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.’

their problems would be solved.

see

to remember. Then, her face

through the gates of the castle! That means

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

detail of Cassie’s vision. It was that, when talking about reaching the castle, the blind girl only mentioned the

glanced at Nephis, trying to discern if she

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

we will

***

and preparing to abandon the temporary

that he came to a sudden realization, which almost made his head

Academy’s gates, Sunny had formed a certain impression of the confident, distant girl. Later, her behavior and the different revelations about Changing

made people interacting with her feel unnerved and rattled, often revealing more than they had been planning to. The less she talked,

that impression turned out to be

After talking to her a bit more and observing their interactions with Cassie, Sunny almost fainted when he realized

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 questions

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

the time, she simply chose to talk

weirdness, was ultimately responsible for

she was just shy and completely inept in communicating with

himself from staring at Nephis with wide eyes. He just barely managed to not let his jaw

not in line with how a protagonist

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

she was not strong. In fact, it might have meant the opposite.