human
Julius:  He wasn’t sure whether Julius realized it, but in the past twenty days, he had told Subaru about himself in all sorts of ways. It’s probably partly the trauma of having been forgotten that’s making him do that.
gpt
Anastasia:  "—Natsuki, Julius, you two have a moment? We should talk about the path going forward tomorrow.”
human
Anastasia:  "Whoops, that’s a pretty important thing to discuss.” Just when a solemn silence was starting to fall over them, Anastasia broke in. She struggled to walk on the sand as she came over to the two.
gpt
Anastasia:  “Whew, that’s a pain. I’m amazed both of you can walk around normally.”
human
Julius:  “I’ve trained with poor footing. Though I can’t exactly claim it was all for this moment.”
gpt
Subaru:  “When the footing is bad, it’s better to step forcefully. That’s the Clind school of thought.” That was part of the fundamentals he had learned for running on poor footing from his parkour instructor.
human
Anastasia:  Anastasia nodded, seemingly a bit impressed, and then she lowered the cloth covering her mouth slightly. “The winds are bad, too, and it’s hard to get enough air. I’d love to get out of here soon so I can take nice and deep breaths again.”
gpt
Subaru:  “Same. Also, I want to take a bath. Your face and head end up covered in sand so fast out here.” He had now learned from painful experience why people who live in desert regions wrapped turbans around their heads. It worked against the sand and extreme heat and cold. It made sense logically, but people who lived in extreme environments really did have good reasons for what they did. Subaru had not exactly done nothing, but halfway measures were not enough to protect against the sand.
human
Anastasia:  “Agreed on the bath. But getting out of theses dunes is gonna be troublesome— You both noticed, right?” Her smile disappeared, and her voice dropped a little bit.
gpt
Subaru:  Subaru and Julius glanced at each other and nodded. “Yes. We spent half a day today going straight toward the tower, and yet…”
human
Julius:  “—It didn’t get any closer at all.” Julius finished Subaru’s line, and then they both sighed. On the first day, they had confirmed that they could deal with the sand time and that Meili’s anti–demon beast effect worked. But put another way, that was all they had achieved.
gpt
Subaru:  “Was this trick why Reinhard couldn’t reach the tower…?”
human
Julius:  “When we spoke with him before, I had imagined something like this might happen…but it’s quite different to experience it ourselves.”
gpt
Subaru:  “Wait, so you noticed it, too?! Say so sooner!”
human
Julius:  “I couldn’t be sure. I didn’t want to cause any undue alarm.”
gpt
Subaru:  “What’s with you people always doing this…?”
human
Subaru:  Subaru just glared up at him. “Can you spare me that crap? I won’t be mad if you share your thoughts! If anything, that might be how we find the light at the end of the tunnel here."