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 be solved.

you see

to remember.

leading me through the gates

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

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

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

Star, however, was as enigmatic as ever. Without showing much emotion, she thought

we will go

***

the journey and preparing to abandon the temporary camp.

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

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

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 to know. That silent, indifferent confidence was arresting, and sometimes even

that impression turned out to be

with being cool and aloof. After talking to her a bit more and observing

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 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

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

of that added up together, then multiplied by her general weirdness, was

she was just shy

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

That’s not in line with how a protagonist should

be the main character of any event. At the center stage, there were always confident, strong people like her and Caster. People

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 added layer