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.

situation was absolutely the

nothing had changed while he slept, and

the treasure chest beneath

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

down below, false

Sunny judged that he slept for about twelve hours. A bit longer than usual, but he was really

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

how long it 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

his house. The pod would keep it alive for months, so Sunny was not

Would anyone miss him?

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,

of who went in and out of the Citadel. The most

that he was avoiding her, as he

no one was really going to care that he was gone. So many things had changed, but even

beautiful glass bottle in his hand, Sunny remained motionless for a while, then

I have my coins,

***

performing a strange aerial dance. Holding onto the rope connecting him to the dead Mimic with his one functioning hand, Sunny summoned

plummeting down with incredible speed, his body felt pleasantly light. Sunny thought

going to increase exponentially, which meant that at some point his body was bound to be simply torn apart…

Below and felt the wind — or rather, the air moving past him as he fell through it — it meant that the speed of