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

see

remember. Then, her face

gates of the castle! That

so much joy that Sunny couldn’t help but

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

head a little and secretly glanced at Nephis, trying

however, was as enigmatic as ever. Without showing much emotion, she thought for a while,

Then we will go

***

breakfast and then spent some time planning for the journey and preparing to abandon

a sudden realization, which almost made his head explode from

the Academy’s gates, Sunny had formed a certain impression of the confident, distant

taciturn character and strange speech patterns made people interacting with her feel unnerved and rattled, often revealing more than they

impression turned out to be

actual truth behind the matter had nothing to do with being cool and aloof. After talking to her a bit more and observing their interactions with Cassie, Sunny almost fainted when he

to convey something, she would either use the wrong words or stumble in the middle of the sentence and fall

a habit of openly showing her emotions. It’s not that she

of the time, she simply chose to talk as little as possible or

her general weirdness, was ultimately responsible for creating the false image

just shy and

himself from staring at Nephis with wide eyes. He just barely managed to not let his jaw hang

in line with how a protagonist should

there were always confident, strong people like her and Caster. People like himself and Cassie,

herself and lacked social skills did not mean that she was not strong. In fact, it might have meant the opposite. She still achieved everything