Darkness reigned supreme above the gray sky and in the depths of the black sea.
An harsh battle had already take place and another one was currently on going.
The corpse of the enemy was still leaning on the edge of the cliff with the red uchigatana still stuck a the top of its body.
Sunless, after slain a Corrupted Devil as a Sleeper, an unheard of a feat, found himself immediately after in another hard struggle against himself this time. Before him, two "golden fruits" were ready to be harvested, but his morals told him otherwise.
'Wait! Why can't I feel the pain from my right arm anymore? Have you already done Serpent? Goodness gracious! It hasn't even been ten minutes yet.'
Serpent hadn't even started to circulate his essence, and his arm was still wounded and hurting. Sunny was simply under a particular type of anesthesia.
He must sheathe his Shadow rod before it's too late.
"Sunny?"
Cassie's soft voice brought him back to reality. Sunny has no idea how long he'd been frozen staring at her in silence while lying on the ground. Probably no more than a minute or two. His heart was beating really fast, steam went out of his ears for the heat.
After another minute of silence and great confusion on the girl's part...
"Ehmmm! Cas?" Said Sunny.
"Hm?"
Cassie tilted her head, still unaware of the situation.
No, seriously! she is not an idiot. Let's get over the fact that she was still shocked at having just escaped death. Why, damn the Spell, hasn't she realized she's naked yet? And, even more dangerously, on top of him?
"It's something the matter, Sunny?" She asked him.
Sunny took a long breath before answer her, his eyes still refused to look away from her chest.
"See! I didn't say anything yet because the pain in my right arm distracted me, but did you realize you're completely naked?" He asked her, the question coming out of his mouth choked with embarrassment and heat.
Cassie blinked. She slowly lowered her gaze to look at her own body. What the hell did you even look at to do? YOU ARE BLIND!
Cassie blushed deeply, like she had never done before.
She finally stood up.
The two immediately separated, backs facing each other a couple of inches apart, knees on the ground and gazes downward. The silence suddenly fell between the two young Sleepers. Neither dared to raise their heads or speak after this... accident.
Cassie was as red as a tomato, arms crossed to cover her generous chest. The fear of death and the relief of having survived were replaced by the desire to bury her head in the ground and never bring it up again.
"Did... y-you saw me, d-didn't you?" Cassie asked him at some point, her voice struggling to come out due her shame.
The two still refused to look at each other, keeping their heads down in embarrassment.
"It has literally been impossible for me not to do it." Sunny answered her.
He added mentally: 'Nope! I'm not gonna say sorry! I saved her life. I killed a Corrupted Devil for her, AS A SLEEPER! She's the one who threw herself at me without anything on.
This... is the least. At least this is the least for me. I mean, I deserved that and much more if we want to be fair!'
At his response, Sunny could hear a slight squeak coming behind him from Cassie.
She wanted so much hide herself now, but how could she do it there? With her Memory's enchanting senses, Cassie could see the world not with her eyes, they were useless due to her flaw, but by sensing the shapes.
Her world was made up of sounds, smells, sensations, and the shapes of the objects around her. Aside from her visions, she had nothing else. And in that moment, she could sense it. They were on a flat cliff in the middle of nowhere. Where was she supposed to hide?
Gods! Why Sunny of all people? She knows that she is the one who threw herself naked at him. So she don't blame him, but how is she supposed to look at him face to face again now?
At least...
If a boy really had to find her naked in the middle of nowhere at least it's someone that she likes a bit and had come to know.
Ok!
Maybe Cassie likes Sunny more than just a bit, but that's besides the point!
Sunny, for his part, was not faring any better.
He tried with his mind to think to something else: Yuki's message, the pain of his right arm dislocated, even one of that time when he stopped the night by Jet and a colleague of her tried to hit on her by knocking on her door and he immediately tell him to screw himself.
Hands off his zombie Waifu!
Nothing was working.
Cassie's golden fruits had completely clouded his mind.
Sunny closed himself in his thoughts as not to get out of it crazy.
'DAMN YOU SUNLESS! Seriously! How the hell could you even look at Cas and think of her as just a little sister? How can anyone even just look at her and think: "Oh? Yeah! She's only a little sister to me, nothing more."!?'
