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

see

to remember. Then, her face

the gates of

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

on a certain detail of Cassie's vision. It was that, when talking about

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

showing much emotion, she thought for a

Then we will

***

planning for the journey and preparing to abandon the temporary camp. In the

which almost made his head

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

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 they had been planning to. The less she

that impression turned out to

more and observing their interactions with Cassie,

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

to that was 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 have feelings: it's just that she was really bad at emoting them! As a result,

the time, she simply chose to talk as little as possible or not

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

shy and completely inept in

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

line with how a

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,

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

She was still dangerous.