(READ AUTHOR'S NOTE HIGHLY IMPORTANT.)
In the ensuing silence, the smile slowly disappeared from Cassie's face, replaced by confusion. Feeling the sudden tension, she asked:
"Uh… what's wrong?"
Sunny sighed.
"No, nothing is wrong. It's just that that direction is the one we wanted to avoid."
After some thought, he added:
"That's where I came from yesterday. There's a lot of scavengers down there."
The blind girl's face fell.
"Oh."
Nephis, who was quietly listening to them, gave him an indecipherable look and finally spoke:
"Tell us more about the castle."
A shadow of the previous excitement returned to Cassie's eyes. With a serious nod, she began describing her vision.
"I dreamt of a vast, ruined city built of weathered stone. It was surrounded by tall, impregnable walls. Various monsters were wandering its narrow streets. In the center of the city, the was a hill, and on that hill stood a magnificent castle."
She smiled.
"But there were no monsters in the castle! Instead, it was full of people. I think… no, I'm sure that they were Awakened. Some were guarding the walls, some were going about their lives without a care in the world. There was food, safety, and laughter!"
'Well, that sounds great.'
If this castle really existed, then all of their problems would be solved. Sunny cleared his throat.
"Did you see anything else?"
Cassie frowned, trying to remember. Then, her face cleared.
"Yes! I saw Sunny and Nephis leading me through the gates of the castle! That means we will make it!"
A brilliant smile appeared on her doll-like face, beaming with so much joy that Sunny couldn't help but curl his lips.
Sunny and the other two were quite happy even though that's where danger waits. Well mostly Sunny and Cassie as usual Nephis was well Nephis.
'Weirdo, can't even celebrate properly.'
"Okay, then we journey towards the west."
***
While the sea was still retreating, they had their breakfast and then spent some time planning for the journey and preparing to abandon the temporary camp. In the process, Sunny had a chance to get to know the girls a little better.
It was then that he came to a sudden realization, which almost made his head explode from bafflement. That mind-blowing realization had to do with Nephis.
Back when they first met in front of the Academy's gates, Sunny had formed a certain impression of the confident, distant and slightly weird girl. Later, her behavior and the different revelations about Changing Star's past only served to reinforce that impression.
Nephis seemed to exist a bit apart from the world. She was mysterious, aloof and rather cool even though Sunny wasn't going to admit that. Her taciturn character and strange speech patterns made people interacting with her feel unnerved and rattled, often revealing more than they had been planning to. The less she talked, the more she seemed to know. That silent, indifferent confidence was arresting, and sometimes even oppressive.
However, that impression turned out to be completely wrong!
The actual truth behind the matter had nothing to do with being cool and aloof. After talking to her a bit more and observing their interactions with Cassie, Sunny almost fainted when he realized that Nephis was simply an incredibly, ridiculously... painfully awkward person.
It was as though she had no idea how to talk to people. Every time she tried to convey something, she would either use the wrong words or stumble in the middle of the sentence and fall silent. Her tone never matched what she was trying to say. Often, she would forget to put correct intonations in her speech, making questions sound like statements or vice versa.
Added to that was the fact that, like many introverted people, Nephis was not in a habit of openly showing her emotions. It's not that she didn't have feelings: it's just that she was really bad at emoting them! As a result, her face always looked cold and neutral.
That's why, most of the time, she simply chose to talk as little as possible or not to talk at all.
All of that added up together, then multiplied by her general weirdness, was ultimately responsible for creating the false image of a mysterious, unapproachable ice princess.
When in fact, she was just shy and completely inept in communicating with people!
Sunny also considered himself quite the introverted person too but he didn't exactly have prob- actually scratch that the only reason he can have a proper conversation with others is by imagining that he was talking to himself because it was easier that way even though it was un — conventional but if it worked then it works but the thing is Sunny doesn't exactly have the longest battery until he starts running out of words and in the end his brain might mal — function from being overloaded of words the other sleepers were spewing out like they were rapping. Sunny didn't know what rapping was but he did know the general idea: Talking fast. Apparently that's rapping and because sunny didn't know how fast to be exact he just took a good guess.
In his mind, Nephis had definitely been the type of person to be the main character of any event. At the center stage, there were always confident, strong people like her and Caster. People like sunny was meant for the back- hold on why was he downgrading himself sunny was infinitely stronger than those two combined why would he be in the background infact what would have actually happened was that Sunny himself would make his own Show and be the protagonist and that show would be ranked higher than what those two could ever dream of achieving. That's right sunny was completely getting immersed in the whole humble and kind man persona that was totally not him.
