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. Sunny cleared his

you see anything

trying to remember. Then,

leading me through the gates

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

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

at Nephis, trying

showing much emotion, she thought for a while, and then

we

***

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

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

impression of the confident, distant girl. Later, her behavior and

feel unnerved and rattled, often revealing more than they

out to be

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 realized that Nephis was simply an incredibly, ridiculously… painfully

the middle of the sentence and fall silent.

It’s not that she didn’t have feelings: it’s just that she was really bad at emoting them!

talk as little as possible or not to talk at

by her general weirdness, was

just shy and completely inept

to that realization, Sunny tried with all his might but still failed to stop himself from staring at Nephis

That’s not in line with

person to be the 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.

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