Chapter 2160: Erol in Dune Town

The rebel forces consolidated and planned in the town, regained their footing and their energies as they made plans on how to handle their incoming attack.

The best way was still to wait for Metteo to go into a war with a territory and then take advantage of the chaos. How could they lure Metteo to a war or get attacked?

They did not dare ask Alterra, and they mentioned that they wouldn’t start unnecessary wars, regardless of the benefits.

This was admirable. From what he learned, there were very, very few wars Alterra started, and it was always for the good of the citizens long-term.

The current interactions with Metteo Town were lacking in a lot of places, but it was serving its purpose for the most part. They also had Dune Town as a subsidiary, so there really weren’t any benefits to this.

They could handle their own affairs; they received more than enough help from others. They did their best, kept quiet, and quietly consolidated their resources.

However, how could something like this be completely smooth?

Even if they had been peacefully planning and preparing over the past month or so, there were bound to be a few leaks.

Fortunately, the partnership between Dune Town and the rebel group was a secret that only the top personnel knew about. So, most were unaware that the Dune Town Lord would bother checking posts to or from Metteo and then forwarding information as needed.

From there, Asis saw a letter heading to Metteo, and his eyes darkened at its contents. It was from one of the Metteo residents in their town, but the content...

It mentioned that there were plenty of people preparing to rebel in Metteo, and they had congregated in Dune Town for one reason or another.

There was a traitor!

While it didn’t mention the direct involvement of Dune Town and its administration, the other side now knew they were congregating here, which was enough to cause an alarm and prompt the other side to send people here to check the situation.

Sadly, Lords could only see the contents of posts but not block them from getting sent out.

This could get troublesome, especially since Metteo Town had been in this rank for a lot longer than Dune Town. If they decided to make trouble with Dune Town, then there would be losses even if they won.

Fortunately, the connections between them and Alterra were hidden, and there had been no contact between them and Ryan’s group, otherwise even Ryan’s group—who were peacefully training with the Undead— could’ve been in trouble.

He immediately got one of his servants who was not openly associated with him to forward this message to Erol. They were also careful, and the messaging always had a meetup point, never directly to Erol’s Villa.

It wasn’t that they were afraid of Metteo. If it really came down to a war, Alterra would definitely support Dune. It was just that they wanted to avoid it as much as possible.

Erol snuck around and went to the Lord’s palace in secret to meet up, explaining the rest of the plan, and also to reassure him. He owed a lot to these people, and he felt embarrassed that they had to spare any more thoughts for him than they already had.

"Don’t worry, Milord," he said. "We have taken this into consideration."

It was inevitable to have weak links. Although not really planned, they just saw this as clearing up the inside."

They did not have the time or resources to check on everyone and investigate who the spy (or spies) could be, which was why most plans were made privy to the top members alone.

What was revealed to those below was just the basic framework, many of which were on a need-to-know basis, so they only knew the parts they were directly involved in.

The next day, they received news from their spies that Metteo might start a war on them. For a while, they considered just going with the flow. However, Asis really didn’t want to go to war at their stage, and since they were so far away, the assistance Alterra could give them was limited.

For example, it would probably be limited to those already in the region. This was a big injection of force, of course, but since Dune Town was a newly upgraded Town, they still lacked the foundation that Metteo had.

If it really pushed through, it would be too much of a loss for a problem that wasn’t theirs at all.

In the end, Asis and his cronies spread rumors of an illness. It was just the ’green soap illness’ which was starting to become one of Alterrans’ favorite strategies when they entered weaponless battles.

It has limited effectiveness though, because it has been used more than once already. However, it should still be effective because Metteo was so far away from where they had used this.

Anything unknown and mysterious was scary, and they planned to take advantage of that.

They spread this news out, even sending some people stationed in Metteo, spies or not, to ask them for help to heal the disease. They even made a show of someone fainting, his body and face filled with pus.

Other actors came over and took away the corpse, cementing the seriousness of the situation.

Just like this, because Metteo was afraid of infection, the war between Dune Town and Metteo was withheld.

However, even if Metteo didn’t go to war with Dune Town, they had to push it to go to war with someone else.

If they wanted to take over since the Lord there absolutely wouldn’t separate the token from their bodies. People were just like this; since the token could not be placed in their space, then they would always put it in their bodies.

Now...how to push Metteo into war without dragging Dune Town into this?

This was Sinnan’s main assignment lately.

Sinnan, who had learned a lot from Alterra, had implemented a lot of departments in his hometown. One of these was their own intelligence and reconnaisance team.

Though the current organization was not nearly as detailed and complex as the one in Alterra, it was still a foundational department with some skills.

They also received a little information from Ryan and them before they started hunting for Undead, and a lot of them were rumors and some useful information about the Metteo leading family. A lot of these information was gathered even before, back when Althea and Garan were there.

They also got a bit of information about the level 2 towns in the region and the next through Alterra. The intelligence team’s job was to consolidate and verify information, though if it was from Alterra, only the former had to be done.

Anyway, they eventually zeroed in on a candidate.

"The leading family of Pinggot town had always been overbearing. Among level 2 towns of the world, they were some of the most warmongering ones."

Towns generally did not go through wars often. Once every several months was already very frequent and brave. This Pinggot town was such a town, and even worse sometimes.

They were a town located at the fringes of the drylands and the fertile lines. They developed by targeting the weakened desert territories.

Their strategy varied. For the most part, if the town had been weakened greatly by the weather, monsters, or by a drought, then Pinggot Town would do something to exacerbate the effects and then defeat that territory.

It was not too far and was annoying enough; it was the perfect enemy for Metteo.

At this, Sinnan looked at Erol. "We can tell our spies to plant the seeds of trouble," he said. Sinnan had also planted spies in Metteo even before.

"The rest is up to you."

...

After some hours of planning and the like with Erol and Asis, Sinnan finally headed home.

He was surprised to see Medusa there rather early. Usually, she’d still be locked in her laboratory by this time, focusing so she could finally return to Alterra.

It wasn’t that Alterra was keeping her there, of course. She had her own laboratories—big ones—in Alterra. She was here mostly due to her obsessive nature.

"What’s wrong?" she asked and Sinann flinched a bit. Medusa had always been absorbed in her experiments. How often did she ask him of this?

"Just a few troublesome things," he said, shrugging.

Medusa looked at him and stared. Sinnan blinked, wondering what this was about. Unexpectedly, she stepped forward and pecked at his face.

"You..."

Even in her lab, she had felt the undercurrents in Dune Town. After all, they were very close to getting into a war.

Sinnan took a deep breath. "Are we officially in a relationship now?"

She blinked. "Haven’t we always?" Her tone was that of confusion, as if she was wondering why he didn’t know.

"..."

He smiled.

He had to admit that while he appeared nonchalant, he was actually very nervous about the plan with Pinggot Town. What they would do could go very wrong very quickly, after all.

Whatever challenges came their way, he knew they’d get through them.