Krafft's Anomaly Notes

Chapter 145
Visitors experience a novelty when passing through Westminster.

The foundation of the building complex is not a flat bottom, but occupies the entire top of the mountain and is designed according to the shape of the mountain.Buildings of different levels and orientations are often not on the same level.

The barriers surrounding the urn city can also be the road leading to the bastion on the top.After turning around inside the bastion, on the third-floor open-air platform, you will encounter an arch covered with double-winged rings, and walk into a small chapel.

Everything is connected closely, but clearly separates their respective spatial functional areas, so that the terrain that cannot be leveled is transformed from a construction obstacle to an advantage.

Outsiders will lose their way in such a traffic network, and the defender will rely on the advantage of familiarity with the road to appear anywhere, or seal off a certain area.Not to mention that all the design details are intentionally created for the convenience of the defender, such as the consistent clockwise bottom-up spiral staircase, which is only conducive to the use of right-handed weapons in a limited space by the upper ranks.

Following Martin as a guide, they walked through the shortest "shortcut" after the attacker broke through the outer wall—assuming anyone can do it—they circled half a circle in a gradual manner, and half of the inner fort was exposed Under the crossfire of the city wall and the flanking towers, the other half is the indoor obstruction scene like the above-mentioned spiral staircase.

If you don't want to fall into this desperate maze of one-sided street fighting, you have to face the "inner door" that doesn't open late at night, and repeat the siege process under the attack from both sides of the head.

The designer has well integrated these ideas into the architectural structure, which is the master of the defender's malice.Kraft nodded all the way, and with some reluctance arrived at the destination, the absolutely safe room in the inner castle, before the torch was extinguished.Perhaps it was also used as a shooting hole during the war, and the window without any wooden part is made vertical and narrow, at least the residents don't have to worry about anyone breaking through here.

However, in such a pure stone world, some tenacious creatures can still grow. He found a few clusters of fungi on the dirt on the windowsill, no bigger than the cover of a small fingernail.

The warm and humid climate here seems to be especially suitable for the growth of these fast-growing little things. With just a little rain, you can see them in the wild, indoors, on the dining table, and in all places you can think of or unexpected.

Over thirty feet above the ground, with the craggy cliffs below the window, Kraft spent the night with a guard at the gate.Unexpectedly, it was a peaceful night, and when he opened his eyes again, he was very happy to see that it was the dawn, illuminating the normal room, and not some other weird and desolate place.

After breakfast was delivered and no one disturbed him any more, he idly stayed in his room until noon.

"Good afternoon, Professor Kraft, I hope you slept soundly last night." A familiar greeting came from outside the door, "If you want, you can choose the black robe you are most used to."

"Oh? I thought it would be more formal." Even so, Kraft did not hesitate to change out of the banquet attire that made him uncomfortable, and put on a black suit.

"No. Today is a private meeting. There are no extra people involved, so you only need to wear regular clothes." Waiting outside the door, Martin felt relaxed like strolling through his own living room, but he became serious again when he mentioned the schedule.He made a sound like an empty can of wind chimes as he walked around. Kraft opened the door and saw Martin wearing a blue and white oak leaf pattern burqa armor he had never seen before, without a helmet, leading a group of guards and servants.

"Of course no one else should know, this is what I have to remind you." He picked up a ribbon from the tray in the servant's hand, wrapped it around Kraft's neck, and hung both ends on his chest, "Let Let's go."

At this point, the passage is no longer difficult to understand.Along the standard octagon of the inner fort, the rooms and traffic are distributed layer by layer, and they are going to the core area of ​​the fortress along the main road through one of them.

Two people were already waiting for them at the door.A man in aristocratic clothes with a delicate mustache, and the other, unexpectedly, was an acquaintance who had just met.

"Mr. Wilbert, this is the Professor Kraft I want to introduce to you." Professor Fernan, or Viscount Fernan, wore the black robe from last night's banquet, and seemed not in a good spirit.

"Come a step late. Please forgive me for not being able to bear the bumps like you young people. It can be regarded as a bit of preferential treatment for the elderly."

"Hi, I'm Wilbert, the Duke's internal affairs officer. Please keep quiet after entering, your lord's spirit is not very good." The mustache bowed to Kraft. It was not obvious, but he was extremely strict and standard, and he could As a model inverted salute, I shook my head slightly when I saw the apparently uncommon return salute, "Your hands should be slightly higher and placed closer to your shoulders, not in front of your heart."

It sounds more like a position in the army, but his performance is more in line with the identity of a meticulous noble housekeeper with some obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Professor Fernand interrupted his rambling, "Okay, Wilbert, the Duke won't care about this. We are in a hurry, so we have to let him see that."

【that? 】

Kraft looked at Fernand inexplicably, but didn't get an answer from the other's face, but the internal affairs officer was successfully persuaded to let go of his insistence on etiquette, and turned sideways to wave to the heavily armed guards on both sides of the heavy double door.

