”
“Compared to the others, this piece of news was obtained from various sources and is relatively reliable,” Edith said while extending out her hands. “Ships are mainly used for transportation. The demons may use them to transport their army or they plan to launch an attack on the sea. However, I don’t think they’ll attack us from the ocean.”
“What’s your reason?” Iron Axe questioned.
“The demons must have known the power of cannons after so many battles. They should have known that we’ll use cannons to repel them if they sail to the Archduke Island and the Sedimentation Bay. They won’t survive on a sailing ship,” Edith explained. “If they choose to go around the port of the Kingdom of Wolfheart and get to the interior of the Kingdom of Dawn, they won’t have enough Red Mist supplies. Therefore, I’m inclined to the former possibility. To win the war, the demons must assemble their army at the front as fast as they could and attack us by land and water.”
With these words, she looked toward Hill and asked, “What do you think?”
Hill bowed to Edith and answered, “Your ladyship, I’m not good at analyzing wars, so I don’t know which way the enemies would go. The only thing I can do is to collect the information and send it to the General Staff.”
“This is a smart man,” thought Edith.
He did not blindly follow her but made his own jugdements based on the information he had. He certainly knew what his strength and weakness were. No wonder the king asked him to organize the intelligence collection work.
“Even you can’t find more clues out of it. It’s probably a dead end,” Iron Axe said resignedly. “So, we only know that the demons would assemble armies, but we don’t know where they’ll go or what their intention is. This is so frustrating.”
“The Kingdom of Wolfheart has been completely evacuated, which is why Hill can’t put his man there. If you didn’t evacuate the country, we would have probably found some clues as to the whereabouts of the demons,” Edith said half-jokingly.
“I must obey His Majesty’s order,” Iron Axe defended while shaking his head. “Plus, the First Army can’t put their hope in some Rats.”
“We’ll send you more useful information in the future, sir,” Hill Fawkes suddenly spoke.
Iron Axe raised his brows and asked, “Are you saying the information later on will be more in detail?”
“That’s right,” Hill replied. “I’ve been staying in the circus in the Kingdom of Dawn for so long, and the most important thing I’ve learned is that as long as we plan it well, we’ll naturally obtain more information.”
“Really? Could you tell me more about it?” Edith demanded with some interest.