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.’

this castle really existed, then all of their problems would be solved.

you see

to remember. Then, her

me through the gates

so much joy

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

Nephis, trying to discern if she had picked up on that little

Star, however, was as enigmatic as ever. Without showing much

Then we will

***

journey and preparing

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

first met 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 to reinforce that

bit apart from the world. She was mysterious, 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 to know. That silent, indifferent confidence was arresting, and sometimes

out

behind the matter had nothing to do with being cool and aloof. After talking to her a bit more and observing their interactions with

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

emotions. It’s not that she didn’t have feelings: it’s just

to talk

multiplied by her general weirdness, was ultimately responsible for creating

just shy and completely inept in communicating with

his might but still failed to stop himself from

not in line with how a protagonist should

confident, strong people like her and Caster. People like himself and Cassie, on the other hand, were relegated to exist

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