Still full of questions, Chief of Staff Durank returned to Nodunlun City, the capital of the Sark Kingdom, at the Military Department's summons after the Spirit Tortoise Legion withdrew into Sark territory.
Although the Spirit Tortoise Legion had suffered a defeat that forced its entire force to retreat, the Sark Kingdom's Military Department neither censured nor punished it.
The first reason was that the place where the Spirit Tortoise Legion had built its fortifications lay within the territory the Sark Kingdom had allocated to the Moon Shadow Tribe. Its mission had been to blockade the tribe, so it had never had a defensible position to begin with.
This time, the elves of the Moon Shadow Tribe had joined forces with the Xinfei Merchant Guild Guard Corps to strike back and drive them out. At least in terms of legitimacy, their actions were entirely justified. The Sark Kingdom had no grounds to condemn them, and naturally, that also made it difficult to punish the Spirit Tortoise Legion over the incident.
The second and most fundamental reason was that, although the Sark Kingdom's Military Department had hoped the Spirit Tortoise Legion could blockade the elves of the Moon Shadow Tribe, it had never expected the legion to withstand an attack by the Xinfei Merchant Guild Guard Corps.
The several countries in the southwestern corner of the Sains Continent had already reached a consensus about the Xinfei Merchant Guild Guard Corps' combat strength: it was simply impossible to take them head-on.
Thus, the Spirit Tortoise Legion's defeat at the hands of the Xinfei Merchant Guild Guard Corps was nothing that warranted punishment. Resisting them had been beyond its capabilities from the outset.
The main reason the Sark Kingdom's Military Department had summoned Chief of Staff Durank back was to obtain firsthand information about