49

No matter what, Arthur knew at the very least, he should start moving around. The solution was not going to come to him by standing there at one spot. Perhaps by wandering about this strange place, he would come across other things that might help him escape.

It was best if that something was the seal that would bring him out of there, but even if it was some enemies, it would have been better than nothing. He could have killed them to gather their inky blood. That would come in handy somehow, Arthur presumed.

Therefore, the young man stood up, picked a random direction because everywhere he turned, everything was just covered in a sheet of white, and strode down it.

The snow continued to fall as he moved forward. Arthur had no idea how long he had been walking since there was nothing there to mark the passage of time but it felt it had been hours upon hours and Arthur had gotten himself nowhere.

In fact, Arthur could not shake the feeling that he had just been going around in circle. The scene had not changed since Arthur started his journey, everything looked the same behind a constant screen of snow. This made it very difficult to tell whether he had moved from one spot to another.

There were at places where the snow was piled up higher than the other but that could hardly be used as points of reference for geographical location. Let the snow fall for a few more hours and the elevation would have changed again.

The only good thing this constant movement had given to Arthur, was it helped him to keep his body from shutting down. The weather was chilling and initially Arthur did not feel the coldness as much but as the time ticked by, his movement had become more slow and sluggish.

The non-stop trekking kept the blood flowing to all parts of his body or else he would have frozen solid already, standing right there immobile in the snow.

As Arthur continued to move, he felt his body getting heavier. He turned his head over his shoulder and saw white specks were collecting on his shirt. Believing it was the snow, he raised his hand to brush it off.

To his surprise, the white flecks could not be removed. They remained stubbornly stuck. Arthur tried to rub them off but he realized they had stuck to his shirt.

'This is not normal snow!' Arthur realized with an alarm. He examined them closer and saw that the 'snow' had the consistency of ink. They fell on his body and would not come off without a special solution that could dilute them.

Furthermore, Arthur realized the 'snow' had really been the one weighing him down. As the snow collected on his body, he realized it had been getting increasingly difficult to lift his legs and move forward. His body was getting heavier and heavier. When his whole body was fully covered in white, he probably would have been fully incapacitated and slowly absorbed into this snowy landscape.

Arthur's heart started to race with panic but the world around him was a complete contrast. The snow continued to fall lazily. Arthur realized as beautiful as the place was, it was a slow and silent killer.

Anything that arrived in this world would be gradually covered by the 'snow' and eventually be assimilated into this space of muted whiteness.

Arthur told himself to calm down. Being worried was not going to solve the problem. He trained his focus on the objective at hand and that helped direct his attention away from the feeling of panic.

The current objective was to find the seal that was hidden in this world and use that to escape. Arthur combed his mind to look for clues, signs of the seal since he had arrived in this world. All he could think of was the snow and whiteness... until it hit him. The sun that shone on the canvas...

He had indeed seen the seal that was hidden in this world before.

However, if that was true, then it carried with itself another problem.

Regardless, Arthur had to confirm the suspicion in his mind first. The young man ran down the field, stopping at regular intervals. He put his hands out to the air, to sense the falling of the snow.

After repeating that several times, he arrived at the conclusion in his heart. His earlier speculation had been correct.

The rate of falling snow was different at different location. It snowed heavier at certain parts but lighter at others. That was why the ground was uneven, some parts were higher than the others.

This coincided with Arthur's memory that he had when he was studying the painting, 'Snow' when he was inside Lady Myra's studio. He saw a symbol superimposed onto the snowy surface, that symbol was the seal, now that Arthur thought about it.

In other words, Arthur had been walking all over the seal. He was small and the world had been snowing to form this symbol on the ground that was much larger than he currently was.

He was walking inside the seal and that realization made Arthur frown. He had been such close contact with the seal so why hadn't it transported Arthur away from this world?

Was it because the seal had not been activated? If that was the case, how was he going to activate it?

Arthur thought back to his experience with the seal back in 'The Cherry Blossom Tree' painting and then something jumped out at him.

Originally, the seal had been hidden away from him behind the screen of cherry blossoms. It was not until he gained the owl's aid that he managed to catch a glimpse of it and the rest of his escape could begin.

What if spotting the seal was as important as reaching it? Arthur was inside a painting world where observation was valued so that theory was not entirely impossible.

If following that logic, Arthur probably needed to see the seal in all of its entirety before it could be activated but how was the young man going to do that?