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

you see anything

trying to remember. Then,

through the gates of

appeared on her doll-like face, beaming with so much joy

that, when talking about reaching the castle, the blind girl only mentioned the two

at Nephis, trying to discern if she had picked up

showing much emotion, she thought for

Then we

***

the journey and preparing to abandon the temporary camp. In the process,

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

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

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

impression turned out

a bit more and observing their interactions with Cassie, Sunny almost fainted

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

of openly showing her emotions. It's not that she didn't have feelings: it's just that

why, most of the time, she simply chose to talk as little as possible or not to

of that added up together, then multiplied by her general weirdness, was ultimately responsible for creating the false image of a mysterious, unapproachable

fact, she was just shy

Sunny tried with all his might but still failed to stop himself from staring at Nephis with wide eyes.

line with how a protagonist

confident, strong people like her and Caster. People like himself and Cassie,

herself and lacked social skills did not 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

She was still dangerous.