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.'

then all of their problems would be

see anything

remember. Then,

saw Sunny leading me through the gates

doll-like face, beaming with so

was that, when talking about reaching the castle, the blind girl only mentioned the two of them. Was there some

secretly glanced at Nephis, trying to discern if she

ever. Without showing much emotion, she

Then we will

***

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

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

they first met in front of the 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 past only served to reinforce

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 talked, the more she seemed to know. That silent,

turned out to

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

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

people, Nephis was not in a habit of openly showing her emotions. It's not that she didn't have

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

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

shy and completely

all his might but still failed to stop himself from staring at Nephis

That's not in line with how a protagonist should

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

not mean that she was not strong. In fact, it might have

She was still dangerous.