At that moment, Nephis finally noticed that Sunny was staring at her which he didn't even notice himself. She looked at him and, after a long pause, asked in an emotionless tone:
"...What?"
He blinked, extricating himself from this sudden flood of thoughts, and cleared his throat.
"Uh, nothing. I was just going to ask when are we setting off."
Nephis appeared to be thinking. After a while, she turned away and said:
"Soon."
'You... Seriously need to get help maybe from professionals like uhh... Cassie over here she can probably boost that one word into a whole fully fledged sentence.'
Utterly bewildered, Sunny hid his emotions and smiled.
"Ah. Alright then."
***
In the grey light of morning, they abandoned the tall hill and ventured west, retracing their steps from yesterday. Knowing the path, the small party made quick progress.
Nephis was walking in front, her sword arm ready to strike at any moment. A bit behind her was Sunny. This time, the responsibility of holding the golden rope and guiding Cassie along was entrusted to him.
Of course, the actual person… creature?.. leading them was his shadow. It scouted ahead, carefully observing the labyrinth for signs of danger.
The labyrinth was just as it was before, confusing and seemingly endless. Crimson blades of "coral" protruded from the black mud, creating a vast, tangled forest. However, today something about it felt different.
It wasn't long before the shadow stumbled onto a mass of hulking, hungry scavengers…
"Halt!"
Sunny whispered, observing the group of scavengers through his shadow.
As soon as the word left his lips, Nephis immediately summoned her sword. After studying the surroundings for a second, she turned her head and glanced at him with a question in her eyes.
Cassia, meanwhile, froze in place and hesitantly raised her staff.
Sunny counted the monsters: one, two, three… five… ten...
'Thats quite alot... Huh.'
The hulking beasts seemed like the losers of the pack, similar to the ones he had killed. However, their wounds were not as pronounced and terrible. Each of them was much more of a threat than the mangled ones from before, and there were a dozen of them at least.
"There are scavengers on the path ahead, ten of them. They're slowly moving in our direction."
Nephis cast a gaze forward. There was a calculating look on her face.
"They're done with the carcasses?"
Sunny thought for a moment and then shook his head.
"No, I don't think so. But maybe there's not enough meat for everyone anymore, so some stragglers had no choice but to leave with an empty stomach."
Nephis nodded and gestured to a nearby branching path.
"We'll circle around them."
The sleepers, maneuvered around them even though sunny could have killed them all but one of them might call for even more back — up which wasn't exactly ideal scenario because two of his teammates couldn't exactly survive without sunnys protection, they continued walking, trying to stay on course and not get lost in the labyrinth.
However, in the next hour, they had to turn in a random direction again and again, avoiding other scavengers. The distance between them and the giant statue was not shortening at all.
At some point, they were catching their breath near one of the numerous dead ends of the crimson labyrinth. They had no choice but to wait, since a large number of creatures was moving past their hiding spot, separated from them by a long length of a twisting coral passage.
Sunny sighed and shook his head.
"We can't go on like that. At this rate, we'll never make it to safety before sunset."
Cassie was the first one to react.
"Maybe… maybe we should turn back?"
That was a reasonable suggestion. However, Sunny felt reluctant to agree.
Nephis shared her thoughts. With a blank expression, she said:
"It will only get harder tomorrow."
'atleast she spoke more than one word that's improvement right?'
She was right. By tomorrow, there would be even more scavengers flooding the labyrinth.
"Then what should we do?"
Changing Star tilted her head, thinking. After a while, she turned to Sunny.
"Fight."
"You do realize i can't exactly use my Aspect without going insane?"
Changing star looked at sunny and said.
"Then don't your clearly stronger than most sleepers why do you keep down — grading yourself."
Sunny has thought of that before realizing he keeps using the humble and kind personality even though his not in the academy anymore its fine showing his true colors once in a while... Right?
But obviously sunny wouldn't be using his Aspect and only his what's a good term for it. Secondary Aspect or Aspect Attribute. Better yet how about Shadow Aspect and when his going to use his main Aspect he'll call it Madness Aspect. See even in danger he could still make terminologies that somewhat makes sense.
"Anyways, what's the plan?"
Nephis nodded.
"We avoid large groups. Cut down smaller ones."
After a moment, she added:
"If there's one or two of them, there's a chance."
'Yeah a chance for you two to get hit and die... Would you guys technically become a hollow then. Huh, nevermind.'
Nephis stared at him for a while. Then, she suddenly asked:
"Have you studied the corpse of the scavenger you had killed?"
