Shadow Slave

There were two other groups of people that belonged to Gunlaug.

The first of them consisted of Sleepers with useful Utility Abilities and their helpers. These people, known as Artisans, played a very important role in the life of the castle. They were responsible for creating and maintaining various items that were either vital to survival or made existing on the Forgotten shore less unbearable, such as clothes, tools, equipment, utensils, and various gear.

Each Artisan had a small team of less gifted Sleepers helping them craft the necessary items. All in all, there were around a hundred of them in total, with most of that number consisting of the assistants. They were led by a young woman called Kido, who was a talented manager and had an Ability that allowed her to change attributes of certain plants.

The vegetables in Sunny's stew came from her garden. Since such an Ability was nothing short of priceless on the Forgotten Shore, where food was scarce and mostly homogenous, it wasn't surprising that she had become one of the lieutenants despite being much younger than the rest of them.

The status of Artisans was somewhat of a tense subject in the Bright Castle. Because they were largely non-combatants, Guards felt that their position should be inferior to that of people actually risking their lives in vicious battles against Nightmare Creatures.

Artisans, on the contrary, believed that the rarity of Utility Aspects and the vital role they played in maintaining the living conditions inside the castle should land them more prestige than the Castle Guard, which basically recruited any random nobody, enjoyed. This conflict had been simmering for a long time, and was not going to be resolved anytime soon.

Funnily enough, Hunters, who risked their lives the most, did not care about the issue one way or another. Their leader Gemma, however, was silently supporting the Artisans and their chief, Kido — which prevented the Guards from being too forceful in their argument.

These were the young women Sunny had seen quietly performing various chores around the castle, like making sure that windows were properly closed before the onset of the night or preparing and handing out food

castle itself, as well as serving the high-ranking members of the Host. There were also

the prime victims of abuse within the walls of the ancient stronghold, but to his surprise, they were actually strangely revered, and even a little feared. The main reason for this was their leader, a mysterious and strikingly

her Handmaidens, but also secretly taught them how to defend themselves. The exact extent of their training was unknown, but Sunny clearly saw that members of the Castle Guard were very careful to behave themselves around Handmaidens… most

in the castle, the young women technically belonged to Gunlaug, and Gunlaug was very particular about people laying hands on his belongings without permission. Even if some foolish Guard was brave enough to anger

take a look at what the Handmaidens were up to when no one was

with her back to the shaded corner where it was concealed, giving instructions to one of her subordinates, and in the next, she suddenly turned around and looked directly at

fairly sure that no one would be able to directly see the shadow — after all, his

when someone was looking at them. Praying that this was

Seishan had returned to her conversation, he hurriedly sent the shadow away and made sure to stay

those who paid tribute, but didn't serve Gunlaug directly. There was no real name for this group, so Sunny simply called them

Gunlaug's men with various services, mostly having to do with craftsmanship and entertainment. For example, the was a man who created