Shadow Slave

In the ensuing silence, the smile slowly disappeared from Cassie’s face, replaced by confusion. Feeling the sudden tension, she asked:

“Uh… what’s wrong?”

Sunny sighed.

“No, nothing is wrong. It’s just that that direction is the one we wanted to avoid.”

After some thought, he added:

“That’s where I came from yesterday. There’s a lot of scavengers down there.”

The blind girl’s face fell.

“Oh.”

Nephis, who was quietly listening to them, gave him an indecipherable look and finally spoke:

“Tell us more about the castle.”

A shadow of the previous excitement returned to Cassie’s eyes. With a serious nod, she began describing her vision.

“I dreamt of a vast, ruined city built of weathered stone. It was surrounded by tall, impregnable walls. Various monsters were wandering its narrow streets. In the center of the city, the was a hill, and on that hill stood a magnificent castle.”

She smiled.

“But there were no monsters in the castle! Instead, it was full of people. I think… no, I’m sure that they were Awakened. Some were guarding the walls, some were going about their lives without a care in the world. There was food, safety, and laughter!”

‘Well, that sounds great.’

of their problems would be solved.

you see anything

to remember. Then, her face

leading me through the gates of the castle! That means we will

with so much joy that Sunny couldn’t help but curl his

of Cassie’s vision. It was that, when talking about reaching the castle, the blind girl only mentioned the two of them. Was there some meaning

and secretly glanced at Nephis, trying to

Without showing much emotion,

we will

***

the sea was still retreating, they had their breakfast and then spent some time planning for the journey and preparing to abandon the temporary camp. In the process, Sunny had a chance to get

a sudden realization, which almost made his head explode from bafflement. That

the confident, distant girl. Later, her behavior and the different revelations about Changing Star’s past

exist a bit apart from the world. She was mysterious, aloof and rather cool. Her taciturn character and strange speech patterns made people interacting with her feel unnerved and rattled, often revealing more than they had

turned out to be

to do with being cool and aloof. After talking to her a bit more and observing their

she would either use the wrong words or stumble in the middle of the sentence and fall silent. Her tone never matched what she was trying to say.

her emotions. It’s not that she didn’t have feelings: it’s

the time, she simply chose to talk as

general weirdness, was ultimately responsible for creating the false image of a mysterious,

in fact, she was just shy

Sunny tried with all his might but still failed to stop himself from staring at Nephis with wide eyes.

hell? That’s not in line with how a protagonist should

main character of any event. At the center stage, there were always confident, strong people like her and Caster. People like himself and Cassie, on the other hand, were relegated to exist far away in the background.

not mean that she was not strong. In fact, it