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.'

castle really existed, then all of their problems would be solved. Sunny

see anything

remember. Then,

through the gates of the castle! That means

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

was that, when talking about reaching the castle, the blind girl

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

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

Then we will

***

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

that he came to a sudden realization, which almost made his head

formed a certain impression of the confident, distant

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, and sometimes even

turned out to

truth behind the matter had nothing to do with being cool and aloof. After talking to her a bit more and observing their interactions

as 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 forget to put correct intonations in her speech, making questions

the fact that, like many introverted people, Nephis was not in a habit of openly showing her emotions. It's not that she didn't

of the time, she simply chose to talk as

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

just shy

but still failed to stop himself from staring at Nephis

the hell? That's not in line with how

At the center stage, there were always confident, strong people like her and Caster. People like himself and Cassie, on the other

she was not strong. In

She was still dangerous.