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

remember. Then,

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

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

It was that, when talking about reaching the castle, the blind girl only mentioned the two

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

as enigmatic as ever. Without showing much emotion, she thought for a while, and then

we will

***

some time planning for the journey and preparing to abandon the temporary camp. In the process, Sunny had a chance to get to know the girls

realization, which almost made his head explode from

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

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 talked, the more she seemed

that impression turned out to

aloof. After talking to her a bit more and observing

though she 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

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

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

then multiplied by her general weirdness, was ultimately responsible for creating the

was just shy and completely inept

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

line with how a

always confident, strong people like her and Caster. People like himself and Cassie, on the other

Star had problems with expressing herself and lacked social skills did not mean that she

She was still dangerous.