Shadow Slave novel Chapter 682

Effie stared at him with no amusement whatsoever on her childish face, which only made her attempts to appear serious look more comical. Then, she scowled and said evenly:

"Wanna die?"

Sunny shook his head with a grin, then went into more detail about the things he had learned, including various pieces of information he had gleaned in the nightmares, his experience with the Warmongers, and his observations about Solvane and Noctis.

When he was done, there was silence for a while. The others were digesting all the information he had shared with them, full of thought. Well… everyone except Effie.

The somber silence was soon broken by the sound of loud chewing. The little girl swallowed a piece of meat pie, then blinked a couple of times, noticing that everyone was staring at her. Finally, she wiped the oil off her lips and said:

"What? I am a growing child, you know! I need to eat well to grow big!"

Then, she wiped her oily fingers on the tablecloth and shrugged.

"Well, anyway… I guess I'll go next."

The little girl glanced at Sunny, made a face, and turned away.

"There's not much to tell, anyway. My three months in the Temple of the Chalice were not at all as exciting as Sunny's wild misadventures. Although…"

Her face suddenly grew dim and dark.

"...They weren't very pleasant, either."

Effie sighed, lingered for a few moments, and said spoke in a somber tone:

"Basically, I was sent into the body of one of the Red Sect's younger disciples. An orphan girl who had been entrusted to the Maidens, for better or worse… but mostly worse. As I already said, their teachings had grown cruel and perverse over the centuries. Now that I know about how Hope is manipulating everyone's desires, I finally understand why. That Solvane… she had been raised in the Red Sect, too, a long time ago. The difference is, she managed to escape. But we didn't."

The little girl trembled.

"I ran away once, early on, and managed to make it to the Iron Hand island. But I was caught, and the punishment… at the time, they already knew that nothing they did to me would make me obedient. So, they punished the others in my stead. After that… well, I did not try to escape again. At least while the other girls were still alive."

Effie grew silent for a bit, then shrugged.

"So it was pretty boring. Just endless training… battle training, essence training, body conditioning, and all that stuff. How to endure pain, how to endure fear, how to steel your will. How to be a perfect, merciless, lethal vessel of War. Of course, they were very inventive in their lessons… what better way to teach someone to endure pain than to torture them to the brink of death? Or over it, if the pupil is weak."

The little girl's face turned distant.