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

trying to remember. Then, her

through the gates of the

beaming with so much joy that Sunny couldn't help but

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

a little and secretly glanced at Nephis, trying

showing much emotion, she thought for a while, and

Then we will go

***

their breakfast and then spent some time planning for the journey and preparing to abandon the temporary camp. In the process, Sunny

realization, which almost made his head explode

had formed a certain impression of the confident, distant girl. Later, her behavior and the different revelations about Changing Star's past only served

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

that impression turned out to be

nothing to do with being cool and aloof. After talking to her a bit more and observing their interactions with

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

many introverted people, 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 bad at emoting them! As a result, her face always looked cold

to talk as little as

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

just shy and completely

that realization, Sunny tried with all his might but still failed to stop himself from staring at

line with how

character of any event. At the center stage, there were always confident, strong people

that she was not

She was still dangerous.