Serlun was very dissatisfied with this siege—extremely dissatisfied!
He had thought he would be able to slaughter to his heart's content this time and reap thousands upon thousands of delicious souls. Instead, the enemy's defenses had been so weak that the city gates were blasted open without even a decent resistance. The battle had ended in less than two hours.
Not only had there been no large-scale Elf Troops in the city, but even its civilians had long since been evacuated. After killing the guards, Serlun had ended up with barely over a hundred souls—fewer than the Pegasus Knights from before! How could Serlun possibly be happy about that?
He had even deliberately stayed behind for a day to repair the Siege Weaponry, only for it to prove almost entirely useless.
During combat, Roy had only secretly taken a few of the larger souls. He did not take any more, since there were too few to begin with and it would have been easy to notice. After the battle ended, Roy found Serlun and said, "Your Excellency Serlun, there should have been a large number of troops in the city. For some reason, they withdrew!"
Serlun did not need Roy to tell him that; he could naturally see it himself. Thus, he asked Roy in confusion, "Why do you think they withdrew?"
"Hmm..." Roy pretended to ponder for a moment before saying, "I think there's an eighty or ninety percent chance that a stronger enemy appeared..."
"What do you mean?" Serlun froze. "Other than us, where would there be a stronger enemy?"
"Of course there is!" Roy said firmly. "Isn't Your Excellency Riska's side one? Perhaps Your Excellency Riska attacked other cities, causing the elves here to lead their troops away to provide reinforcements. Other than that, I can't think