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.’

existed, then all of their problems would

you see anything

to remember. Then, her

I saw Sunny leading me through the gates of

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

talking about reaching the castle, the blind girl only mentioned the two of them.

little and secretly glanced at Nephis, trying

much emotion, she

we will

***

they had their breakfast and then spent some time planning for the journey and preparing to abandon the temporary camp. In the process, Sunny

then that he came to a sudden realization, which almost made his head explode from bafflement. That

front of the Academy’s gates, Sunny had formed a certain impression of the confident, distant girl. Later, her behavior

with her feel unnerved and rattled, often revealing more than they had been planning to. The less she talked, the

that impression turned out to

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

no idea how to talk to people. Every time she tried to convey something, she would either use the wrong words or stumble in the middle of the sentence and fall silent. Her

that, like many introverted people, Nephis was not in a habit of openly showing her emotions. It’s not that she didn’t have feelings: it’s just that

the time, she simply chose to talk as little as possible or not to talk

was ultimately

shy and completely inept in communicating

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

line with

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

lacked social skills did not mean that she was not strong. In fact, it might