His mind turned, trying to find the reason for the sword-drawing emblem appearing here, but the inspiration was like a spark struck from flint, flaring and fading in an instant before falling into the vast darkness, impossible to find.
Almost as soon as he took his second step, he tossed the thought aside. Like every unremarkable sight along the way, it was swallowed by his clear sense of purpose.
His consciousness flowed like water through a channel, unhindered and with a clear direction.
Even if a drop or two occasionally splashed over the banks, they were only details on the sidelines, having little effect on the overall current.
So he continued onward, his footsteps pressing into the thick carpet of moss, damp with mist, and making a creak like leather being rubbed.
There was no corridor around him, nor was this a valley, yet he heard several uneven echoes of the tiny sound, as though someone were walking behind him beyond the walls of fog.
But when he strained to listen, the sound did not grow any clearer. It seemed to be only a reflection in his mind, not something real.
[He's here...]
Whispers came from among his footsteps, so distant they seemed like a spy slipping into a ballroom, leaning close to the host's ear, and divulging a conspiracy unfolding in a dark corner in a voice too low for even the host's dance partner to hear.
Yet the listener was immersed in a magnificent dream, both real and unreal, and could not tell what the whisper referred to, or whether it concerned him.
Because of the strict discipline at the Church's school, he had never drunk alcohol, let alone gotten drunk. But he felt that being drunk was probably like this: all sorts of thoughts bubbling up frantically