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.'

castle really existed, then all of their problems

see

to remember. Then, her face

me through the gates of the castle! That means we

with so much joy that Sunny couldn't help but

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

at Nephis, trying to discern

enigmatic as ever. Without showing much emotion, she

Then we will go

***

preparing to abandon the temporary camp. In

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

confident,

made people interacting with her feel unnerved

that impression turned out

do with being cool and aloof. After talking to her a bit more and observing their interactions

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 to say. Often, she would forget to put correct intonations in her speech, making questions sound like statements or vice

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!

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

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

fact, she was just shy and

himself from staring at Nephis with wide eyes. He just barely managed to not

the hell? That's not in line with how

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

did not mean that she was

She was still dangerous.