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.'

all of their problems would be solved.

see anything

frowned, trying to remember. Then,

leading me through the gates of the castle! That means

her doll-like face, beaming with so much joy that Sunny couldn't

vision. It was that, when talking about reaching the castle, the

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

Then we

***

spent some time planning for the journey and preparing to abandon the temporary camp.

realization, which almost made his

of the confident, distant

made people interacting with her feel unnerved and

impression turned out to be completely

After talking to her a bit more and observing their interactions with Cassie, Sunny almost fainted when he realized that Nephis was simply an incredibly,

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

like 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

to talk as little as possible or

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

in fact, she was just shy and

failed to stop himself from staring at Nephis with wide eyes. He

not in line

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 other hand, were

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

She was still dangerous.