Shadow Slave

Caster stared at him for a long time, then suddenly laughed. Even Cassie giggled, entertained by Sunny's earnest delivery.

Shaking his head, the handsome young man smiled and said:

"I see your sense of humor did not change. Good, that is good. Few people manage to preserve it here."

Sunny blinked a couple of times and said, pretending to be offended:

"What do you mean, sense of humor? It's the honest truth."

He received another bout of laughter instead of an answer.

'...There was food, safety, and laughter,' he thought suddenly, remembering how Cassie had described the Bright Castle after dreaming of it for the first time.

She had also seen Sunny leading her through its gates. Her prophetic visions were turning out to be frighteningly accurate.

'Makes you wonder about that other vision she saw…'

Not allowing himself to become distracted, Sunny chased away the ominous feeling and hid a smile. Then, with a shrug, he scoffed.

"Well, don't believe me if you don't want to. That was just one of my many adventures, anyway. Although the other ones were, admittedly, less remarkable — you know, the usual stuff: slaying dozens of awakened creatures, being resurrected from the doors of death by a beautiful princess, summoning ancient horrors from the depths of the cursed sea, outsmarting ancient fiends to escape from their clutches, sailing through the abyss on a boat made of demon bones, fighting gargantuan leviathans underwater, and so forth. Mundane crap like that."

As he was talking, Cassie gradually stopped laughing and turned to him with a somewhat startled expression on her face. It seemed as though it was only now, with the harrowing journey already behind them, that she had finally realized how outlandish it all actually was.

Put together, the facts of their bloody struggle to survive sounded like something out of a fairy tale. But they both knew that all of that had actually happened.

It had happened to them.

Caster chuckled.

spent a few days running away from a bunch of terrifying monsters, then stumbled

He sighed.

way, when did you guys arrive? I'm sure I haven't

Looking longingly at his monster stew, which was slowly growing cold,

Dark City two days ago, and entered the castle yesterday

handsome Legacy stared at him, then blinked a couple of

do you mean? Did you guys really

'Uh-oh.'

didn't want for anyone to think that he was some kind of a powerful figure. First of all, there was no better advantage than being underestimated by the enemy. Secondly, he still had to hide

had long thought of an

in trouble, blame

inwardly, Sunny pretended to

place… it's pure hell. Honestly, if it wasn't for Changing

too, but Caster didn't need to

Neph's name anywhere near the names of two losers like Cassie and him were believed to be would make anyone

out, he was

he mentioned Nephis, something changed on Caster's face. With a strange look in his

Lady Nephis is alive? She is

forgotten all about how unlikely it was for someone like Sunny to survive a long journey through the deadly nightmare of the

Caster's reaction was a little bit more intense than

again, the tall and handsome Legacy had seemed to be strangely enamored with Nephis even back at the

'You bastard!'

reason, Sunny gritted his teeth

"Yeah. She's around."

in his direction, Cassie hesitated for a

two soul shards when we came to the castle. So she is