Published: July 3, 2025
When Lanshas woke up, it was already morning.
"Finally awake, are we?"
When Lanshas looked to the side, he saw an elf there.
"The man from last night?"
Lanshas said.
The person there was the one he had engaged in a sword fight with.
"I'm Commissioner Carson of the Autonomous Bureau. I assume you're General Lanshas of the 20th Imperial Army."
"I can't believe you know about me."
Lanshas chuckled self-deprecatingly.
Many even among the imperial nobility did not know about the 20th army, commonly known as the "shadow army."
That the elf knew this precisely was unexpected.
"Gathering such information is part of the Autonomous Bureau's duties."
Carson said this, then presented a water bottle in front of Lanshas.
"I know it’s quite rude to bind the hands and feet of a general, but you’re too dangerous. Sorry, but I can't release you. If you want to drink, now's your chance. What will you do?"
"Ah, I’ll drink."
As Lanshas said this, Carson brought the water bottle to Lanshas's mouth and let him drink.
"Thank you."
"You're welcome. Just to let you know, don’t even think about escaping. The girl who took you down in one hit last night has been keeping an eye on you."
"...Sera."
Lanshas's murmuring surprised Carson this time.
"Where did you hear that... Oh, I just said it myself."
Carson scratched his head and continued speaking.
"That's right, it's Sera. Even you can't defeat her... or rather, if all of us banded together, we wouldn't last an hour."
As he said this, Commissioner Carson gave a wry smile.
"What kind of training could lead to such strength... Well, don’t think of anything bad."
With that, Carson left Lanshas's side.
Of course, there were four guards standing around Lanshas.
Next to appear before Lanshas was a woman who looked to be in her mid-thirties and an extraordinarily beautiful platinum-blonde-haired elf.
"You are General Lanshas of the 20th Imperial Army, correct? I am the great elder currently overseeing the Forest."
"I'm Lanshas."
Neither bowed their heads, and it was a straightforward self-introduction.
"You are captured by us. There are five of your subordinates. They are locked up."
"Only five...?"
"Yes. The others are mostly incapacitated. We’ve used healing magic to ensure they don’t die, but they haven’t fully recovered and remain asleep."
"Even excluding the eastern fortress, there should have been over a thousand... Counting reinforcements, that makes it over two thousand. All incapacitated?"
Lanshas confirmed in a small voice following the great elder’s explanation.
"Yes. It seems they all lost a significant amount of blood in battle. Even after being somewhat healed, the blood they lost hasn’t returned, so they remain down. Soldiers from Marquis Hope's Territory will arrive soon, and when they do, I promise you’ll be treated properly as a prisoner."
"Two thousand incapacitated... Is that even possible...?"
"I was the one who rendered your subordinates incapacitated and knocked you out."
Responding to Lanshas's murmur was the platinum-blonde beauty, Sera.
"What did you say...? What do you mean?"
"No need for confusion... I defeated about two thousand three hundred of them."
Sera stated this with a refreshing, almost cool demeanor.
There was no expression on her face.
She had simply eliminated those who had come to harm the elves. That was it.
"If I had wanted, I could have killed them all. But keeping them as prisoners can serve as a bargaining chip for future negotiations with the Empire, right? Well, killing them and incapacitating them didn’t take much more effort."
Then, pausing, she continued as if recalling something.
"Still, it took quite a while to finish them off. I thought I could have done it faster... My apologies for the delay, Lady Granny."
"No, I think it was plenty fast..."
Sera apologized, and the great elder, unsure how to respond, uttered a conventional reply.
"To think that such a number of 'shadows' could be annihilated in about twenty minutes... Is that even possible?!"
"Did it really take twenty minutes...? That was indeed too long. A mage I know could wipe them out in thirty seconds, and that would include decapitating them all."