Krafft's Anomaly Notes

Chapter 7 Protection Mechanisms
"Boom!"

When Ryan's expression changed from doubt to fright, Kraft's forehead hit the window sill heavily.The thin snow accumulated last night failed to act as a buffer, and a striking red mark immediately appeared on his head.

Some uncontrollable limbs and positional receptors that were temporarily out of order did not allow him to respond, but he just slid against the wall and collapsed on the ground.

Ryan, who was still in a state of confusion and panic, quickly stepped forward to help Kraft, and transferred him to the bed from the awkward position of a princess hug.

When he reached out to lift the blond hair on Kraft's forehead, he realized that what was more serious than the red mark that was just a flesh wound was the unusually high temperature on his forehead.

As a cousin several years older, it's not that Ryan didn't take care of Kraft when he had a fever when he was a child.Even if those memories are blurred, he can still conclude that the high temperature is too exaggerated, it has far exceeded the general fever level, and is close to the level of burning hands.

What's more, Kraft didn't say a word, and he didn't even utter a weak cry of pain during the process from knocking his head to being moved to the bed, and he was completely in a state of burning and confused.

"Craft, Kraft!" Ryan used the battlefield first aid technique secreted by Old Wood, and slapped Kraft's cheek hard, trying to regain his consciousness.

When he found that the two slaps failed to wake him up, he decisively grabbed a large handful of snow on the windowsill, compacted it, and applied it to Kraft's forehead for a simple but effective physical cooling.Ryan straightened Kraft's head and found that he was still staring straight ahead, showing no intention of responding to his brutality.

"I'll go to the next door and ask if there's a doctor here, just lie down and don't move around!" With a symbolic warning, Ryan got up and ran to the door, then turned back after a few steps, closed the window that had been open all night, Kraft pulled out half of the quilt from under him and covered him before rushing out the door.

..........
I don't know how long it took, after Kraft gradually broke free from the chaos and barely regained control of his face, the panting cousin dragged a middle-aged man who looked no different from other villagers and rushed in. , followed by the out of breath village chief.

After Ryan pulled the village chief, the two ran out of time at the house of the only person in the village who knew how to touch the earth. After searching all over the village but failed, they finally found the person they were looking for at the stone pillar.Only then did Ryan know that among the few people they had hired to dig the pit before was a "doctor" from the village.

This part-time "doctor" and a few other people felt a little sorry for not being able to dig out all the things with a fairly generous salary. Out of the idea that being idle in winter is also idle, seeing the rare sunshine today is just right, Let's make an appointment to dig a few more hoes, chatting and chatting to pass the time.

The three of them ran back to the doctor's house to get his tools and herbs. It was already half the morning.

In this way, when Ryan brought people back, he could already see Kraft extruding an indistinguishable expression and looking at him, muttering indistinctly, combined with a bar on his head and red and swollen cheeks. The image is quite funny.Lying on the bed, he listened to his relieved cousin describe his condition to half of the doctors.

With no personal history, no past history, no family history, no marriage and childbirth history, and no specialist medical examination, this guy, in Kraft's eyes, is far more amateur than the doctor who amputated the fireman's leg. The oral complaint and half of the history of present illness made a diagnosis - your disease, I think it is a characteristic disease of our village!
In his narration, which was a bit difficult to understand because of his accent, Kraft and Ryan learned that this was a doctor with a heritage.

From the unverifiable ancestors to this generation, they have been in this village for three generations. They work as part-time doctors in addition to farming, and support the grassroots medical and health services here with technologies that basically meet the average medical level of this era.

The main business is generally bloodletting therapy and local herbal medicine treatment. Compared with the clinics in the city, they win in an orderly inheritance, but lose in the lack of high-tech such as amputation and enema.

This kind of medical model that exists only in historical materials and rumors in the souls of other worlds is not to say that it is simple and unpretentious, it can only be said to be slaughtered efficiently.

However, objectively speaking, after the doctor unsurprisingly proposed bloodletting therapy and local characteristic potion treatment, it did promote Kraft to regain his speech ability as soon as possible.

With his still numb lips, he tried his best to squeeze out a few words under the surprised eyes of the doctor: "No, I'm much better."

