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.'

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

see anything

frowned, trying to remember. Then, her face

the gates of the castle! That

doll-like face, beaming with so much joy that Sunny couldn't help but curl

of Cassie's vision. It was that, when talking about reaching the castle, the blind girl only mentioned the two of them. Was there some meaning

Nephis, trying to discern

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

we will

***

their breakfast and then spent some time planning for the journey and preparing to abandon the

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

Academy's gates, Sunny had formed a certain impression of the confident, distant girl. Later, her behavior and the different revelations about Changing Star's

her feel unnerved and rattled, often revealing more than they had been

turned out

bit more and

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

It's not that she didn't have feelings: it's just that she was really bad at emoting them! As a result,

she simply chose to talk as little as possible or not to

together, then multiplied by her general weirdness, was ultimately responsible for creating the false image of a

she was just shy and completely

coming to that realization, Sunny tried with all his might but still failed to stop himself from staring at Nephis with wide eyes.

That's not in line with how a

mind, Nephis had definitely been the type 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 relegated to exist far away in the background. Now,

had problems 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

She was still dangerous.