Shadow Slave

Gasping for breath, Sunny rolled out of the shadows and fell on the wet rocks at the edge of the rolling waves. Streams of water flowed from his armor, and his whole body was trembling.

"C-cold... ah, s-so cold..."

Gritting his teeth, he stood up and shivered as the wind assaulted him. At that moment, not even his Ascended constitution and the Memory of Ice could protect him from being chilled to the bone.

But even then, the claws grasping his heart were much colder.

"Curse it..."

Sunny took a step forward, stumbled, then righted himself and stopped. His fists were clenched.

'Ariadne. It must have been the Ariadne.'

The broken piece of the hull, the brass button, it all made too much terrible sense. Of course, this evidence alone was not enough to make a definite conclusion, but Sunny was sure of it.

His intuition told him that much.

No one was coming to rescue the people trapped inside LO49.

...And the Terror was going to descent upon them soon, without a doubt.

Suddenly forlorn, Sunny glanced at the wall of the fortress with a lost look on his face. A few moments passed, accompanied by the howling of the wind. Then, he looked down, closed his eyes, and groaned.

"Ah... I'm so tired."

It was the cold that made him shrug off this moment of indecisiveness and start to move. No matter the situation, he had to get somewhere warm first.

One step, and he was on top of the wall. A second step, and he was standing on one of the streets of the settlement. A third step, and he suddenly appeared in the corner of a research laboratory where a group of scientists, including Professor Obel and Beth, were staying under guard.

the first to notice him. She was slightly startled by the

Sunless? What are

looked at her and forced out a

I

stared at Beth with a strangely heavy expression for a few moments, and then shook his

any case, I'll be going

then went back to the

its source, and thought that he had days to discover it. But

there were only hours left before the disaster

...Maybe even minutes.

***

"...You're not listening."

ticked away. Tick-tock. With each second, their fates were coming closer to being sealed. And yet,

"I am listening."

desire to hit the table with his fist. Not only would the table shatter and create a lot of noise, but it would also not help his argument in any way. More than that, he was too tired, and had

hell are you not doing

Verne sighed.

I

Sunny blinked.

and drive

for a while, his frown

convince me that the Ariadne is not coming, but your only piece of evidence is a button and a piece of metal that you found underwater. We both know how much junk and old wreckage was left

in anger, but managed to hold himself back. Verne was not wrong to doubt his rather unsubstantiated theory. Any good leader would question the validity of such information. The problem was that Verne did not have the benefit of being intimately connected to the

was blind to

is what my gut is telling

unmoved. He lingered for a few moments, and then shook his head. His next words sounded polite, but had a sense of weight

with the lives of fourteen hundred people because of