Shadow Slave

Carrying the needle on his shoulder, Sunny chose to walk to his next destination. The thing was heavy enough that even a Master like him felt a bit of strain after a while, so he had to wrap himself in the shadows at some point.

People were giving him weird glances, but no one said anything - the Puppeteer's Shroud identified Sunny as an Awakened, and Awakened were known to do strange things on occasion. Sunny also found that mundane people often acted shy in front of him ever since he had become a Master, which pleasantly cut the number of awkward conversations he had to have. So, he just had to be careful not to hit anyone with the unwieldy needle by accident.

As he walked, Sunny decided to check on his runes out of boredom.

Shadow Fragments: [2471/4000].

He smiled a little.

The siege of Falcon Scott might have been a terrible affair, but one thing it did not lack was enemies to kill. The rate at which he earned fragments increased a lot in the past three days. By now, the change made by each individual fragment was insignificant, but it added up.

He was now considerably stronger than he had been at the start of the Antarctica campaign, and the fifth core was not as unachievable as it had once seemed. Nephis was still far away from reaching Terror, too, which meant that he finally had a chance of catching up to her Class... at least for a short while.

'Does it even matter now? In the end, both of us will either be titans, or dead.'

Nightmare was subjugating many dreams these days, as well. All in all, Sunny was in good shape. His cohort had been forged into one of the deadliest combat units on the continent, with each member honing their skills to a truly fearsome degree.

All that was left to propel him to an entirely new level of power was for Saint to emerge from her evolution. Maybe... just maybe... they would indeed manage to hold Falcon Scott for three weeks.

Sunny made way for a column of military vehicles and looked at the crowd of refugees around him.

'Yeah... doubtful.'

most, but not by much. Looking up, he saw a vast expanse of glowing windows, with thousands and thousands of humans

deep into the ground. Taking it into the building would have been a hassle, and Sunny was sure that no one would steal it - the thing weighed more than any mundane human, or

the frozen soil under its own weight.

where a lone civilian was shoveling snow away. As he was passing, the man flinched and stared at him with

Sunny sighed inwardly.

I really

Sunless, is

raised

yes? Technically, it's Major now.

he could finish the sentence, the civilian dropped the shovel and grabbed his hand, shaking it vigorously. Sunny

the hell is going

because of you. After Erebus Field, I thought... ah,

behave in that situation, but thankfully, the civilian finally let go of his hand and hastily opened a small bag hanging on his belt. A moment later, Sunny found

it herself. You probably don't get a lot of home-cooked food, standing there

to the man, but then lingered. The refugees were not starving, but he knew for a fact that most of the rations they had access to were no different from what he had been accustomed to in the outskirts. Getting the ingredients to make this simple sandwich must not have been easy... it was made with love

He smiled slightly.

I'll

hear that and gingerly let Sunny go, picking up