Krafft's Anomaly Notes

"The lumberyard is coming soon, so you can still ride horses on the way here." The old housekeeper rode a manor horse and walked ahead, looking back at the team from time to time.

The result of dual-purpose is to be drawn on the forehead by a low branch of birch.In front of the face is covered with a dew-dropped unowned spider web with two withered leaves.

"Hey!" He lowered his head, shook off the water droplets that hadn't penetrated into his clothes, and brushed away the spider webs, "No one usually rides a horse, so no one cleans up these things. Pay attention to bumping your head!"

"Pong!"

As soon as the words fell, there was the buzzing sound of knocking on the metal shell in the team, followed by the sound of branches and leaves falling, and was soon trampled by horseshoes.I don't know whose helmet directly knocked off the cross branch blocking the road.

Just as Martin was about to remind him, a leaf slapped on the helmet, splashing water on his face.

It is really not a good idea to choose to ride a horse for the sake of speed. This road is probably a trail stepped by lumberjacks all year round, and the part higher than the head of an adult is still in a wild state.

Compared with the relatively "clean" forests in the north, Westminster's forests show the same complicated and detailed style as the local nobles and buildings, filling the space between trees with a large number of bushes, tall grass, and horizontal branches Compared with the rattan curtains they hang, this clear path is more like a slender undersea tunnel passing through the sea of ​​leaves.

Theoretically, their path should be along the river, but they can only occasionally see dark waters under the shade of trees covering the sky and sun in sparse places, slowly drifting with fallen leaves and driftwood with pruned branches.

According to this vegetation density, and then into the forest area with no paths at all, it is purely a daydream to ride a horse deep, and there is no place for people to exercise their riding skills.At most, you can lead a few heavy-duty horses to accompany you, carrying equipment, tents and other heavy objects.

"Okay." Kraft understood. It turns out that this is not the Duke's property. From the current point of view, it is indeed generous. After all, many versions of Grandet from the Kingdom of Norse are required to pay taxes even when they go to the forest to collect firewood.

In the fence there are some tree trunks that have just been felled and have been basically treated, and the branches are shortened and piled up in stacks and placed next to the house.

"Have you seen any stranger activities in the woods?" Martin's clothes today do not show the attitude of "take it easy" and "just ask". The full armor on his body brings a great sense of oppression, more like It's for someone to do it.

"No, I asked where it came from!"

The ones that Kraft knows and is famous for are birch, pine, etc. Most of them are thick and thin, with a layer of green skin, which is the moss that grows in the damp environment under the tree, and there are still small branches that have not been completely pruned.

One of them, who looked older, went up to the butler, looked at the exaggerated battle, hesitated to speak, thought for a while and realized that he should not be holding an ax in his hand, so he put it down quickly, and at the same time held down the young lumberjack who was looking around curiously.

They probably haven't seen it before, they just kept shaking their heads, passively dealing with one question after another that they didn't understand.

There are also several kinds of wood sections from different trees scattered on the ground, all of which cannot be used due to such defects and are cut into pieces and discarded.

Kraft listened to several rounds of uninspiring conversation, walked away with little interest, and took Kupp to wander around the yard-sized lumber camp.

A light brown spot spreads from the center of the tree, breaking off layers of growth rings, occupying almost a quarter of the cross section.

Looking at the process, it should be that the residual branches are first cut off with a small axe, put into a more regular pile next to them, then peeled and trimmed, and pushed into the river for drifting.

Hearing the sound of horseshoes, the few people who were pruning and peeling the trunks and preparing to go into the water raised their heads. They were shocked to see a large group of riders coming out of the forest, and the small field was crowded with people and horses.

Kraft squatted down and observed carefully, and found that the light brown color came from the mixture of white and the texture of the wood fiber itself, which made this color.

"Where is the trace of the person? Overwhelmed grass, bushes, remnants of the camp." Looking back and forth at several people, Martin looked forward to someone who could give him some clues, or that they were clues themselves.

