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 solved. Sunny cleared his

you see

frowned, trying to remember. Then, her face

I saw Sunny leading me through the gates of the castle! That

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

certain detail of Cassie's vision. It was that, when talking about reaching the castle, the blind

secretly glanced at Nephis, trying to discern if

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

Then we will go

***

and then spent some time planning for the journey and preparing to abandon the temporary camp. In

realization, which almost made his

when 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

apart from the world. 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

that impression turned out to be completely

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

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 say. Often, she would forget to put correct intonations in her speech, making questions

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 face always looked

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

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

fact, she was just shy and completely inept

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

not in line with how a protagonist should

event. 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 exist far away in

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

She was still dangerous.