Come on! It's ridiculous.
In fact, when he read the Novel in his previous life, he scoffed when he was told that Sunless saw Cassie just as a little sister. The same guy who'd said she was as beautiful as a doll the first time he'd seen her. And the story was told from his point of view!
WHAT A BULLSHIT!
He didn't believe it.
'Now that I think about it, not just Cas, a lot of potential ships went up in smoke just because Sunless had to simp Nephis.'
So much wasted Waifu material!
He shook his head.
'No, No! NO! I'm gonna fix this! Now that I've take your place since the day you were born, I won't make your same mistakes, Sunless!
I will fulfill all the duties that you have not completed. Not just Nephis, but also Jet, Cas, Morgan, and the others girls as well. Especially Morgan!'
Dating Morgan wasn't just his wish, it was the will of Fate!
A Great Quest demanded by the dead Gods.
The world demanded it.
He demanded it.
(The readers demanded it 😉)
'Failure is not an option, I will succeed! Otherwise my name is not Sunless-Fix-it-all.'
And in fact it wasn't actually his name, but his determination was absolute.
The sound of sparks of light behind him drew his attention back. Cassie was summoning a Memory. Without turning back, through his shadow, Sunny could see that Cassie had just summoned an armor type Memory. Much likely, Nephis had given her this.
It was a simple tunic with leather sandals and a cloak of the color of sea waves.
Seeing her now covered in armor only made the previous sight more sensual.
His Shadow rod didn't want to sheathe, but he had to.
'SELF-CONTROL, MAN!SELF-CONTROL!'
His will cannot give way for so little.
But THOSE were not so little!
Anyway, Sunny was embarrassed. But despite the embarrassment, he didn't mind what he'd gained.
The fr... COUGH! COUGH! The new Memory from the Corrupted Devil was surely of the Transcendent rank. He couldn't help himself but smile, eager to see it.
'You know what? If I can get all of this after dealing with a shark... I don't mind a fight with another Corrupted freak.'
As soon as he finished formulating the thought, almost like Fate was mocking him, a black tentacle as big as a building rose from the nearby depths of the dark sea. Emerging from the surface of the water, it raised large waves in the dark sea and threw several liters of water onto their cliff.
The shark's predator has finally caught up with its prey.
"I was kidding! I WAS KIDDING!"
Sunny immediately rose from the ground, his arm still hurting. Cassie did the same, standing beside him. Sunny summoned the Priestess to protect her and ordered Serpent to transform into a forked spear to face the new opponent.
A Shadow of a beautiful woman with hair black as a starless sky, even more of the Forgotten shore sky, manifested herself from his shadow. The Priestess, seeing the enemy, shaped with her ability a pair of daggers from the shadows.
Sunny, with Serpent in the form of a weapon in his hand, sid-eyed her for a moment.
'Dagger? DAGGERS? This motherfucker punched mountains probably, and you bring daggers!?'
It wasn't a good time to criticize, especially since Sunny can't say he could have done any better with that forked spear in his hands, but the fortune favors the bold.
And fortunately! A second later, the tentacle reached down and wrapped itself around the Corrupted Devil's carcass, dragging it into the depths of the water to feast on its flesh.
After the black tentacle settled out, Sunny and Cassie could breathe a sigh of relief.
However...
Sunny only now remembered that his weapon [Rivers of blood] was still stuck in the carcass of the Corrupted Devil.
The uchigatana hadn't broken, otherwise the Spell would have told him. But right now, it was gone.
Sunny fell to his knees, banging his head to the ground to avoid crying over the loss of his weapon. Serpent meanwhile returned to its tattoo form to resume healing his arm and his new emotional damage.
He couldn't believe it!
His weapon.
That beautiful, bloodthirsty uchigatana that Jet bought for him... gone just like this?
An Ascendant Memory thrown away only because he had forgotten to retrieve it?
'DAMN EVERYTHING! DAMN MY SHITTY LUCK! DAMN THOSE GOLDEN FRUITS TOO!
...
Truth be told! On second thought, those golden fruits are my only solace right now.'
And with that ended the first half of his first night on the Forgotten Shore.