But for now, it's business as usual in the forest along the way.Martin glanced at the bewildered people holding tools, but found no abnormal movements. It seemed that they were just a group of ordinary lumberjacks.

"What about other abnormal things? Like mushrooms that grow particularly vigorously."

"Where did the wood come from?"

Except for a small area where dried fruits are spread out for drying, the rest of the place is basically full of stacked wood to be processed.

Kraft tied up his horse and followed the lumberyard. He just heard this conversation, and always felt a subtle sense of déjà vu emerging, as if he had seen it in some literary works.

In fact, they did have this consideration. In the worst case, they thought that they would be attacked just like Diego when they first entered the forest, and they would just teach these heretics what it means to be professional.

After a journey where they had to duck their heads, they came to a clearing cut by the river bank.A few huts and a simple fence are all that this woodland lumber camp has to offer.

"Ah? These are useless waste wood. Don't look at their special color, they are actually very loose and useless..." Xiao En, who was dealing with Martin's various questions, finally had something he knew. up.

The wood in the stain is obviously different from other parts, it is softer and unable to withstand force, it seems that some kind of disease has spread from the heart of the tree and eroded the inside.Maybe the loggers thought it was just a small piece of the problem at first, but when they cut off one section after another, they found that there was no one left or right of the whole log.

He'd even guessed there were pagan outposts in the lumbermill, to see if he could swindle one or two.

Frightened by the suddenly raised voice, Sean short-circuited for a few seconds, and replied in a low voice, "It was cut in the woods."

"I haven't seen it before, people in the town rarely come here, only we can go in." Sean gave a negative answer after thinking about it for a while, "Besides, the forest is so big, it's hard to meet people .”

There are many such discarded pieces of wood on the ground, discarded here and there.

"Sean, these are... Lord Knights from the city." The steward got off his horse and climbed over the fence, calling out the other person's name familiarly, "Don't be nervous, I'm not here to look for you, just answer the question truthfully."

"The quality of this wood is quite good." Kraft patted the wood with burrs through his gloves. With such abundant resources, the construction work here must be much more convenient. "But here are some Is it a small tree?"

The conditions here were indeed crude. They didn’t dig out the stumps on the ground when they cleared the site, and left them in place, becoming a natural bench or part of the fence. As for the trees themselves, they may have become part of the wooden house.

He walked toward the river and kicked a cylindrical object under his feet.The thing rolled out a few steps and got stuck on the rocks on the river beach. It turned out to be a small piece of cut jujube wood. It looked good on the side. It was a material that could be used as a wooden structure for a crossbow. Somehow it was discarded on the ground. .

"All the forests in the territory and all the animals and products in the forest belong to the Duke." The manor steward also came to the wood pile and marked the ones needed, "However, His Majesty the Duke is very generous and allows the use of no more than Palm-width trees and thicker ones are still important property of Westminster."

This is not the grove outside the city where Diego died, but the real forest, and paganism may not need to deliberately hide in it.If you don’t have a direction and look for it aimlessly, let alone more than 30 people, 300 people will not have any effect.

"Huh?" Out of curiosity - more out of boredom, Kraft kicked a piece into the open space, turned it upright on his feet, and discovered why they weren't being used.

However, the loggers only had blank faces and fear of violence, and no one could answer his question.In the end, the elder Xiao En stood up and tentatively explained: "We are a group of tree fellers, not hunters, and we don't understand these things..."

Seeing that Kraft's face was getting worse, he quickly tried to recall, "It's the manor that wants better wood. We went a little deeper to find it. We didn't pick it privately."

"Take us there to see."

"But it's still quite far, so we can only walk there."

"Then get ready to go." Kraft took an ax and slashed towards the vertical wooden section. The continuous color-changing bands on the section run from the beginning to the end, and the fine wire mesh is interspersed. "I assure you, The rewards will be great."

I saw a Chinese-style Cthulhu short story called "Mirage" in the Cthulhu Mythology Bar. I feel that it imitates the style of "Bafu's Herd" and "Black Taisui" by the oobmab boss, which is quite good (* σ`)σ