Shadow Slave

His words caused a dead silence to settle over the Rhino, Luster, Kum, and Dorn froze, grave expressions appearing on their faces. Professor Obel looked down, suddenly appearing even more fragile and old. A heavy sigh escaped from his lips.

Beth's eyes widened.

"W-what... what do you mean, dead? That is impossible."

Sunny looked at her silently, and then shook his head.

"This is the era of the Nightmare Spell. Anything is possible, and terrible things are doubly possible. In fact, they are all but inevitable. We were lucky to get out in time, but the others were not. That is all there is to it."

His voice was full of grounded confidence, but in fact, Sunny felt very unsettled. He was not entirely sure if he was trying to convince Beth, or himself.

Professor Obel, who had been born during the Dark Times and lived through the horrors of the First Generation, seemed to understand what Sunny was trying to say. He must have experienced many such calamities throughout his long life, and lost a lot of friends. His young assistant, however, did not.

Looking at Sunny with a pale face, she forced out:

"B-but..."

He interrupted her.

"Don't think about it too much. Concentrate on your own survival instead. We are not out of the woods yet, and what is to come is far more important than something that is already over. And it is over."

lively atmosphere disappeared as if it had never existed. Sunny

They were all adults... actually, he was the youngest person here, so

was in charge, both in terms of power and authority. And with those, uninvited,

'...Ugh. How irritating.'

few moments, and

is to make sure that we

walked

enveloped by snow. Chilling wind howled through the rusted frame of the ancient war machine, the remains of

area through the senses of

path ahead was dangerous and unclear. Remaining

harder for humans to see the approaching Nightmare Creatures before they launched into a frenzied attack, but also hid them from the sight of the abominations. Unless a swarm stumbled directly on the rusty wreckage, it

least, played in

wandered back to the

counted those that had died in the weeks before. Just like that, so

It was... expected, actually.

of Nightmares from Master Jet for the first time. Back then, he was rather callously indifferent. What did the fates of humans in Antarctica have to do with him? Their number was much higher than fourteen hundred, too. There were seven hundred million people living in the Southern Quadrant, and he had not been inclined to give a damn about a single one. At least not enough

He was still indifferent.

people stopped being people and

him, they were real. He had lived with them, shared bread with them, and fought

much more than the potential evisceration of the whole quadrant. Knowing what he knew now,

at the seams. Many more people were going to die. Millions of them. In the end, how many of the seven hundred million