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.’

really existed, then all of their problems

you see anything

frowned, trying to remember. Then, her

me through the gates of the castle! That

brilliant smile appeared on her doll-like face, beaming with so much joy that Sunny couldn’t help but

talking about reaching the castle, the blind

his head a little and secretly glanced at Nephis, trying to discern if

as enigmatic as ever. Without showing much emotion, she thought

Then we will

***

for the journey and preparing to

was then that he came to a sudden realization, which almost made his head

they first met in front of the Academy’s gates, Sunny had formed a certain impression of the confident, distant girl. Later, her behavior and the different revelations about Changing Star’s

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 been planning to. The less she talked,

that impression turned out

and aloof. After talking to her a bit more

the sentence and fall silent. Her tone never matched what she was trying to say. Often, she would forget to put correct intonations in her speech, making questions

not that

chose to talk as little as possible or not to talk

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

shy and completely inept

from staring at Nephis with wide eyes. He just barely managed

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

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

thought was also wrong. The fact that Changing Star had problems with expressing 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 that she had achieved, but with the