Shadow Slave

Sunny's bed trembled slightly, and he felt the wind blowing across the room. Still mostly asleep, he sighed and tried to pull the blanket higher. However, that damned thing was nowhere to be found.

'Where the hell is it…'

Reluctant to let go of sleep, he blindly searched for the blanket. Instead of finding it, though, Sunny suddenly felt his whole bed careen to the side. Startled, he opened his eyes… and saw nothing but darkness surrounding him.

'What the?! Oh… right.'

He wasn't in his small room in the Sanctuary. He was plummeting into a lightless abyss atop the corpse of a Fallen Devil, instead.

Sunny stared into the darkness for a bit.

Then, he yawned.

'Well. At least I slept well.'

Indeed, he was feeling rather refreshed. Most of his aches had either disappeared or grown milder, and even his wounded mind felt soothed. He felt rested, energized, and much better overall.

The only problem was, he was still falling into the endless void of the Sky Below.

Sunny scratched the back of his head, though about this predicament, then summoned the Endless Spring and drank some water. Then, he concentrated and tried to assess the situation.

was absolutely the

while he slept, and there was nothing he

and stared at the treasure chest beneath him. After a while,

I kill this poor bastard, I even went so far as to take a nap on top of its

false stars shimmered with

for about twelve hours. A bit longer than usual, but he

course, were very rough. But if he assumed them to be correct, that would mean that he had left

was going to take to reach the thing on the end of the golden String of Fate, but had to assume that it would take at least

in the basement of his house. The pod would keep it alive for months, so Sunny was

Would anyone miss him?

them had been as long as this one was going to be, they would just assume that he was too lazy to answer their messages and go about their business. They were famous heroes now,

the habit of keeping a detailed record of who went in and out of the Citadel. The most anyone was going to think about him would be when

she would just think that he was avoiding

chest in boundless darkness, Sunny realized that no one was really going to care that he was gone. So many things had changed, but even more remained just

a long look at the beautiful glass bottle in his hand, Sunny remained motionless for a while, then dismissed it and knocked on the lid of

have my coins,

***

him to the dead Mimic with his one functioning hand, Sunny summoned the Dark Wing, then cautiously climbed onto

incredible speed, his body felt pleasantly light. Sunny

that the speed of his fall was going

the wind — or rather, the air moving past him as he fell through it — it meant that the