Krafft's Anomaly Notes

Chapter 388 Lost-Wax Method

"Something?" The priest realized what Kup was looking at and took off the holy emblem hanging on his chest.

It was a wooden emblem, coated with a layer of turpentine and mineral paint. If you got close, you could smell a fresh, cool, and pungent odor, indicating that it had only been worn for a short time.

"You mean this? Impossible, I only started using it a few days ago."

"What about the old one?" Kup pressed.

“The old one cracked, so we sent it to the blacksmith. He said it was difficult to repair and might have to be melted down and recast, but it broke down before it was finished.” The priest still didn’t quite agree with the guess that there was something wrong with the emblem, but his tone became less firm.

“Indeed, all three of them have touched it. I used it to exorcise evil spirits for Brother Dominic, and I also used it when I was praying to bandage the basket maker’s son’s leg injury, but this doesn’t make sense.”

"This item was passed down from my teacher and has been fine for over twenty years. Why is it suddenly broken?"

The emblem used by two generations, if left for too long, will almost become a church heirloom and symbol. Even if it doesn't receive any blessings from God the Father, it shouldn't become a medium for disease, right?

"More than twenty years ago?" Benny interrupted, the timing too sensitive, coinciding perfectly with the torrential rain that buried the neighboring village in his memory. "Did the old priest mention where this thing came from?"

“That was given to us by the monastery’s caravan when they passed by. They traded a whole set of silverware for food with us, and this is one of them. The record is still there.”

"Heavenly Father"

"It's troublesome."

The knight and the professor's assistant exclaimed in surprise at the same time, and then, in a brief exchange of glances, they realized that the other was thinking the same thing.

The lingering poison from over twenty years ago has lurked here in such an open and aboveboard manner, just waiting to erupt one day.

"Take us there immediately!" Kup pushed aside the untouched herbal tea in front of him, got up from his seat, and while observing the priest's actions, glanced at the surrounding environment out of the corner of his eye.

Seeing this, Yvonne quietly reached her hand under the table, waiting for her chance to strike.

Fortunately, the priest appeared more bewildered than overreacted to being exposed, or exhibited any unusual behavior that was clearly not of his own volition.

"But..." He wanted to say something more, but was immediately silenced.

"Our current dean has connections with the place where the Holy Inquisition originated, and suspects that the former order of religious orders may have altered the teachings and colluded with heretics." As a doctrinal illiterate like the professor, Cooper did not know how the Inquisition actually worked, but after being exposed to Raymond, he had heard of what the biggest hat was.

The priest looked in alarm at the only monk present. Kanser was stunned for a moment. No one had informed him beforehand, and he didn't understand how the situation had taken such a sudden turn for the worse.

After a brief moment of thought, he nodded hesitantly. It was indeed an open secret that the dean had connections with the court.

After arriving in this lousy parish, something felt off everywhere, so it's entirely reasonable that they found something out.

His nod became the last straw that broke the priest's back. The unfortunate man who was caught in the crossfire chose to cooperate with the investigation immediately and went to the blacksmith's shop to find the holy emblem, hoping to get away with it as much as possible.

As one of the village's most important technicians, the blacksmith's residence and workshop were located next to the main road of the settlement, no more than a hundred steps away from the church.

The place is easy to find. It has a semi-open storefront, with two strings of half-rusted horseshoes hanging under the eaves that jingle in the wind, and a large chimney on top that is not found in ordinary houses.

The now-cooled furnace was covered in carbon ash, and a hammer and a bucket of quenching water sat beside the anvil. The half-finished sickle remained in its place, its forged surface a bluish-black, and its wooden handle yet to be attached.

Fine iron filings were scattered on the ground, distributed around the anvil, covered with messy trampling marks. It seemed that the deceased had not completely departed and might return at any moment to continue the unfinished work.

Kup breathed a slight sigh of relief, then tensed up again. The blacksmith's family probably hadn't come to clean up yet; the site remained as it was, the situation hadn't escalated, and it was still manageable. But that also meant they might have run into something.

Pushing open the shop's partition door to enter the inner room, the ceiling is lower and the space is smaller, mostly occupied by mold racks, and the air is filled with the smell of burning metal and heated wax.

The wall with the window was blackened by smoke, and below it were rows of pottery crucibles, the smaller ones being taken out and placed on the stove.

"It's a small place, so please don't come in yet. Let me take a look around."

Cooper glanced at the hammer on the anvil, and Yvonne, understanding his intention, took two steps to the side, adjusting her position to be behind the group, blocking the shop entrance.

Seeing this, he felt relieved and went into the inner room, bending down to avoid the clutter. After his eyes had adjusted to the dim light, he slowly moved towards the window, ready to escape at any time.

The smoky house only looked dirty and messy; in fact, the original owner had kept the workplace very tidy.

Various mold parts were placed on the shelves, and there were no miscellaneous items on the ground that could easily trip one's foot. Only a wooden box with high-temperature carbonization marks was placed next to the furnace, which was quite an eyesore.

He first craned his neck to look inside the crucible from above. There were some residual metals on the side wall near the spout, with a rough, silver-black surface, not as smooth as naturally solidified metal.

The wooden box next to it is about the size of two palms and is filled with hardened clay, with a small hole at the top.

It was probably a casting mold. The blacksmiths at the monastery made similar things; they simply sculpted a model in wax, placed it in clay, pressed it down, and then heated it to allow the wax to flow out and the clay to harden.

It's a very convenient method, especially when a customer suddenly has a brilliant idea and urgently needs a special precision tool. You can make a preview of the wax model first, and then pour the casting after confirming that everything is correct.

This looks like it's already finished. All that's left is to melt the metal, pour it into a mold, and break open the clay to get the rough blank.

The situation appeared to be that when the pouring was almost complete, the operator found that there was not enough metal to fill the mold, so he stopped pouring and left the remaining metal in the crucible to cool.

The consequences of a failed pouring are often irreversible. Failures caused by miscalculating the amount of materials used are particularly basic and serious. If this were in a monastery, it would immediately result in an extra material expense report and a deduction from wages.

However, the blacksmith did not attempt to salvage the situation, leaving the failed mold behind and not even disposing of the crucible.

Kup opened the wooden box, took out the clay mold, carried it out of the room, and threw it on the ground.

"Yvonne, help me open it."

The hammer slammed down, and the mold cracked open, sending small fragments flying like arrows that shattered on the wall, startling people so much that they instinctively shrank back.

"I was originally going to say not to make it too fragmented."

"We've already held back a bit."

After rummaging through the pulverized mold for a while, Cooper successfully retrieved what he wanted.

Every person who feels the pinch when it comes to material costs will likely ask the same question: can the metal in the mold be reheated, melted, and poured out, so that the mold can be reused directly?

The answer is clear: impossible. Unless the part is destroyed, there will always be some metal residue.

So the thing must be inside.

Despite its roughness, its shape is still easily discernible: a semi-circle connected to a single, slender wing.

"You've worn them for so long, didn't you notice that almost half of them aren't silver?"