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 problems would

see anything

to remember. Then, her face

saw Sunny leading me through the gates of

smile appeared on her doll-like face, beaming with so

he was stuck on a certain detail 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 behind

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

Without showing much emotion,

Then we will go

***

and preparing to abandon the temporary camp. In the process, Sunny

came to a sudden realization, which almost made his

the Academy's gates, Sunny had formed a certain impression of the confident, distant girl.

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.

turned out

matter had nothing to do with being cool and aloof. After talking to her a bit more and observing their interactions with

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

It's not that she didn't have feelings: it's just that she was really bad at

simply chose to talk as little as possible or not to

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

in fact, she was just shy and completely inept

failed to stop himself from staring at Nephis with wide eyes. He just barely managed to not let his jaw

line with how

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

that she was not strong. In fact, it might have meant the opposite. She still

She was still dangerous.