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. Sunny cleared

see anything

to remember. Then, her face

the gates of the castle!

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

talking about reaching the castle, the

turned his head a little and secretly glanced at Nephis, trying to discern if she had picked up on that

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

we will

***

time planning for the journey and preparing to abandon the temporary camp. In the process, Sunny had a chance to get to know the girls

was then that he came to a sudden realization, which almost made his head explode from

of the Academy's gates, Sunny had formed a certain impression of the confident,

interacting with her feel unnerved and rattled,

out

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

though she had no idea how to talk to people. 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

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

she simply chose to talk as little as possible or not to

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 and completely

himself from staring at Nephis

hell? That's not in line

there were always confident, strong

also wrong. The fact that Changing Star had problems with expressing 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 added layer of

She was still dangerous.