Krafft's Notes on Anomalies

"Brother Vardin, wait!"

When walking into the regular hexagonal hall, the shock caused by the sudden appearance of the ancient and grand strange shape made everyone selectively ignore the very obvious part, the rich moss.

"What's wrong? Did we forget anything?" A dull echo came from the other side.

"Shovel a piece of moss for me, thank you." Craft shouted toward the crevice, adding at the end, "Don't touch them with bare hands, the water here is not clean."

Vadin suspected that he heard wrongly, "What?"

"A piece of moss!"

There was silence for a while in the sewer, and the firelight flickered, and they must be looking around. Soon after, Wadin's doubtful voice passed through the gap and sounded again:

"There's no moss here, that's weird. I'll go over to the hall and bring some back. What do you need moss for?"

Despite the presence of a considerable thickness of sediment, the humus did not become fertile soil for any plant growth, let alone the masses of moss that protruded from the brick cracks and ravines in the hall.

"Let me go with you again, I just feel weird."

Kraft climbed over the rock crevice, followed Vadin's team, and came to the hall again.

Under conscious observation, this difference is no different from desert and jungle. It is just the impression of naturally growing in a humid environment, making it difficult for people to pay attention to it.

Using a borrowed knife, he easily pried out a piece of moss with a shallow root system and placed it under the light of a torch.

The bean sprout-like stems are arranged with needle-pointed leaves, clustered and woven together to form a wrinkled texture like a thick knitted blanket, with the reverse side grabbing the mud. The color is dark green, blending in with the blue and black masonry.

No matter how you look at it, this is a normal piece of moss, no different from the same kind that likes to grow on bare roots in the shade of trees or around cold spring pools.

"Is there a problem?"

"There is nothing wrong with them. The problem is why moss grows only on this side of the hall." Through the gloves, the thin leaves rubbed the leather, and water stains oozed from the squeeze between the fingers.

"Indeed, but what does this mean?" Vadin agreed with the professor. This meticulous observation reminded him of Green's style. Both men have special attention to details.

"I don't know, maybe it means you have to be careful about slipping." Kraft cut off a small piece of moss and prepared to take it away. "Just think that I am overthinking it and stay alert. Pagans may appear at any time. They are more familiar with this place. "

"Don't worry, go back. Your clues have brought enough progress. The church will not forget this help. The next step is our work." The monk did not despise him. After saluting, he walked into the adjacent passage with a torch and walked backwards. The water flows.

Kraft watched their figures go away from the spot, and the halo of light refracted by the water disappeared. He took one last look in the direction of the six-sided deep well that was missing in the darkness, and then turned around and left with Coop. On the way back, the second group of people passed them by, holding a simple map with a sequence.

After passing through the tomb passage that had been cleared up but was still winding and difficult to navigate, the two returned to the ground.

I didn't notice the passage of time underground, and only then did I realize that the long summer day had passed. When I climbed up the spiral staircase, there was no light outside the arch.

There is a feeling of going up and down, walking into another larger enclosed space, with sparse light spots running on the dark dome, and the sharp hook-shaped slender light source casts an ominous gray-white layer on the ruins of grass.

Kraft walked quickly through the cemetery. When he reached the door, he suddenly realized that he had overlooked a small thing that was insignificant but really affected the experience.

"These church people don't even know how to leave a carriage!"

There's nothing worse than finding out after a tiring day that there's no transportation back.

The closest place to stay now is David Clinic, which is about half a new city away, so I have to walk there from memory.

Considering the size of the new town, it was still late at night, which was particularly painful. The legendary investigator who tracks pagan activities and goes deep into underground ruins has to go home after get off work.

"Okay, Coop, we have to walk back."

"It's not too bad, Mr. Craft, I guess you must remember the way." Coop asked for some oil from the churchman squatting by the fire pit at the door and added it to the lamp, "I used to walk at night too. "

"Hopefully this gives you a chance to reminisce about the halcyon days of yore."

"Forget it, I like my current life better." The professor's retinue shook his head.

"At that time, I usually found some work at the dock, but I couldn't always finish it before dark, so I had to go back in the dark. As for the road in the salt tide area, everyone knows what it's like."

The soles of their shoes hit the stone pavement, and the sound spread far away. The two of them walked back and forth on the deserted street.

Sometimes people suddenly realize that they know nothing about the people around them, even though those people have long been a familiar part of life, but they have no idea what they do when they are out of sight.

And these invisible times are actually the biggest part. In terms of experiences before acquaintance and when we were alone, we only knew roughly, or even roughly, based on narration and imagination.

From this perspective, they are no different from the people who have lived in Dunling for generations. Most of them have only seen the superficial part and have no understanding of the long past.

"Even after experiencing those things?" The professor turned his neck and rubbed his itchy neck on the back of his collar, seemingly asking casually.

When he recalled the past, the life in the country castle and the broken school days were so beautiful that he felt that the road was not very dark.

But obviously not everyone is like this, or on the other hand, he is the minority, whether it is an original soul or a visitor from another world. The views shaped by this are also different, such as Kupp and Yvonne.

Coop thought for a while, but not for a long time, "I don't want to lie, sometimes I am really scared. That feeling reminds me of stepping into a stagnant puddle on the tidal flat when I was a child. That thing looked like an ordinary shallow water A depression is no different, but as long as you step into it, it will keep sinking, from your calf to your neck.”

