Shadow Slave

A few days passed in pleasant tranquility. Eventually, however, the time ran out. Nephis gathered her things and left for the Immortal Flame manor, leaving Sunny alone.

It was a bittersweet feeling.

Sweet because he finally had the house for himself once again. Bitter because… well… Sunny was not sure that he enjoyed his home being so empty anymore.

Nevertheless, he had chosen not to follow her to join the rest of the cohort yet. Sunny felt like the looming ball was going to change a lot of things, and had to prepare a few contingencies. If the worst happened, there was a big possibility that he would be gone for a very long time again.

There were several things he had to do, just in case.

His lecture course at the Academy had just started, but at this rate, it was under threat of ending prematurely. Sunny spent some time imparting his students with the best and most essential knowledge he could relay in such a short amount of time, but other than that, there was not much else he could do to prevent his academic reputation from potentially receiving a hit.

Luckily, all Masters led hectic lives. The administration was long accustomed to their star lecturers disappearing for months on end without much of a warning, so his case was not unique.

His second worry was the Brilliant Emporium. The Memory store was already in a difficult position because of the invisible blockade that had prevented Sunny from visiting the Dream Realm and hunting down Nightmare Creatures for half a year. Their inventory was running low.

months, Sunny had slowly shifted his business in the direction of selling Memory versions of mundane items that he weaved. That was not a straightforward endeavor, however. Sure, the idea of having a toothbrush Memory sounded pleasant… but he had

luxury items. That way, he could price them high enough to earn more than the price of a soul shard. Rich clients already had access to mundane items in the Dream Realm due to their connections

painstakingly creating an especially large batch of these extravagant Memories and then met with Aiko to transfer them. After thinking for a while,

as many Memories that provided either warmth or resistance against cold as possible. The second priority went to Memories that could serve as a source of light, which were usually cheap and plentiful. He also told Aiko to sell

a lot of people were going to need to equip themselves for the harsh realities of polar night. The large amount of opening Gates would

Emporium would survive for a while

Lastly… there was Rain.

little time left to prepare her for the potential First Nightmare. On the other hand… there were not a lot of things left that he could teach her. Of course, Rain still had a lot of room to improve, but at that stage, Sunny's presence was only of marginal

skills and knowledge that he had already imparted

extent. The teenage girl might have been sour about how intense their lessons suddenly became, but it was for her own good. She was already better prepared to

would be

things, there was not a lot for Sunny to

prepared his home to go into conservation mode in case he did not return from the ball. He restocked the Covetous Coffer with various supplies for a long expedition. He fought against Saint

but Sunny was more willing to be

fateful