Shadow Slave

In the tastefully decorated display hall of the Memory Boutique, which was located in the basement of the Brilliant Emporium — which, in turn, was a marvelous devil who hid a pocket dimension in its belly — a graceful young man was sitting calmly on the floor with his eyes closed.

In his hand, he was holding a small lantern carved from black stone. The gate of the lantern was open, and beyond it nestled an eerie darkness. A sense of chilling coldness came from its impenetrable depths.

Suddenly, the tranquil young man let out a sigh and opened his eyes.

In the next moment, two shadows suddenly escaped from the gate of the dark lantern, instantly turning into perfect copies of him.

Both were dirty and battered, instantly marring the immaculately clean floor with a layer of black dust. However, while one was simply disheveled, the other looked more like a corpse — especially due to how pale their porcelain skin was.

His black tunic was tattered and torn, and there were countless hideous wounds covering his body. The wounds were bloodless, which only made him look more like a cadaver.

Looking at the mess, the graceful young man dismissed the black lantern and pursed his lips.

Hunching, Sunny took a few ragged breaths and then looked at his gloomy incarnation.

”...What are you staring at, bastard?”

With that, he swayed and collapsed to the floor.

Now that he had escaped the Shadow Realm, all strength suddenly left his mangled body. It was partially due to the psychological effect of finally reaching safety, and partially due to the fact that he had been quite literally empowered by the desolate land of shadows.

Now that the borrowed strength was gone, Sunny toppled like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

Laying on the cool floorboards, he let out a pained groan.

’I don’t think I can move…’

Not only did he find it difficult to move a muscle, but the pain he had been suppressing rushed in like a tide. Sunny felt his consciousness dim, and somewhere far away, the Lord of the Shadow stumbled subtly.

Luckily, the King of Swords had assigned him a long and annoying, but mostly passive mission — it was his turn to guard the base camp of the expedition force near the Vanishing Lake.

With Condemnation’s death, the balance of power in the Breastbone Hollow had shifted, and many powerful Nightmare Creatures were on the move. More than that, the prolonged deprivation from sunlight was slowly starting to affect the ancient jungle, so the entire ecosystem was in a state of mild chaos.

But the abominations rarely approached Vanishing Lake, and therefore, Sunny merely had to stay vigilant without doing much of anything. It was a bit of a waste to assign the Lord of Shadows to guard duty, as far as he was concerned, but the King of Swords had his own considerations. In any case, the timely new assignment gave Sunny a few days of respite, which was a blessing in disguise.

Letting out another quiet groan, Sunny almost missed the incarnation’s response:

”I am looking at two useless fools. What did you idiots do to our soul, huh?”

Technically, the seventh incarnation was innocent — it had not even been born when Sunny allowed his soul to be damaged by the essence storm — but instead of retorting, the nonchalant guy simply gave the neat avatar a short glance and remained silent.

Sunny cursed.

”What did we do? What did you do?! Nothing! So who are you calling... damn, why am I even wasting essence on talking to you?!”

With that, he released both incarnations, allowing them to turn back into shadows.

The gloomy shadow gave the new guy an inquisitive stare. The eldest of the shadows seemed to be pondering the youngest shadow’s character.

Actually, Sunny was curious too.

Truth be told, the seventh shadow — the last shadow — had been born in quite an epic way.

It had been born in the Realm of Death from the act of slaying an ancient god, and struck down the dreadful slayer of the Shadow Realm seconds after being born. R𝒶ƝŎВƐŜ

What could be more awesome than that?

Additionally, although the incarnation had been controlled by Sunny, it did display certain personality traits. It seemed aloof, nonchalant, cold, and calm in all situations…

Kind of cool, really.

’Did I finally have a normal shadow? Someone sane, sensible, and decent like me, not an unhinged lunatic like those six crazies?’

Sunny was excited.

Trying to distract himself from the pain, he strained to speak:

”Hey, you. The new guy. Look at me, will you?”

The seventh shadow lingered for a few moments, then looked at him indifferently.

It was indeed cool.

But… how should Sunny put it…

There was something off about that nonchalant attitude?

Suddenly, a terrible suspicion crawled its way into his mind.

”N—no… now look at your older brother.”

The seventh shadow did not move for a second or two, then slowly shifted its gaze to gloomy.

Sunny’s eyes widened.

”Hey… hey!”

But there was no denying it.

The seventh shadow was indeed calm and nonchalant… but not because of cold aloofness!

Instead, Sunny felt like it simply couldn’t be bothered to strain itself with such complicated emotions.

It was too lazy to bother!

In fact, its whole demeanor emanated a strong feeling of idleness and sloth.

The seventh shadow was fine doing nothing. It was enjoying the peace. It was content, relaxed, and a little sleepy. Having to follow all these bothersome orders was irritating, but even getting annoyed was not worth it…

Sunny gritted his teeth.

”You lazy bastard! How dare you be a letdown?! What a waste of an epic origin story!”

The lazy shadow just stared at him indifferently, not bothering to get angry.

Sunny groaned.

”Damn… it’s another lunatic! No, but why are all my shadows sick in the head? How come?! What’s can be the reason?!”

The two shadows glanced at each other.

Then, in perfect sync, they slowly shook their heads.