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.'

of their problems would be

you see anything

remember.

leading me through the gates of the castle! That means we will

doll-like face, beaming with so much joy that Sunny

of Cassie's vision. It was that, when talking about reaching the castle, the blind girl only mentioned the two of them. Was there

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

however, was as enigmatic as ever. Without showing much emotion, she

Then we

***

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

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

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

unnerved and rattled, often revealing more than they had been planning to. The less she talked, the more she seemed to

impression turned out to be

more and observing their interactions with Cassie, Sunny almost fainted when he realized that Nephis was

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 to

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

she simply chose to talk as little as possible

was ultimately responsible for creating the false image of

was just shy and completely inept

from staring at Nephis with wide eyes. He just barely

That's not in line with how a protagonist

always confident, strong people like her and Caster. People like

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

She was still dangerous.