Shadow Slave

Harper stared at him with that pathetic timid smile frozen on his lips. In his eyes, there was fake friendliness, worry, and desperation. For some reason, Sunny felt a violent urge to erase the smile of his face.

'You scum…'

In his rattled state, he was having trouble controlling his emotions. Something must have shown on his face, because Harper suddenly blinked and took a step back. But in the end, the desire to be allowed back into the Bright Castle won over his caution. He forced himself to stay still, hesitated for a few moments, and said:

"I… I wanted to thank you for inviting me into your home this morning."

Sunny looked at the gaunt young man. In the twilight of dusk, his pale face was hidden in deep shadows. Finally, he answered:

"Yeah. We can talk."

'Think, Sunny, think…'

But his mind was refusing to obey. Most of it was drowning in the sea of cold terror that had been summoned by the revelation of the future. What little remained was utterly disoriented.

Sunny raised one hand and rubbed his face.

'He's a spy. He's here to make it easier for Gunlaug to kill us. What should be done?'

In the morning… yes, back before everything changed, Sunny had seen Harper reporting to one of the Guards. He wanted to give the cowardly young man a beating and throw him out of the lodge… but that would be a wrong decision.

The best thing to do was not to expose the unfortuante spy, but to feign ingnorance and feed him false information. Yeah… that was the optimal way to deal with moles. As an aspiring spy himself, Sunny knew these things well.

But would he even able to deceive Harper? By accident, the failed informant had chosen a perfect person as his mark. Sunny knew a lot of secrets and was incapable of lying.

But he was also a master of deception. So…

"Sunless?"

Sunny flinched and glanced at the gaunt young man.

"Sorry. Uh… I'm a bit out of sorts after today's hunt. You wanted to talk?"

Reassured, Harper smiled again.

"You see, I wanted to thank you for everything that you had done for me, and for all the people here in the settlement. When I left the castle, I brought a very special item with me. I thought of sharing it with you!"

Sunny frowned.

"A special item?"

'I should see what his plan is exactly, feed him a couple of little truths along with the lies, and then report to Neph in the morning. R—right?'

Harper, meanwhile, was nodding energetically:

"It's a… a bottle of liquor. Every month, a few are sold by the Artisans working in the garden. Getting one is very hard, but I was lucky. Would you like to come and try? My hut is nearby."

Sunny got distracted for a few moments, but then forced hismeld to concentrate. What was Harper talking about? Artisans, liquor, luck…

'...Why not?'

Giving Harper a nod, he gestured for the young man to lead the way and followed.

As they passed other slum dwellers on their way to Harper's hovel, Sunny couldn't help but feel like they were surrounded by walking corpses.

Most of these people were already dead. They just didn't know it yet.

…But he did.

The weight of this knowledge was slowly crushing him.

Harper's small hut was even more pathetic than the other hovels in the slum. It was crudely constructed out of rotting pieces of wood, with plenty of cracks to let the cold wind in. Inside, there was nothing except for a pile of seaweed thatch that served as a flimsy mattress and a low wooden table. Sunny could understand why the gaunt Sleeper was so desperate to return to the castle.

At least there was a door.

Once inside, Harper looked around with embarrassment and invited Sunny to sit on the floor in front of the table. Then, he dug a glass jar from beneath the seaweed and placed it in front of him like a rare treasure. Producing a crude iron knife from somewhere, Harper then opened the wax seal of the jar, placed the knife on the table, and poured a milky white liquid into a chipped clay cup.

"Here!"

He handed the cup to Sunny and smiled.

Sunny received it and smelled the strange liquor. He remembered many people in the outskirts who had drowned themselves in the bottle or killed themselves with cheap stimulants and drugs. Luckily, he was always too paranoid to allow anything to alter his mental state. Plus, for a long time, he couldn't allow himself to die before accomplishing a certain thing.

That's why Sunny was not too familiar with alcohol.

Bringing the cup to his lips, he held his breath and downed it in one go. A pleasant warmth immediately spread through his body, bringing with it a bit of sweet solace.

'...I can see the appeal.'

It wasn't too bad, really.

Harper hurriedly refilled the cup and asked:

"I heard about the latest hunt. By gods, you have survived an encounter with a Spire Messenger! That must have been horrible…"

Sunny lingered for a bit, then shrugged.

