Krafft's Anomaly Notes

Chapter 127 Omen
A deep, long place of no light.

He walked in the endless corridor, the rock wall was dry and rough, and the darkness was thick and solid.

There are no lights or torches in the empty hands, and the eyes cannot see anything, but it seems that they don't need visual guidance, they just walk forward instinctively.

There was an icy air blowing past the ears, coming from the infinite depths, with such strength that even the clothes could not be shaken, but it brought the slight trembling of the stone wall, and the rock strata trembled like falling leaves with the arrival of the cold current.

Something is approaching, the cold current is its deep and long breath, and the vibration is its step.

The scales of rock, the long ring-shaped body, and the ridge of will travel through the darkness, and the power that makes the rock formation tremble quickly approaches.

The structure between the valve and the pincers is open, and countless fuzzy faces are adhered, hill dwellers, sailors, faces burned by acid, warts, and blister-like mosaic clusters in the gaps of rock crust segments, Subtle arthropods manipulate a flat, pale smile.

The tremor threw up gravel, the cold increased and rushed, fear clenched the heart and squeezed the blood, the sharp rise in blood pressure caused a dull pain behind the orbit, and sufficient oxygen supply made the brain wake up from the haze, and realized the current situation.

I have no time to think about where I am and why I am here. With nowhere to hide, my subconscious mind made a conditioned reflex action based on the existing experience.

……

"Oh!"

The tables and chairs were moved, the uncapped ink bottle was swept away, and the slightly viscous black liquid was poured on the table, seeping into the disordered manuscript, and spreading across the paper.

The deep black blurred out, along the messy and pressed fiber crawling cloth, quickly swallowed the Gothic title, swallowed the introduction, and moved towards the straight text.

The brain that just woke up interrupted the previous process during the scene switch, reloaded the content related to the situation at hand, and watched the ink staining a corner of the desktop before reacting.

"Oops." Kraft hurriedly evacuated the rest of the paper, and some of the handwriting that was not completely dry in the haste was printed on the completely dry manuscript paper, mixed with the loose pages with some ink on the corners.

The manuscript paper on the table became a mess. Fortunately, the candlestick had already been extinguished and did not fall to ignite the paper.

After walking around the table for two steps, some old wooden boards groaned slightly under their feet, accompanied by an obvious empty sound, suggesting that the cabin below was not a solid rock formation.

Hanging on the wall is a long wooden tube for storing rolls of charts. This is the captain's cabin of the Iceberg.

They traveled the hills at top speed for two weeks, and returned to the ship with a firm order to set sail.From dusk to dusk, the double pay brought the sailors back to the ship from the tavern or bed. No one asked why the captain didn't want to stay on land for one more night.

Few people discussed those who did not come back during the hasty sailing and busy river voyage. Only the first officer habitually greeted the young man named Walker, and gave a drink to the captain who had not put down the steering wheel all night.

Then he felt the inexplicable gaze under the three-cornered hat, as if accusing him of triggering such taboo words at sea as "drowning" and "capsizing" that would bring bad luck.

A small box was taken out from the dark compartment and placed on the deck. Coins barely covered the bottom of the box, but the golden metallic luster caught Kraft's attention.

Rationally speaking, when many sailors are consciously saving money, it is not impossible to scrape together seven kingdom silver coins that can be exchanged for one gold coin, but their spending habits prevent them from saving this money, and their sense of insecurity does not allow them to condense all their wealth On a small thing that could be lost at any moment.

For the vast majority of people who have never touched gold, the impact of this box is greater than anything else.

After William promised that half of the box would go to the people on board, and the other half would be handed over to the families of the deceased under their own eyes, the remaining dissent that dared not discuss it on deck disappeared.From the moment the gold coin fell into the bag, the names of the three faces that William would think of would not sound from the most hidden wooden cracks on the ship.

In its place were rumors that the captain had actually found some kind of treasure, and that rumor, which would spread as soon as he landed, was just what William needed.

