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.’

then all of their problems would be solved. Sunny cleared

you see anything

trying to remember. Then, her face

gates

beaming with so much

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 of them. Was there

secretly glanced at Nephis, trying to discern

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

we will go

***

planning for the journey and 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

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

speech patterns made people interacting with her feel unnerved and rattled, often revealing more

that impression turned 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 Cassie,

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

her emotions. It’s not that she didn’t have

why, most of the time, she simply chose to talk as little as possible

general weirdness, was ultimately responsible

just shy and completely inept

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

hell? That’s not in line with how

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

lacked social skills did not mean that she was not strong.