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.’

all of their problems

you see anything

to remember.

me through the gates of the castle!

doll-like face, beaming with so much joy that

of Cassie’s vision. It was that, when talking about reaching the castle, the blind girl only mentioned the two of them. Was there some meaning behind

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

was as enigmatic as ever. Without showing much emotion, she thought for a

Then we will

***

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

sudden realization, which almost made his head explode

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

interacting with her feel unnerved and rattled, often revealing more than they had

turned out to

actual truth 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

use the wrong words or stumble in the middle of the sentence and fall silent. Her tone never matched what she was

people, Nephis was 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, her

simply chose to talk as little as

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

in fact, she was just shy and completely inept in communicating

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

line with how a protagonist should

mind, Nephis had definitely been the type of person to be the main character of any event. At the center stage, there were always confident,

she