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.'

really existed, then all of their problems would

you see anything

to remember. Then, her face

through the gates of the castle! That means we

so much joy that Sunny couldn't help but curl his

that, when talking about reaching the castle, the blind girl

and secretly glanced at Nephis, trying to discern if she had picked up on

Without showing much emotion, she thought for a while,

Then we

***

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

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

they 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

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

turned out to

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 almost fainted when he realized that Nephis was

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

openly showing her emotions. It's not that she didn't have feelings: it's just that she was really bad at emoting

time, she simply chose to talk as

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

she was just shy and completely inept

all his might but still failed to stop himself from staring at Nephis

not in line with how a protagonist should

definitely been the type of person to be the main character of any event. At the center stage, there were always confident, strong people like her and

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

She was still dangerous.