Shadow Slave

Teacher Julius did not waste any time and published the Exploration Report in open access. He also shared the news about the groundbreaking new research paper with his fellow colleagues in the academic circles—as a result, it gained traction quite swiftly. Its veracity also did not come under too much scrutiny, considering the reputation of the man who published it.

Countless people in the waking world were reading the Exploration Report on Everything on the network, while those in the Dream Realm fought to get their hands on a printed copy. Some even copied it by hand, and these handwritten copies then changed hands as they were lent and borrowed from friends and acquaintances. The result... was explosive.

In a short while, the many mysteries revealed by Nobody were all that people talked about. And it was no surprise—after all, Nobody had gone and revealed the greatest secrets of the world in one fell swoop.

It was no different from receiving divine scripture from a messenger from the gods. From how the world had been created to how it ended, from what forces governed all of existence to why the Nightmare Spell existed.

There were these great revelations, and countless smaller ones, as well—things that some people here and there knew, but had never been systematically explained and placed into a coherent framework. Like which powers of the Awakened came from the Awakening itself and which ones were gifted to them by the Spell, why Nightmare Creatures burned with a demented determination to destroy anything untouched by the Corruption, what the Shadow Realm and the afterlife were, and so on.

The mere fact that a thorough explanation of what happened to human souls after death did not make the front pages was insane. But it did not—the Exploration Report on Everything was simply too astonishing.

It was indeed a clear and concise explanation... of everything.

For a few weeks, the world has gone completely mad about the mysteries solved by Nobody. Countless gatherings and televised discussion panels took place, with attendance and viewership breaking records—it was comparable, and at times more sought after, than the fateful speech made by Changing Star.

These conversations were carried into the private lives of everyone, as well. Everyone was talking about Nobody and their report—at the dinner table, while drinking with buddies at the bar, and even while sparring on a training field.

The publication of the Exploration Report caused an explosion in scientific research, as well.

After all, numerous academics who had been stuck in their own research gained priceless new information and a broader context that allowed them to make instant breakthroughs. Others were passionately expanding on the themes and topics touched upon in the Exploration Report—there were already several additional, startling discoveries made, and new ones were coming out every day.

..One mystery the Exploration Report on Everything did not solve, however, was the identity of its author.

Nobody knew who Nobody was.

But everyone wanted to find out.

The discoveries made by this anonymous individual seemed too great and groundbreaking for a single person to make. And yet, all signs pointed to the fact that Nobody was, indeed, a single person—a fact that was almost as astonishing as the contents of their report themselves. Speculations were abundant, and rumors about Nobody rapidly went from simply far-fetched to completely ridiculous. Some said that Nobody was Changing Star herself, some pointed to Song of the Fallen, some believed that Nobody was the ghost of a long-dead champion of the First Generation, and some even insisted that Nobody was none other than the Unknown himself.

And that was before people even learned that there was a secret version of the Exploration Report that only those who passed a mysterious trial could gain.

When that piece of information was revealed, for a short while, it seemed as if the whole world became obsessed with searching for Nobody.

Sunny was observing all that in a dazed state. The stir caused by his academic swan song... had gone far beyond his already outrageous expectations.

But that wasn’t even the reason for his bewilderment.

‘No, but...’

He glanced at the daily newspapers published in Bastion. All of them were full of articles and ridiculous insinuations about who Nobody was.

‘What the actual hell? How come?!’

How come every persona he created for the sake of anonymity ended up being more famous than he was?

First Mongrel, and now Nobody...

Was he doing anonymity wrong?

Shaking his head, Sunny put the newspapers away.

‘Crap. Now I’ll actually have to come up with that trial.

He had sort of assumed that there would be plenty of time to set something up, but that prediction was proving to be woefully incorrect.

Well, it was not too troublesome. Sunny already had experience creating secret trials—the Shadow Clan recruited new members through a similar process. So, he could simply come up with the main points and push it off on Aiko. 𝔯𝘼Ｎȯ𝐛Ë𝘴

Taking a deep breath, he looked down at the sprawling vista of Bastion.

His bewilderment slowly gave way to a wistful mood.

‘I wonder...”

The Exploration Report on Everything was merely a small project he poured his mind into in his free time—albeit it was also the culmination of his decade-long pursuit of the truth, and of all the harrowing trials he had survived.

Despite that, Sunny had a strange feeling that even if he became Sacred... or even Divine... this would be the achievement most people would remember him by. Something that would be taught in schools hundreds of years later and become the foundation of common knowledge, and therefore known to everyone, everywhere.

So, it was more than a little bit ironic that nobody knew who Nobody actually was. That Nobody was a man named Sunless. But possibly it was better that way.

A particular sentence suddenly came to his mind. Sunny glanced to the sky and exhaled slowly.

”No one knew where Weaver went and what they did...”

Chuckling quietly, he turned back and went about his business...

As if nothing had happened.