What was that supposed to mean?
A bit surprised, Sunny shook his head.
"No."
'If you looked at their dead bodies you'll see alot of torned apart pieces of their bodies can't exactly inspect them you know.'
After a short pause, Nephis spoke:
"Scavengers have three weak points on their bodies. The first one is obvious: it's their joints. Anything that has to be flexible can't be too rigid. So, there's gaps in the armor above the joints. By targeting the joints, you can diminish their mobility and attack capacity."
Oh… so, by studying a dead monster, one could better understand their strengths and vulnerabilities.
'What were you in your past life a body inspector... That's gross not gonna lie.'
Meanwhile, Nephis continued:
"The second one is the same. It's where their torso connects to the carapace. If you manage to accurately hit that spot, you can heavily injure a scavenger and deal serious damage to its body. However, unless you succeed in severing its spine, the wound won't be fatal. It'll still be able to fight for a while."
Sunny couldn't help but notice that Changing Star's awkwardness seemed to disappear whenever she talked about things that she felt confident about, like ancient heroes. Or killing things.
'This girl is a phychopath no doubt about it.'
"The last weak point is on their back, approximately at the level where the eyes are. There's a slightly concave, discolored cavity in their armor. It is where several armor plates connect. The chitin there is comparatively thin. If you can pierce through it, you can destroy the brain directly. That will be a killing blow."
'That is good to know. However, that weak point was too high to be hit by a human — after all, scavengers were more than two meters tall! And plus im not exactly "Tall" unlike you.'
As though reading his thoughts, Nephis added:
"That weak point is very hard to target. Circling around a scavenger is almost impossible due to their size, speed and the attack range of their pincers."
She looked at him and calmly said:
"If we stumble on a single scavenger, I'll be the bait. My task will be to make it turn around and then restrain it, exposing the third weak point. Your task will be to kill it."
Sunny inhaled and thought.
'easy enough i can probably just one tap them.'
"Hold on, what if there's two of them?"
As usual, Nephis paused before answering.
"You can probably just kill them without using the weak points albeit slower."
***
It wasn't long before they were left with no choice but to attempt a fight against a scavenger. Behind them, there was a long stretch of the labyrinth with no suitable branching paths for them to turn onto. Ahead of them, there was a small clearing with only one other passage leading out of it.
Not far into that passage, a massive scavenger was moving slowly in their direction.
Sunny quickly described the situation and waited for Changing Star's feedback. Without much delay, she gave him a nod.
"We fight in the clearing."
After that, Nephis gently guided Cassie to the wall of the labyrinth and helped her find a place to sit.
"Wait here. We'll be back."
After some thought, she added.
"Soon."
As Nephis moved to walk away, Cassie grabbed her hand. Her face was pale and tense.
"You two... Be careful, okay?"
Nephis blinked and tilted her head a little. Then, she smiled.
"Uh. Sure."
With that, she and Sunny hastily headed for the clearing.
By the time they got there, the scavenger was seconds from appearing. Sunny's shadow flew out of the passage and reattached itself to his feet. Without having to discuss things with Nephis, he quickly hid in the shadows and waited there, hoping for a chance to attack.
Nephis, on the other hand, strolled to the center of the clearing and calmly stood there, her shoulders relaxed and her back straight. An elegant longsword appeared in her hands, carelessly pointed to the ground.
Not knowing what else to do, Sunny silently watched already bored contemplating whether to just follow the plan or just use his Madness Aspect.
A second later, the scavenger walked into the clearing. When his tiny eyes spotted Nephis, an evil light ignited in them. Without wasting even a second, the massive monster screeched and rushed forward to attack.
Its huge pincer shot forward with terrifying speed, tearing the air in its path.
Nephis swiftly sidestepped, dodging the pincer, then leaped backward, removing herself from the path of the rushing monster. Simultaneously, her sword flashed in the air, cutting deep into the joint of one of the scavenger's front legs.
Azure blood spattered on the ground.
Of course, this small wound was too insignificant to slow the scavenger down. With surprising agility, it twisted and delivered a crushing sideways swipe. Nephis, who just barely landed on her feet, had no choice but to deflect the blow with her sword. She managed to disperse most of the impact by holding the blade at the right angle, but the remaining force was still enough to throw her off balance.
At that moment, the second pincer came down. Instead of trying to regain her equilibrium, Changing Star went with the fall and somersaulted over one hand, ending up distancing herself from the monster a bit. Her sword lashed out again.
'Awesome shit... Wait hold on aren't i supposed to help. Now?'
