Shadow Slave

The Devils were the only Awakened in the convoy, so the newly returned Sleeper had no one else to learn from. After finding out that the young soldier's Aspect had to do with melee combat, Sunny sent him to Belle and told the swordsman to show him the ropes.

The Sleeper was in a strange position - he was not a mundane soldier anymore, but also not a true Awakened. He had an Aspect, an Ability, and was capable of summoning Memories.

However, his power was barely enough to face a dormant Nightmare Creature, and potent Memories with active enchantments were wasted on him.

'Whatever. I was killing Fallen Devils left and right as a Sleeper...'

Sunny sneered.

Of course, no matter how much he wanted to, he could not hold everyone to the standards of the Forgotten Shore survivors. Everyone who had escaped from that hell was abnormal, and for every one of them that had, there were hundreds of those who had not.

In any case, the Sleeper was at least capable enough to watch over the refugees, lessening the burden on the Irregulars. To make his task easier, they had bestowed a few Memories to the young man. Now, he was wearing sturdy snakeskin armor and wielding Belle's spare sword. He even had an enchanted bow and a quiver of poison arrows, as well as a magical lantern and a charm that protected him from cold.

If there was one thing the Irregulars did not lack, it was Memories of lower Ranks. Pretty much every battle they fought resulted in one or two of them receiving something. Most of these Memories were useless to the members of the cohort, whose equipment had been of high quality even before Sunny improved it, but they were just right for a new Sleeper.

was enough to arm several more,

mostly paying attention to the human toll that the rampant proliferation of the Spell had levied, but there was another side to the epidemic devouring Antarctica, as well. Before too long,

realization gave

The convoy was not going to have thousands of Sleepers protecting it any time soon, but there might be enough

do a good job of

the Sleeper out of his mind, for now. There was a lot to do, and not

Erebus Field in one piece. At the same time, he assigned Dorn and twenty of Gere's soldiers to explore

that a few intact pieces of machinery remained, ready to be cannibalized to repair the vehicles. There could also be untouched caches of preserved provisions, and so on, not to mention the carcasses of

feed them to the rookie Sleeper. Just like that, the young soldier was going to consume hundreds of soul fragments in

'What a lucky bastard..."

on the Forgotten Shore, Sunny listened to Beth with a dim expression. She was in the process of

these people were holding on to their sanity. Many of them were the most vulnerable members of humanity, too - children and elderly. The shock of watching their whole continent go up in flames right in front of them was not something one could endure without a

the precious things he had stored inside in preparation for the Antarctica campaign. Quality food, sugar, salt, spices, dried fruit, chocolate, tea, coffee, toiletries, expensive alcohol for special occasions, and much more...

was even foldable furniture, a spacious field tent, and a few

items appear from an average-sized chest with wide eyes. Sunny, meanwhile, felt extremely