A warm current gushed out from the open door, and Internal Affairs Officer Wilbert stretched out his hand to send them a silent but definite invitation to step into the carpeted room.The serrated border embroidery of long blue leaves led them straight to the burning fireplace in the middle, into which the servants were pouring the incense-like substance of dried spices.

Under the decoration of crossed swords and long swords and oak pattern shield wall hangings, on a chair padded with thick fur, the figure sat facing the fire, with his back to the visitors.

"Your Excellency, the doctor is here." The internal affairs officer floated lightly across the carpet, came to the chair and reminded softly, then stepped aside, and made eye contact with Professor Fernand and Kraft—follow up.

"Come in, Viscount Fernand. There is also the Kraft knight from the north."

Kraft followed Fernand to the owner of the castle with small steps, watched the old professor salute, and followed suit, remembering to move his hand up two intercostal heights.

This was the first time someone called him that. In theory, he should have such a temporary title as the heir before inheriting his grandfather's title.Small border nobles generally don't pay much attention to this kind of theory, and Old Wood is too lazy to award him a knight title, but it must be admitted that this name is standard.

"Cough cough."

A series of coughing, tremors hit the throat and chest cavity, the person on the chair arched his body, and the bear skin on his chest slipped off.The pause in the sentence just now was not due to forgetting and hesitating, but due to shortness of breath.

Wilbert quickly stepped forward and asked the bear skin to be put on him again, and Kraft also saw clearly the mysterious figure who might be the main reason for his invitation this time.

The ring-shaped crown is pressed against the neat gray hair, half-closed eyes are opened and reflect a tired but clear look under the light of the fire, his will is still clear, but the body can no longer support this state for too long .

You can see the muscles with obvious training marks under the wrinkled skin lines. They should have raised and supported the skin in a more robust and full posture, but now only a broad outline remains.Like an old oak tree that has lost all its leaves, only from the tall and strong branches can we recall the image of the luxuriant canopy and the vast shade at the time. Thinking about the past will only make people feel more sorry for the ruthlessness of nature.

"Please bring some chamomile and licorice sweet tea to the Duke," Fernand ordered.Several servants and guards stood against the wall in this spacious room.

"Professor Kraft, I believe you have already guessed. The case we secretly revealed at the party is right in front of your eyes. Everything before was really helpless. As the core of the entire Westminster and even Dunling, the Duke His physical condition cannot be disclosed to the outside world, which will have an irreparable impact on the situation."

It was the kind of content Kraft didn't understand, and he simply thought about it.

"What do you mean?"

"We can't let people know that a royal military leader with no heir and great prestige may encounter misfortune at any time, at least not now." The land that has lived for nearly 20 years is not as calm as he thought.

But compared to these things he was not good at, he was more worried about what "that" Fernan said. It sounded like some kind of symptom with a regular time, so he had to do a physical examination before that.

"I have to do some tests, and the patient needs to take off his shirt temporarily, is that okay?" Kraft put on the mask stuffed in the inner pocket of the black robe, rubbed his hands to warm up, and looked at Fernand and the Duke of Westminster at the same time solicit opinions.

"It's not a problem." The Duke generously agreed to this, and the second half of the sentence made Fernand's old face unconcealable embarrassment, "Anyway, it can't be worse than giving an enema, right?"

With the approval, Kraft rubbed his hands and began to examine the body.

In addition to the extremely rigorous examination, in the era of gradually developed imaging, a complete set of standard lung examinations is actually quite difficult to see.In these embarrassing days when there are no instruments and the mental senses are used as much as possible, Lazy Dog has no choice but to regain his craft.

Under inspection, the respiratory movement on both sides was symmetrical, and there was no obvious chest collapse, but a slight rightward displacement of the trachea was found.When palpating and making sounds, one can get a glimpse of the lesions of the lungs under the thoracic cavity, which are different speech tremors in different places, or enhance the conduction like solid heart, or reduce the erratic, like reverberation in the cavity, showing the complex and diverse lesion.

When the examination progressed to the next step, the changing tone of the percussion made everyone in the room other than the examiner clearly feel the seriousness of the situation.On every line of percussion from top to bottom on the chest, underarms, and under the shoulder blades, Kraft tapped every intercostal space tremblingly, almost every two or three bars down can buckle out the voicing Different sounds, like the lungs have been molded by the disease into some sickly complicated instrument, a scale tuned out of twisted scarred cords and near-thoracic cavities.

Based on the experience of a soul from another world, this kind of tuberculosis has exceeded the degree of deterioration that he can see in the environment at that time. If the patient is not physically strong and has sufficient nutrition, he should have been defeated by the disease. There is really not much he can do. .

Just as Kraft put his ear to his chest and tried to listen to the sound in his lungs, he felt heat coming from the patient's skin with his fingertips.It seems that it is not the temperature difference caused by the gradual loss of heat of the fingers during the operation, but some kind of rapid change. The increase in body temperature at the same time blurs the remaining mind in the eyes, making the pupils drift in a trance.

"Pay attention, Professor Kraft." Fernan also noticed the change in the Duke, or this is what he had been waiting for and wanted Kraft to see. "The change in condition that we haven't finished talking about has come."

(End of this chapter)