Shadow Slave

"Draw! Aim! Endure!"

Just as Night shouted these words, Aiko tripped and fell. The bundle of arrows she was carrying in her arms scattered on the ground.

"Ouch…"

Picking herself up from the coral, she hurriedly gathered the arrows and dashed to the nearest archer, then placed them near his feet.

In this battle, the role of people like her — those who were too weak to fight and did not possess a useful Aspect — was simultaneously the most simple and the most chaotic. They were charged with supplying the Sleepers participating in the battle with everything they needed, be it arrows, crossbow bolts, stones for their slings, or anything else.

There were several teams of runners doing different things. Initially, she was supposed to help carry the wounded from the first and second lines to the makeshift hospital at the back of the formation. There, a few people with Aspect Abilities having to do with healing waited, ready to help. Her friend Stev was one of them.

…But as it turned out, there wasn't a lot of wounded in this battle. Most simply died on the spot. So she was left with nothing to do and ended up here, helping to supply the archers.

She had just brought two quivers to Night, and was on her way…

…Wait, how crazy was that?

Trying to catch her breath, Aiko glanced around and shivered.

'Crazy, this is crazy…'

The scene in front of her was just too bizarre to be true. Several hundred Sleepers were besieged by a horde of Nightmare Creatures on the ground, with another falling on them from above. All that in front of an ugly, endless tower of crimson coral. Surely, she was dreaming…

'Of course you are! This is the Dream Realm, you dimwit!'

most girls her age back home. Despite the fact that the two of them had known each other for more than a year and were even… uh… on friendly terms, this

was exactly the kind of weird dream a teenage girl

someone fell to the ground a few meters away from her. Turning her head to the sound of a muffled curse, Aiko saw Stev and another Sleeper carrying a crude stretcher. On it was a young woman, covered in blood and pale as a ghost,

not too

was not easy, but she gritted her teeth and

hurried to the back

run past the desperate archers and the exhausted crews of the siege engines, who were slowly but surely running out

the look of it, things weren't going

hold.

invisible iron net. Despite that, the number of the flying abominations did not

all

to the tallest point in the Dreamer Army camp. There, on a protruding mound of crimson coral, she saw three

The other

that guy

none other than Sunny, the strange young man who had

important people were and what positions they held in the Bright Lady's cohort. Everyone's

…Except for Sunny.

youth played was entirely unclear. People seemed to consider him a member of Lady Nephis's cohort, but Sunny himself always insisted that he was not.

his tendency to keep to himself, ridiculous bragging, and carefree attitude. They simultaneously respected him for being Changing Star's scout and considered him

She had seen him appear from the shadows and kill the Guard who had been strangling her with one relaxed move, as though getting rid

Sunny was very mysterious. He was

she suddenly felt

Star had a

going to