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

you see

trying to remember.

the gates of the castle! That means we will

on her doll-like face, beaming with so much joy that Sunny couldn't help but curl his

a certain detail of Cassie's vision. It was that, when talking about reaching the castle, the blind girl

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

enigmatic as ever. Without showing much emotion, she

Then we

***

and preparing to abandon the temporary camp. In the process, Sunny had a chance to

came to a sudden realization, which almost made his head explode

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

from the world. She was mysterious, aloof and rather cool. Her taciturn character and strange speech patterns made people interacting with 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,

that impression turned out to be completely

and aloof. After talking to her a bit more and observing their interactions with Cassie, Sunny almost fainted

to convey something, she would either use the wrong words or stumble in the middle of the sentence and fall silent. Her tone

Nephis was 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

of the time, she simply chose to talk

general weirdness, was ultimately

fact, she was just shy and completely inept

himself from staring at

in line with how a

his mind, Nephis had 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 Caster. People like himself and Cassie, on the

did not mean that she was not strong. In fact, it might have meant the opposite. She still achieved everything that

She was still dangerous.