"Pick up the pace! We must reach the location where you'll eat in ten minutes!"
After speaking, the middle-aged man, whose white hair and white beard blazed like the sun in the twilight, pivoted around and began marching. He wasn't furious, nor was he scolding them, yet the second the forty students absorbed this instruction, they broke into a dead sprint.
Only Mel refused to break his slow pace as he struggled to shake off his sleep-induced grogginess, forcing Baybars to linger behind and wait for him. Trailing the Academy Overseers marching ten strides ahead of them, they navigated streets they hadn't traversed yesterday; there was no one at the windows or doors, and the heavy groans of snoring echoed from the interiors of the houses.
