Shadow Slave

1071 Familiar Role

Nephis stared at Sunny for a couple moments, then briefly glanced at her apron and quietly cleared her throat.

"Right."

She turned around and got back to stirring the rice. A couple seconds later, site added without looking back:

"You'll have to wait for a couple more minutes. And... welcome back, Sunny. Did you make it out of the Antarctic Center alright?"

Sunny wondered how much Changing Star knew about the situation in the Southern Quadrant as he followed Cassie, Effie, and Kai to sit behind a dining table. Settling on a wooden chair... which was far inferior to his own Shadow Chair... he sighed.

"I wouldn't call it "alright". But yes, I made it out. I'm already inside a siege capital in East Antarctica."

Neph's shoulder moved slightly.

"...That's good."

Effie grabbed a few cans of something sugary and refreshing, then pushed one toward Sunny.

"Kai and I spent a whole month in transit, aboard those giant ships. We were in the first batch of the Second Army to arrive, so we've been in East Antarctica for about a week. Gods... I thought the ocean was bad, but Antarctica! I havenever seen that many Nightmare Creatures in my life, not even here in the Dream Realm. It's like the two worlds switched places."

Kai nodded southerly.

"Indeed. Even though there are secure evacuation corridors between the inland siege capitals and the harbor strongholds, we had to fight a couple battles just to reach our designated sector. Luckily, there were no casualties."

The Second Army was twice the size of the First Army, so it was going to take two trips for the naval convoys to bring all of it to the Southern Quadrant. Both Effie and Kai were in the first wave of reinforcements, which was why they had made landfall around the time Sunny himself reached East Antarctica.

place, and it was not a given that

Effie shook her head.

us! What happened to you? You... you look a bit

different because of the Marble Shell. However, Sunny knew that

and took a sip from the cart she had given

I was assigned to the First Irregular Company. In the first month after our contingent of the army made it to the Antarctic Center, things were. more or less fine. The field army

Sunny paused.

from a remote research station. That was when everything went from bad to worse. The Chain of Nightmares had gone into overdrive. and three whole titans spawned in the Antarctic Center... including an especially troublesome

lot to keep his voice from shaking at the mention of the Winter Beast. The others looked

by a powerful Terror. My people and I were the only ones to survive. We were in a bit of a predicament, though, because by that point,

start of

to go to the second nearest one, picking up a few refugees in the process that was when I got trapped in that weird

a smile, looking at

course. We were quite surprised! The way you delivered the message was very original, to say the least. And, tit... very you! Hopefully, the little kernel of insight I gleaned was of some

Sunny chuckled.

train of refugees all the way back to Falcon Scott. That was... a hell of a journey. 𝗅𝗂𝗀𝗁𝗍𝗇𝗈𝗏𝖾𝗅𝖼𝖺𝗏𝖾․𝖼𝗈𝗆. But what happened

saying that, he remained silent

back that Comupted Titan I mentioned. Once she was defeated, the

the brightly lit hall. Nephis and Cassie did not speak, probably not mowing what to say, and neither

to Sunny could

Eventually, Kai sighed.

sorry, Sunny. You've been

closed his eyes for a moment. The heart-wrenching memories of the Antarctic Center clawed at his heart, making him want to surrender to a dark

With a smile, he shook his

hell. But... it did really feel different, this time. Maybe because I was responsible for other people, and maybe because it was happening right here on Earth, not in