The follow-up attack followed almost immediately.
However, Sunny did not care about the details anymore. The only thing he cared about was that, through this risky series of dodges and leaps, Nephis had managed to circle to the opposite side of the clearing, forcing the scavenger to turn its back to the shadow in which he hid.
'It's now or never!'
Gritting his teeth, Sunny lunged forward.
Before Changing Star finished her last dodge…
Before the scavenger's pincer crashed on her from above…
He closed the distance between himself and the monster and jumped with all his might, landing on top of its carapace. Then, he used all of his weight to thrust a hand forward.
Azure Blade shimmered into existence in his grip and was immediately swallowed by the shadow. A breath later, the dark blade hit precisely into the concave, discolorated cavity in the scavenger's armor. With a crack, the chitin broke, allowing the tip of the sword to sink deep into the scavenger's body.
The monster shuddered, and then heavily fell to the ground.
Sunny was thrown from its carapace, landing in the mud with a roll.
'That… that easy?'
It was already over?
As though to answer him, the Spell's voice resounded in the air:
[You have slain an awakened beast, Carapace Scavenger.]
[...Your shadow grows stronger.]
'Well i did kill seven awakened tyrant's only using my [The Shadow] Attribute which somehow kept me alive even after all my organs were destroyed well it was night — time so i basically had infinite darkness to use to heal myself.'
Sunny was sprawled in the mud, looking at the sky. He didn't even have to catch his breath since the whole fight took less than ten seconds from start to finish. No one was dead, wounded or even bruised… well, with the exception of the scavenger. It was completely out of his expectations.
He glanced at the monster's corpse to make sure that it was actually dead, then summoned the runes and took a look at the number of Shadow Fragments in his possession.
[Shadow Fragments: 352/1000].
'Hey why don't you look at that three — hundred and fifty — two already... Pretty nice if you ask me, i wonder what would happen if i fully saturate it.'
'Why can't it always be so easy?'
Sunny got back on his feet and dismissed the Azure Blade.
He walked over to Nephis and checked if she was okay. Apart from slight damage to her makeshift seaweed clothes, everything seemed to be alright. She glanced at Sunny.
"Memory?"
He shook his head.
Nephis sighed. It seemed that she was a bit impatient to get herself a suit of armor of her own. If Sunny was a gentleman, he would have suggested to loan her the Puppeteer's Shroud for a while… but alas, he wasn't. That armor was extremely valuable and had cost him a lot.
Plus, unlike Changing Star, the picture of Sunny wearing nothing but a seaweed loincloth would have been more disturbing than aesthetically pleasing. So, he said nothing.
Meanwhile, Nephis headed for the dead scavenger and said without turning her head:
"Bring Cassie."
Up
With a sigh, Sunny turned around and left the clearing.
Soon, he approached the place where the blind girl was waiting patiently for their return. Hearing his footsteps, she flinched and raised her head:
"S—Sunny?"
'How did she recognize me? Ah... must be the way I walk.'
"Yeah, it's me. Everything is over. Come on, I'll bring you to Nephis."
Using the wooden staff, Cassie stood up and turned to him.
"Are… are you guys alright?"
Sunny smiled.
"Of course! We dispatched that critter in no time. Didn't even get a scratch."
Cassie smiled with visible relief.
"Good, that's good. Oh, right, the rope…"
Sunny took the rope and guided the blind girl back to the clearing. On the way, he felt a bit weird. With the delicate girl walking behind him, he couldn't help but think of his little sister. As a toddler, she used to follow him around too, as though they were glued together.
As the familiar pain stabbed him in the heart, Sunny gritted his teeth and tried to think about something else. It was all in the past anyway.
Back in the clearing, Nephis was done breaking apart the scavenger's carapace. The shimmering soul shard was already in her hand. Without saying anything, she tossed it to Sunny.
He caught the crystal and looked at her with surprise.
"Why are you giving it to me?"
Nephis blinked and stayed quiet for a few seconds. Then she said as a matter of fact:
"I don't have pockets."
"Oh."
Still a bit bewildered, Sunny put the soul shard into his rucksack.
Still a bit bewildered, Sunny put the soul shard into his rucksack.
'But why wouldn't she just absorb it?'
He opened his mouth to ask the question, but she seemed to realize something and added:
"We'll divide the spoils later."
"Ah. Alright."
'But why wouldn't she just absorb it?'
He opened his mouth to ask the question, but she seemed to realize something and added:
"We'll divide the spoils later."
"Ah. Alright."
