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

see

to remember. Then,

leading me through the gates of the castle! That

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

talking about reaching the castle, the blind girl

turned his head a little and secretly glanced at Nephis, trying to discern

Without showing much emotion, she thought for a

Then we

***

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

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

the confident, distant girl. Later, her behavior and the different revelations about Changing Star's past only served to reinforce that

aloof and rather cool. Her taciturn character and strange speech patterns made people interacting with her feel unnerved and rattled, often

turned out to be

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

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

that, 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 really bad at emoting them! As a result, her face always looked cold and

chose to talk as little as possible or not to talk at

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

was just shy and

to stop himself from staring at Nephis with wide eyes. He just barely managed to

hell? That's not in line with how a protagonist

character of any event. At the center stage, there were always confident, strong people like her and Caster.

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 added layer of

She was still dangerous.