After boarding the ship, Kraft borrowed the only fixed large square table on the ship to rush to record the principle of acid production and the description of the experiment.The other is in the chef's hand, used to place the soup pot and handle the occasional fresh meat caught.Recently, another item has been added: appreciate the gold coins you just got.

"Is it a dream again?"

For half a month, that weird forgetting didn't happen again, or it happened somewhere no one noticed. It seemed that the only meaning of its appearance was to let the wound fade in my mind.

On the contrary, the occasional nightmare has become a new trouble, most of which are related to the experience of that night.Either he couldn't find the torch in the mine, or he was fighting with the limbs protruding from the darkness and being chased by something.

The side effects of a good memory are evident here, as he cannot quickly forget his dreams upon waking, reacts with an aftertaste of panic, and has a rough night.

This can easily develop into "William has not slept yet".

After a few secondary awakenings, the captain gave up the comfortable berth in the captain's cabin and temporarily relinquished the whole place to Kraft to squeeze in with the mate.

So Kraft was alone here at night.

The bright and white moonlight spilled on the table through the translucent curtains from the lattice wooden window, even without candle lighting, it didn't look dim.He flipped through the manuscript in his hand, but he didn't have any impression, but he clearly realized that his half-night results had become a pile of waste paper.

Too bad, Kraft stopped lighting the candles and walked to the head of the bed, ready to take a nap and resume work tomorrow morning.

Still have to discuss with William how to use the information at hand.Whether to build a production workshop by yourself, or sell it to others to make a lot of quick money.

The former obviously has greater long-term monopoly interests, but in fact they do not have a ready-made industrial foundation and reliable manpower in this area, and they dare not continue mining from that remote mine in the southern hills.As a result, both scale and confidentiality are problematic.

Perhaps setting up the workshop on the site of the Wood family can solve the problem to a certain extent, but the value of this technology is too great, and the confidentiality is too poor.If the alchemist hadn't died so quickly back then, coupled with the fact that the place of production was hidden and the survivors had a stroke, it would have been a matter of time before the craft was figured out.This time may not allow them to make enough money from scratch.

Another problem is that William began to refuse to go ashore, and he reluctantly docked to resupply the things that were not added after a hasty sailing under the strong request of the crew, and refused to disembark by himself.This state is no longer able to manage the shore industry.

The latter has no such problem, just sell it directly and make a lot of money, at worst, find an acquaintance or even a church as an intermediary or notarization, and it will be possible at all costs.Taking [-]% is a surprise, and taking [-]% is also a big profit.

Not to mention the unique glass double wing ring, you just ask the bishop whether he wants gold coins or the broken wings?Stuff is church, money is not.

It just so happened that Kraft really wanted a lot of money for equipment, experiments, publishing books, and even receiving patients.If time is limited, money can be the catalyst for everything.William has also shown an inclination to switch to a larger ship that can go offshore for a long time.

Thinking of this, Kraft got up and left the bed, picked up the pen holder again, leaned over the ink bottle, and wet the nib on the bottom of the bottle that was not empty.He pressed half of the torn waste paper on the table, intending to use the moonlight to list the pros and cons of the two, and bring it directly to William tomorrow.

He sat down at the table, only to find that the table had fallen into darkness again, the light band was illuminating the head of the bed, and the candlestick stood in the shadow of the window frame.

【Moonlight, move】

There was a knocking sound outside the window, as if some polite sailor had come in on his night watch and came to inquire after hearing the sound.

The damp and soft things were laid on the boards, absorbed in the sound of the waves outside the ship where no one could stand, and the light was bright.Kraft stood up in shock and drew his sword, the viscous vicious memory rushed from the tailbone to the back of the head.

……

The empty hand lifted the sheet, and the body bounced up abruptly.The interior was dimly lit.There is a strip of hard object behind the pillow, which is a long sword put down before going to bed.

With the windows open, the evening wind mixed with water vapor and sandy smell blows into the cabin, and the turbid yellow flows under the not-so-bright crescent moon, and the hills on the shore are silent——the characteristic night view of the Tobid River, which they sailed normally The only waterway line in the Southern Downs.

"Is it still a dream?"

(End of this chapter)