"Later, they told me that it was the drowned ghost pulling at my ankles below. Fortunately, someone happened to be nearby and dragged me out, but after I returned, I became seriously ill and had nightmares for a month."

"I never went to that area again."

It does sound scary. Kraft thinks this metaphor is very appropriate. "Then why can you accept your current life?"

"To be honest, if you continue to stay there, it will be nothing more than another stagnant puddle. Even if it hadn't been that time, you would have died of some other disease sooner or later." The farther he went, the more the vision given by his experience enabled him to see clearly the original life.

"Sorry, I don't think you want to hear these complaints."

"No, I'm glad to have the opportunity to chat with you. We don't usually have many opportunities like this." Kraft raised his hand to wipe the side of his face and extended it to the back of his neck. A slight discomfort lingered on my body, but I couldn't find where it was.

It seems that some kind of night flying insects are attracted by the light source, and they are harassing them out of sight as if they are off the ground.

"I said that we are a whole, and only by communicating can we increase understanding. No one in the world can achieve anything alone."

Coop couldn't answer. In fact, he thought it was closer to comfort. It was difficult for Kraft to say anything negative when he was not at work.

"Having said that, if you choose to embark on the boat out of dissatisfaction with the past, if you can have a stable choice now - I mean a decent and well-paid development direction like David's, do you think it will be better? suits you?"

In the night wind, Mr. Attendant shivered. It is true that sometimes he plays a role that does not require much thinking, but this does not mean that he is not really smart. On the contrary, he reacts quite quickly.

This sounded like there was something in the words, and Kraft turned his head and glanced, although his eyes were not entirely on him, but looking past him and behind him.

"I have no intention of changing anything." Kupp blurted out his answer without thinking for a second.

"Maybe you should think about it." The reality is different from what he thought. It seems that the professor is serious. "You have good learning ability. Although you are a little older, you may not be able to enter the college in time. My letter of introduction It still has some weight.”

"You're joking." If Coop is to believe that he can go to college, it is better to believe that a blind man will regain his sight.

"Or I can introduce you to my grandfather. He is willing to give a knight a title to a soldier who is courageous, experienced, and has experienced dangerous battles. The northern border is very big, but it may be a bit difficult to open up wasteland. .”

Coop was silent. If the former one is too absurd, the latter one hits the bullseye completely accurately, with a high degree of reality.

The dream comes too suddenly. Under the most ideal situation, this is the ending of a follower's life. It seemed that if he nodded in agreement now, a knighthood belonging to him would be waiting for him in the north.

"How about it? Of course you'd better continue to learn something. After all, you have too many skills to overcome. It will not be easy to learn anything when you go back to the spruce forest in the north." Kraft suggested, and this was indeed out of sincerity. .

It's nice to have someone who can get things done, but your own expectations may not necessarily match the wishes of others. Yvonne is an example.

The question posed was like a blow to the head, and Coop was completely stunned. He followed him mechanically for a while without getting over it.

Kraft was not in a hurry to answer. After moving his spine, the vague discomfort still lingered. He recalled that the last time he felt this discomfort was when he came to the cemetery yesterday.

The invisible bug-like feeling is always harassing the back of the neck, even causing small stings like bites.

Turning his head back again, Coop was lowering his head to sort out his thoughts about the explosion. On the deserted streets there was only the moist night that mixed with the water vapor of the Teme River.

【What is it? 】

If it's not a physical sensation, it's a mental reaction, something touches the mental senses.

It is difficult to determine the source of inaccurate synaesthesia. Kraft first ruled out the environmental factors of his location. He took the same road when he came, and it did not happen at that time.

He chose to walk a little further to see.

After a few turns, instead of getting rid of that feeling, it actually became aggravated by intentional attention or other changes, making it slightly clearer.

In the tiny itches and pricks that lingered like flying mosquitoes, like a gourmet sniffing a dish to identify spices, Kraft smelled a hint of malice, too vague to be sure.

However, with contact, its direction gradually became clearer, but it was still unstable. It looked like an eye that changed positions from time to time, jumping between certain gaps, casting a substantial line of sight.

【Or that's it】

However, although the residential buildings on both sides are connected together, there is no connection between them. In addition, there is no hidden location.

At another corner, Kraft pretended to glance in the general direction unintentionally. It was a closed building with the windows tightly closed. The crushed lettuce leaves in front of the door showed that someone was setting up a stall to sell vegetables here during the day.

Coop was caught off guard when he discovered that Kraft started quickly and rushed to the side of the street. The narrow street was only two or three steps away for him, and he was there in an instant.

He determined the target before taking action, stopped at one place, and stamped down hard. One end of the stone slab underfoot was tilted and reversed due to force, and the rancid and lightless sewer space was exposed to the light.

Kupu, who was a step behind, arrived with a page hammer in his hand and looked down. The broken vegetable leaves were soaked in the black-green water, and a few strands of sediment swirled and settled.

"what happened?"

"Just treat it as a paranoid attack." Kraft withdrew his half-drawn sword and pushed the stone slab back into place with his feet. "By the way, what do you think?"

"Not sure." Kupp felt that he might not be as clear-cut as he thought.

"Speaking of which, I have always admired you. After all, you have saved me more than once, and the earliest time was in Wendeng Port. But now, Professor Kraft, you are already one of the centers of the college. Even the Duke will send invitations. You can get anything you want with your medical skills. Why bother setting foot in these waterways again?"

"."

"I am not sure."