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.’

castle really existed, then all of their

you see anything

trying to remember.

I saw Sunny leading me through the gates of the

so much joy that Sunny couldn’t help but curl

stuck on a certain detail of Cassie’s vision. It was that, when talking about reaching

turned his head a little and secretly glanced at Nephis, trying to discern if she had picked up on that little discrepancy,

ever. Without showing much emotion, she thought for a while,

we will go

***

preparing to abandon the temporary camp. In the process, Sunny had a chance to get to know the girls a

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

the confident, distant girl. Later, her behavior and the different revelations about

feel unnerved

that impression turned out to be

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

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 tone never matched what she was trying to say. Often, she would forget to put correct intonations in her speech, making

not in a habit of openly showing her emotions. It’s not that she didn’t have feelings: it’s just that she was really bad at emoting them! As a result,

talk

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

just shy and completely inept in

realization, Sunny tried with all his might but still failed to stop himself from staring at Nephis with wide eyes. He just barely managed to not let his jaw hang

hell? That’s not in line with how a

type of 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

Star had problems with expressing herself and lacked social skills did not mean that she was