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 solved. Sunny cleared his

you see

frowned, trying to remember. Then, her face

saw Sunny leading me through the gates of the castle! That means we

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

certain detail of Cassie's vision. It was that, when talking about

and secretly glanced at Nephis, trying to discern

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

we will go

***

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 a

came to a sudden realization, which almost made his head explode from bafflement. That

gates, Sunny had formed a certain impression of the confident, distant girl.

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

that impression turned 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 almost fainted when he realized that Nephis was simply an

of the sentence and fall silent. Her tone never matched what she was trying to say. Often, she would forget

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!

why, most of the time, she simply chose to talk as little as

of that added up together, then multiplied by her general weirdness, was ultimately responsible for creating the

was just shy

might but still failed to stop himself from staring at Nephis with wide eyes. He just barely managed to not let his jaw

the hell? That's not in line

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 other hand, were relegated

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

She was still dangerous.