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.'

of their problems would be solved. Sunny

see anything

to remember. Then, her

I saw Sunny leading me through the gates of

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

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

trying to discern if she had picked up on that

enigmatic as ever. Without showing much

Then we

***

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

then that he came to a sudden realization, which almost made his head explode from bafflement. That mind-blowing realization

confident, distant girl. Later, her

apart 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

turned out to be completely

to do with being cool and aloof. After talking to her a bit more and observing their interactions with Cassie, Sunny

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

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

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

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

just shy

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

not in line with how

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

lacked social skills did not mean that she was not strong. In fact, it might have

She was still dangerous.