Krafft's Notes on Anomalies

Carrying a lantern, Yvonne left the lively discussion. The guards and knights were still debating what was causing the noise, which unsurprisingly turned into personal attacks, and there was a strong tendency to meet up to find out.

In fact, she wanted to listen for a while longer, but now it was indeed time to leave. Even though the sun was still high in the sky in the fiery clouds, the stone stairs and corridors behind the thick and high walls, with only narrow shooting holes for lighting, already needed lights to pass.

The road back is not short. It starts from the workshop in the outer castle, climbs and circles, passes through buildings that are as high and low as a multi-layer cake at a banquet, and finally passes through the inner castle checkpoint and returns to the residence.

Climbing those tall stairs was time-consuming and laborious, and it took her some time to get to the top. Standing on the terrace, she could see that the crowd gathered around the workshop below gradually dispersed. The knights and retinues returned to their respective stations, and the craftsmen's apprentices packed up and spread out. countertops and put small tools indoors.

A flame lit up in the fading sky, and several small pieces spread out along the road shadowed by the high wall, like ashes drifting in a ditch filled with cold water.

It was a night patrol team, and some of them would be led by a knight. Meeting a young lady who returned late was probably one of the rare bright spots in their dull and musty duty, which inevitably led to some meaningless courtesy greetings and return greetings. Very troublesome.

She quickened her pace, planning to return to the room earlier.

Outside the room-shaped window next to the spiral staircase of the tower, a large piece of something with a strange chirping sound fluttered past. The sudden fright made her stagger a step, and her calf hit the blunt edge of the next step.

Sitting down and lifting up her skirt, Yvonne rubbed the sore spot and looked outside. They were countless birds that usually hovered around the lower barn, feeding on the grain particles scattered during transportation. They were frightened by unknown flocks. rise, soaring high like black clouds.

Until their eagerly flapping wings were completely integrated into the dark sky, the continuous and noisy chirping still echoed among the rock walls.

Few people have the opportunity to witness so many birds passing by in close proximity. The surprise makes people temporarily forget everything else, including the pain in their legs.

The flock of birds seemed to be the messengers of the change of day and night, and the light from the window shrank and disappeared unconsciously. When she stood up again, the only thing that illuminated her surroundings was the borrowed lantern.

She continued to climb with some difficulty, crossing the stone steps of different heights and passing through the interconnected corridors and rooms. The section with the most doors is the residence for ordinary visitors to the barbican.

Perhaps because of the off-season, the servants only lit three or four lights. Food that had lost its temperature was placed in front of a door, with solidified white grease floating on the surface of the soup. An unusually busy man was standing at the door, carrying a new serving of food.

"Professor Brimmer, are you there?" His call received no response. When he saw Yvonne approaching with a lantern, Wilbert handed the tray to the servant as a polite greeting for an encounter, "Good night, Miss Yvonne, I hope the view of Westminster didn't disappoint you too much; the armor is always shorter than the skirt."

"I heard that some energetic young men always bother a lady recently. I have reminded them that as a knight, this kind of behavior is too rude." He made a big circle politely, making the conversation The start-up is not so purposeful, and what I really want to say is actually only a short sentence.

"Do you know where Mr. Brimmer might be?"

"Good night, Mr. Wilbert." After living here for a while, Yvonne also understood a little about the rules of this behavior. Spending time leisurely seems to be a manifestation of status etiquette, "He did not talk to me. I mentioned this kind of thing before. Why do you ask that?"

"My master had some health issues and needed consultation, and I thought that a well-known figure in the industry would happen to visit, but unfortunately it didn't happen."

"I heard that he is visiting for an academic gathering. Did you mention to Miss when we met that you would visit other places today?"

"No, Professor Brimmer only said that he would stay here for a day or two, waiting for Mr. Kraft to come back." Yvonne shook her head. She was not worried that this man was going to steal something from the room in the inner castle. Not to mention the copper lock on the door that requires a key, the roving guards in the inner castle and several levels will not be selectively blind.

"Well, it seems we can only ask our own doctors. I'm afraid they won't be of much help." The internal affairs officer took away the cold dinner and left the new one in place, "As for this, let's deal with it. "

The servant came downstairs briskly carrying cold soup, bread and meat, with a smile on his face that didn't look fake. Yvonne often wonders where the food that was not eaten in time went, and the unified answer she gets is "disposed of", anyway, it will not be served to the guests a second time.

Sometimes this luxury seemed to her more viscerally surprising than the castle walls.

I bought some lamp oil from the servant and left the guest room area. Behind him, Internal Affairs Officer Wilbert was muttering to himself, blaming himself for letting some careless person arrange Professor Brimmer to the castle.