In the continuous fright, Kraft still had difficulty moving his trunk and limbs, but his brain had returned to normal.When Ryan applied ointment to the scar on his forehead, he could clearly feel that the high fever had receded, which at least ruled out the possibility of being infected with the disease.

For everything that happened last night, Kraft only remembered unsystematic and fragmented words such as snakes and scales, which can be summed up as having a nightmare in front of the window with a big snake crawling in front of him.

This is nothing new to those present.In this era when neurology has not yet reached the top of the chain of contempt, various diseases with complex principles are still explained by some supernatural factors for the time being.

Whether you have language dysfunction and hemiplegia caused by stroke, or weakness caused by hypokalemia, or febrile convulsions, limb convulsions, and gibberish performances caused by delirium, they can all be explained as the intrusion of evil things.

Such a nightmare about snakes brings disease, and it is only reasonable to explain it as a trick of evil spirits.Since Kraft has recovered rapidly, from the point of view of the village head who has some beliefs, it should be God's blessing, and he can recover without medicine.

Ryan hesitated to speak.Not to mention that the gods of the church do not bless the relatives of heretical gadget collectors. As for Kraft's condition, he doesn't know whether the accidental impact caused by his shoulder slap in the morning is suspected of adding fuel to the fire, making a small ailment a serious illness.

And Kraft, who was lying on the bed, quickly caught a word in their conversation because of the professional sensitivity of the soul of the other world.He barely moved his hands to push himself, Ryan noticed his movement, reached out to help him up, piled a small bag behind him with the quilt, and fed him a sip of water from the water bottle so that he could sit up and talk.

"What's the matter with the 'characteristic disease' you mentioned just now?" Kraft asked in a hoarse voice. Ryan moved the kettle over and wanted him to take another sip, but he turned his head to avoid it, "What? Call it a characteristic disease of your village? Sudden high fever like mine is very common here?"

He faintly realized something, but the memory of last night was only fragmented, and more content was lost in the depths that he couldn't find. Now he needs some clues.

It may be that this symptom is too characteristic. Amateur doctors have shown a good memory in this regard: "According to my father, of course he also heard from my grandpa. Most of them are young people, and there is one every eight or nine years. They all suddenly have a fever on the head, as if they have been roasted in a fire, and they talk nonsense about snakes, and finally..." He said He suddenly stopped, observed the faces of Ryan and Kraft, and felt that they would not blame themselves in this situation, "In the end, I didn't live for two days, and my father encountered the same thing."

Seeing that Ryan and Kraft didn't believe it, the doctor pulled out his set of bloodletting tools: "My grandfather was a serious doctor outside before coming here, and he left this set. He said he had never seen it anywhere else. Such a disease. Even if it’s high fever and talking nonsense, it’s not all related to snakes, right?” His voice dropped again as he spoke, “Of course this is what my father said. He guessed there was a snake here. Spirit, go back after eating fresh and strong souls, and come out again when you are hungry."

Kraft habitually filtered his words on his own: acute onset, which tends to occur in young and middle-aged people, with fever and delirium as the main symptoms, and has obvious regional characteristics.The fatality rate is extremely high, and the possibility that local medical measures may be counterproductive cannot be ruled out.

Of course, there is also "snake".This inexplicable element is still lingering in my mind, lingering.His current state is the same as waking up from a dream, pulled back to reality from a distant dream.Except for the most impressive content, I don't know the rest.The only difference was a hazy feeling, lingering, that something had been completely changed somewhere he didn't know.

This kind of hazy feeling is like a rafting project on a certain trip in the past. He was looking down on the turbid water surface with overgrown algae on the kayak. Suddenly, a dark shadow under the water flashed from the corner of his vision.In self-doubt, it may be an illusion caused by the rippling water waves, or the mottled shadows cast by the rugged rocks and old trees above. I can't imagine and dare not imagine what living things are moving in the bottomless abyss.

If he had discovered something horrifying in the dark, it was now beneath the calm waters of reason, because the body's self-protection mechanisms were temporarily hidden.Instinct told him he shouldn't reach down to try the depth.

