First of all, Raikan isn’t a person, it’s a group of people led by “Eternal King Jedo-Sama”, the one who killed the monster from the wine cellar. Apparently, he has a certain history with Baru, and I think he’ll turn out to be a major bad guy in the later parts of the series. Something I missed while watching episode 12. ^^
Anyway, about the episode, it’s got a healthy dose of background of Ibara. After all, Shirayuki teleported the group to her home country. Ibara indeed is the princess of her country (you’d wonder about the country Shirayuki is the princess of), so Souta and the others are welcomed with lots of hospitality. Surprisingly, Souta also gets a bit of development himself and I’m still waiting for that Akazukin-episode. Oh, and Ibara actually smiled for the first time ever. ^^
Souta doesn’t really know what happened to his mother. He just has dreams in which she’s kidnapped or in danger. It seems that she just vanished into thin air at one moment. Even photographs didn’t show her anymore. Ibara tells a cute story about her own clover. When she was young, she often used to play and talk with it, though one time, she fell asleep and her powers went out of control and caused a ruckus, ripping one of the clover’s leaves off.
Next episode seems to be a normal one again, when Akazukin and the others reach a snow town. I’m not sure on who it’ll focus, probably Ringo. But it also seems that we finally get to see some signs of Erude again.
Raikan may actually be “Lycan” which mean beastman (for example Werewolf) and Jedo and the grandpa in episode 12 can actually turn into a beast so I guess that what they means here. And after I rewatch the episode Jedo and the grandpa talked about the guy name “King Balhan” I think I have a wild guess about this person they’re talking about.