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.’

then all of their problems

you see anything

trying to remember. Then,

gates

appeared on her doll-like face, beaming with so much joy

stuck on a certain detail of Cassie’s vision. It was that, when talking about reaching the castle, the blind girl only

trying

much emotion, she thought for a

Then we will go

***

and preparing to abandon the temporary camp. In the process, Sunny had a

realization, which almost made his head explode from bafflement. That mind-blowing realization had to

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 past only served

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, the more she seemed

out to

and aloof. After talking to her a bit more and observing their interactions

middle of the sentence and fall silent. Her tone never matched what she

was not in a habit of openly showing her emotions. It’s not that she didn’t have

to talk as little as possible

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

shy and completely inept in communicating with

to stop himself from staring at Nephis with wide eyes. He just barely

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

always confident, strong people

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