Kraft avoided the parts he didn't like, picked out the parts he was most used to, and asked whether those people were related by blood, whether they had any other diseases before the onset, whether they were bitten by snakes or insects, and whether they were bitten by snakes or insects when they were young. Fever and cough etc.

Combining the characteristics of this world, he focused on asking about the eating habits of the lower village, as well as the stream that is the main water source of the village. Is there any problem upstream?Ryan was surprised to see his cousin showing an unknown and meticulous side, and then gave him a few sips of water to make him speak slowly.

The doctor and the village head patiently answered the guest who raised the village's GDP. The main components of the answer consisted of "don't know", "unclear" and "no".

On the contrary, the elderly village chief recalled the names of several people in his memory, and exclaimed that they are all good boys, but they are clever, and the evil spirit can really pick people.

"Okay, I'm done asking, thank you." Not surprisingly, even the patient's family members may not be able to answer the information, let alone the two people who have never had this kind of awareness. , Did you consider going to other places?"

As soon as he said it, Kraft knew he had said something stupid.A disease that only occurs once every few years may not have a fraction of some common causes of death here.Besides, the location of this village is not bad, it just happened to be stuck in a place where there is no lord to collect taxes, and it is not too far from Wendeng Port, where things are bought and sold, and there are even tourist merchants passing by here.

Although this also means that there is not enough protection, for a relatively united village, it is not difficult to drive some wild animals together, and the tax exemption will allow them to accommodate more people. Over time, it may not be impossible to develop into a small town .

In contrast, the "characteristic disease" looks terrible, and it is probably scabies.

Kraft, who said something stupid, consciously ended the topic, and sent the village head and the doctor away on the grounds that the two brothers had some private matters to discuss. Before leaving, one could see on their faces, "He is indeed a rich young master, maybe it is something else." Nobility" and the like.

Regarding this illness, considering that he is considered a semi-time traveler, it is understandable for some other supernatural events to happen. Of course he can explain this in this way.Oh, no, it should be called abnormal phenomenon here.

However, from a rigorous point of view, it is more reasonable for you to interpret this as a special acute central nervous system lesion.It may be caused by opportunistic pathogens or parasitic infections. Because the immune system of each person is different, the disease only occurs under certain conditions, and the incidence rate is relatively low.

They all mentioned snakes in their vague consciousness. It may be the influence of rumors in the village from generation to generation. They subconsciously felt that they had something to do with it. Naturally, they felt that they were entangled by the evil spirit of snakes.

As for myself, I just happened to see the snake-like pattern all over the place, thinking about it day by day and dreaming about it at night?This is the course of the disease... Forgive me for my ignorance, but there are too many cases in this world, and this one is not bad.

Kraft tried to move his arm again, this time moving himself into a more comfortable position without his cousin's help.

"Okay, I'm sorry to scare you. Although it looked serious before, I feel like I'm getting better, so can you put away the bloodletting kit?" He looked at Ryan beside the bed and stretched vigorously. Feet, which means that you are fine.Plenty of energy is returning to this young body, control of his limbs is mostly restored, and now he feels a little hungry.

Kraft refused Ryan's support, climbed out of the bed, walked to the side of the luggage with heavy feet, took out a piece of dried meat, twisted it in the middle, and handed one of the pieces to Ryan.

For a patient who had just been half-dead, he was doing incredibly well.Powerful chewing muscles give the teeth the strength to bite into the marinated jerky: "Look, I'm fine."

"I'm a little suspicious that you were just pretending." Ryan carefully took the jerky with lingering fear, "How about we rest here for a few days before setting off?"

"No, I feel like I can leave tomorrow morning. There is also that damn pillar, let them fill the hole back, the soil is hard, I don't want to come to this unlucky place again." The souvenirs were not found, and the money was missing a few Silver coins, and almost wiped out his own people, which can be called a lighter-level job.

"you sure?"

"I'm sure, I'll leave tomorrow. You don't want to wait for the snow to melt and ride in the mud. Also remember to remind me to let them fill the hole." Kraft was a little eager to put all this behind him, He could feel that he was resisting to delve into this matter from certain angles from his body to his heart, and it happened that he wanted to leave a long time ago.

(End of this chapter)