"I just stood at the back."

The gaunt young man shook his head.

"Still. You are incredible! I hear that you have been with Lady Changing Star from the very beginning, surviving more than two months in the Labyrinth. Is this true?"

He was a really bad actor. Even if Sunny didn't know that Harper was a spy already, he would have sensed something strange at this point. But it was easy to pretend not to notice anything.

'Rats like me will tell you everything as long as you show them a tiny bit of respect, huh?'

Flushed because of the liquor, Sunny slowly smiled:

"Oh… yes! In fact, if it wasn't for me, she would have been long dead. Do you know how many times I saved her life?"

This part was entirely planned, aimed to create a false sense that Harper's plan to use pettiness and jealousy to loosen his tongue worked. However, the next words came out of Sunny's mouth on their own.

Gritting his teeth, he suddenly paled and whispered:

"...and for what? Huh? For… for this? This wasn't supposed to happen. How did this happen?!"

Then, Sunny grabbed his head and forced out a dark laugh.

'This is bad… what am I even saying?'

Mistaking his terror for the sign of the liquor doing its job, Harper got a little braver:

"You must have fought side by side with Lady Nephis a lot!"

Sunny lowered his head, then shrugged.

"Yeah."

The gaunt young man hesitated for a few moments, then cautiously asked:

"So… you must have seen her Aspect Ability?"

Learn your enemy's Ability, learn their Flaw, learn their vices… that's how you kill them. Staring at Harper, Sunny suddenly remembered his first battle after meeting Nephis. Back then, she asked him if he had ever dissected a dead carapace scavenger to learn its weaknesses.

That's what the cowardly Sleeper was doing right now. Dissecting them. Even though they weren't dead… yet.

"Sure. It can be used to heal."

Harper eyes gleamed.

"So she's a healer! Of course. Such an Ability suits Lady Changing Star very well. Everyone knows that she's an angel…"

'Good…'

His first goal was achieved. Sunny had successfully created a misunderstanding, leading Harper to believe that Neph's Aspect was limited to healing. There had to be other spies in the slum, of course. With them collaborating on that statement by recounting how she had healed the wounded hunters today, Gunlaug and his people would most likely believe that Changing Star had no offensive Ability.

Who would ever assume that her flames could both heal and destroy?

Harper, meanwhile, was pouring more liquor into the cup.

"By the way, I always wanted to ask. Do you know how Lady Nephis received her True Name?"

Maybe because of his terrible state of mind, or maybe because of the liquor, or maybe simply because of a momentary lapse of judgment, Sunny didn't think his next words through well enough before answering:

"Probably the same way I did."

Then, he froze.

'Curse you!'

He was so preoccupied with creating a false image of Neph in Harper's mind that, for a second, he had forgotten to keep his own true identity a secret.

'Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!'

Not letting the panic show on his face, Sunny tried to salvage the situation by throwing his head back and laughing, creating an impression that his last statement was a joke.

Luckily, Harper seemed to believe him. He laughed, too, and then glanced at Sunny with humorous sparks in his eyes.

However, his next words sent Sunny into a cold embrace of horror. It was as though the gates of hell opened right beneath his feet.

Wishing to play along, the gaunt young man grinned and said jokingly:

"Oh! Of course, of course, Lord Sunless! What is your True Name then?"

Sunny stared at him, the smile frozen on his face.

'Think! Think! How do you get out of this?!'

But there was no way out, at least none that he could see. He was caught.

The familiar pressure appeared in his mind. Slowly, Sunny became deathly pale.

Harper was still grinning, waiting for the answer. His face was gaunt, tired, and full of both fear and desperate hope.

He was just a weak, pitiful kid, after all.

The pressure was replaced by blinding pain, sending a tremble running through Sunny's body.

Why, why did he have to ask that question?!

But it was too late. What happened couldn't be changed.

Like a cornered beast, Sunny could think of only one thing...

Harper finally sensed that something was wrong. His eyes widened.

"Sun…"

...how to survive.

Just a second before the pain overwhelmed his limits and forced out an answer, Sunny suddenly leaned forward, picked up the crude iron knife, and stabbed it through the poor young man's heart.