Nephis, meanwhile, turned to Cassie and said after some deliberation:
"We were careful."
Then, she smiled.
***
[Your shadow grows stronger.]
[Your shadow grows stronger.]
[Your shadow grows stronger.]
Sunny was feeling somewhere in-between of being ecstatic and peeved. Throughout the day, they managed to kill three more scavengers, each time with not much risk to anyone except for Nephis. The process was largely the same: after discovering the monster, he would hide in the shadows, while Nephis would act as bait. Then, when the time was right, Sunny would stealthily approach and finish the fight with a precise strike of the Azure Blade.
He was wondering if that was what being in the main hero's party felt like. To anyone else, maybe with the exception of Caster, dancing around a deadly awakened beast would have been a tall task, most likely ending with the dancer's death. Nephis, however, had managed to do it over and over again seemingly without too much strain.
What's more, her performance was based solely on skill, with no Aspect Ability involved. In that regard, even Caster couldn't have done better.
She was swift, calm and precise. Every move she made was calculated and perfectly timed. She seemed to innately understand the flow and logic of combat, which gave her the ability to roughly predict what actions the mindless beasts would perform in the next seconds. Then it was just the question of physical prowess to evade and even manipulate them to a certain degree.
Sunny had always known that skill and experience were more important than raw power, but by watching Nephis, he vividly understood just how vast the difference between them was. Even though his divine Aspect allowed Sunny to exert more strength and speed than Changing Star, in an actual fight, he would never stand a chance.
Wait hold on. Wouldn't she lose though her shard count is probably only in the double digits whilst sunny had three digits he was probably vastly superior than nephis even though she had better skills but sunny had a whole hundred mile gap put between his strength and hers it was probably going to be like sunnys fight with caster just child's play.
But sunny would probably have to end the fight shorter than he wanted it to be because for some un — godly reason his essence was draining faster than the average sleeper maybe it was because he had technically two Aspect well one of the two had no definitive rank but from what Sunny heard from Scholar when he wasn't dead there was the Shadow God so maybe Sunny had two Divine Aspects. Maybe or maybe not but that's the most logical answer considering his faster essence consumption.
Sunny summoned the runes.
[Shadow Fragments: 360/1000].
'Eight fragments today. Pretty excellent.'
Not as good as the other days were he gained hundreds but still decent numbers anyone would be quite proud of that unless you were way, way stronger that was probably childs play.
Currently, they were waiting on the edge of the labyrinth path leading directly to the giant statue of the headless knight. There was a group of scavengers between them and the statue, moving past without any haste.
The sunset was near, but they still had time.
Slowly, minutes flowed by. At some point, Nephis gave the command to move.
Helping Cassie along, Sunny followed Changing Star and quickly traversed the open space between the labyrinth and the statue. Now, they only had to get on top of it.
However, it wasn't that easy. Scaling the two-hundred-meter tall monument would have been hard in normal circumstances, but now, they also had to somehow pull Cassie up. Leaving her behind until they were at the top would not have been safe.
In the end, Nephis and Sunny took turns pulling the rope every twenty meters or so. Cassie would hold onto the rocks and wait until they climbed higher, and then the process would repeat. It was slow and torturous, and by the end, Sunny's muscles were sore and almost on fire.
But they managed to get to safety before the dark waters washed them away.
As the night began to descend, the three Sleepers sat in the center of the circular stone platform and rested. As they did not bring any materials to make a fire and it was already too late, there was no way to cook food. They ended up chewing on the strips of dried meat, passing the bottle of limitless water around.
After some time, Nephis gave Sunny a sign to take out the spoils of today's journey. He took out the four shimmering soul shards and put them on the ground.
Without any discussion, Changing Star moved two crystals in his direction and took two for herself. Then, she gave one of hers to Cassia.
Sunny watched it in silence. By the time Nephis and Cassie had absorbed their soul shards, he still didn't make a move to take his. After a while, he took all of his shards including the ones she gave him and gave it to Nephis.
The silver-haired girl looked at him with surprise.
"Don't you want... to grow stronger?"
Sunny grinned.
"Of course i want to get stronger but. Ahh, you see i cannot exactly use them."
He sighed.
"The stronger you are, the better our chances of survival will get. Plus, it's not a gift. It's a trade."
Nephis raised an eyebrow.
"A… trade? What do you want?"
Sunny deliberated for a few seconds before answering.
"It's rather simple. I will give you these soul shards, and all other soul shards I earn on the way to that castle…"
Then, he looked her in the eyes and said:
"In return, you will teach me how to fight."