There is still a long way to go. Yvonne clung to a low fence where people were told to have fallen to their deaths and walked slowly through it. In fact, this was not dangerous at all for her height, but the night wind blowing from high altitude and from the bottom of the cliff seemed to throw her body up into the bottomless starry sky.

The dangerous feeling and some natural impulse made her look down with both fear and curiosity.

The team holding torches high and patrolling at night seemed like dancing light spots here, an inverted and sparse star map, confusing the sense of up and down direction. The body feels lighter and lighter, and it is necessary to break away from the ground that is only touched by the feet and lacks a fixed surface at any time.

Everything seemed cold and insignificant from this perspective. Those people with their splendid armors, busy chores, complicated etiquette, and their own thoughts, and of course herself, were all tiny points of light, no different from each other or from before. No different from those I've seen.

An indescribable feeling is stuck in the throat, like half-cooked grains of wheat that are so hard to swallow and spit out.

She thought about a lot, visitors, knights, professors, internal affairs officers, but it seemed like she was not thinking about anything at all. They all merged into a lump, a lump of condensation and mixture, which she understood but did not understand at all.

Bored and confused, she only looked at the star array composed of firelight on the ground, feeling that those insurmountable and incomprehensible things were just embers drifting in the wind. She was meaninglessly performing complicated and boring actions, and might be blown away by a gust of wind from an unknown source at any time. In the life of blowing out, I pursue all kinds of things.

Just like this, one of them went out without warning and no one noticed.

The image of staring was reflected in his empty mind. Without thinking about it, Yvonne didn't even think about what it might mean, and was immersed in his sudden burst of emotions or feelings.

Then, another bright spot flickered and disappeared from his eyes. This bright spot is on the ground at an unknown height below where we are, and it was moving silently at the edge of our field of vision just a moment ago. She didn't know where it was, maybe it was a rest stop during the inspection, they went indoors to enjoy the fire and hot soup, or they just passed through a corridor.

The howling night wind blocked out any sounds that might come from below. She asked herself if this was normal, but she had never noticed the night view of the stone fortress before.

Instinctively, he felt something was wrong and wanted to ask for help. However, few people passed this stretch of road at night. The only internal affairs officer, Wilbert, who might be traveling with him, was probably still in the accommodation area waiting for Brimmer to return to his room.

Yvonne subconsciously looked at the building with most of the rooms vacant. It was blocked by a tower on the way. Considering that he hadn't gone too far yet, it would only be a short time to retreat now.

is it necessary? After all, no one stipulates that the firelight must be visible from above during the night patrol.

In the midst of hesitation, a larger - that is, a closer light spot - shrank rapidly and disappeared without a trace.

A cold night wind that was different from the previous one was close to her ears. She was not sure whether it was an illusion caused by her imagination. It whispered the shrill sound coming from the plank road in mid-air. After a brief fall of despair, it ended and was annihilated. The echo was echoed by high altitude. The strong wind tore them apart and distributed them, and what arrived here was one of them.

【what is that? 】

The fallen torch illuminated an insignificant piece of the high wall and cliff. For just a moment, Yvonne believed that his eyes saw something moving. It was not clear, but it was indeed that natural place that was close to vertical and had few footholds. There are more than one on the bare rock barrier.

The blank mind was filled with flashing images. At first glance, those things looked like a combination of raised mold spots on soaked orange peels and toadstools. They were easily distinguishable from the background due to their peculiar color.

As can be seen here, the actual size of the "little mildew spot" is probably... at least the size of an adult.

As the light spot disappeared, the only thing nearby that could indicate the development of the situation was also lost. The night patrol team, five or seven people, had the final value of giving her extremely limited information.

【Something is coming】

Don't know anything about the rest. Yvonne didn't know what they were, how many they were, or where they were, but one thing was clear.

There was no way she could stay here any longer. This was an unobstructed road. Without thinking, she picked up the light and ran towards the nearest building, the tall tower between her and the visitor's residence.

If you still have time, you can try to meet up with Internal Affairs Officer Wilbert. A place with more people will probably be safer. And if something is wrong halfway, the multi-layered space in the tower can provide room for temporary hiding and maneuvering.

While running, she inexplicably remembered that night in the southern hills, when an unknown thing knocked on the door, and she could only rely on others and hide in all directions to escape.

Yvonne felt that those unspeakable barriers in her heart became clear at this moment. She really wanted something that might not exist, that could bring about complete changes, to make herself "powerful", as straightforward and effective as a hammer hammering down a page. , was even more effective at smashing both tangible and intangible things, and it made her tired of being powerless to do anything.

Instead of being like this now, panicking on the way to escape.