Krafft's Anomaly Notes

Chapter 389 The storm is coming
"The blacksmith made a mold based on the prototype, but after melting it down, he found that it was not pure silver at all. Something else had been cast into it during the initial production, taking up about half of it."

Having remained silent within the metal for over twenty years, perhaps it was the close contact with Dominic that triggered something, like an animal awakened from hibernation, realizing that another season was about to begin and that all around it were unsuspecting prey.

"You guys really didn't notice something was wrong with this thing?" Cooper asked again, incredulously.

"Perhaps...it is a little light." The priest pressed tightly against the wooden emblem, trying to suppress the suffocating palpitations in his heart.

He had worn that silver badge for a long time; time had worn away its surface shine and sense of presence, making it a natural part of the church, a part of him.

A slight, muffled cracking sound came from some distance. He subconsciously looked around but couldn't find the source.

Unable to find an answer, the group searched the blacksmith's shop, with various clanging sounds filling the air, but one sound stood out particularly clearly.

Closer than beside you, closer than your ear, it resides within your body, echoing in your memory.

The cracking sound was some kind of trigger; he saw in his memory two cultivators wrestling in front of him, while he frantically chanted exorcism incantations.

In the chaos, something cracked—the old wooden floor, the fragile finger bones, the aged metal. The sound was fleeting, like an unintentional splash of ink when a pen is put down, unnoticed by anyone.

As I wipe away this memory, the undried ink spreads out, blurring the image and making it increasingly indistinct the more I recall it.

Everyone had their mouths open, muttering words like underwater bubbles, except for one sentence that was exceptionally clear.

Where did they go?

Yes, he had never thought about it in detail. The old priest told him that the church's convoy had gone north, and Benny's family told him that the madmen had gone to a mountain.

But what does that really mean?
Subconsciously, his fingers scratched the patch of skin on his chest that had adapted to the holy emblem. The itching throbbed in every pore, as if something fine would grow out from under his skin, as neatly structured as words, tightly interlocked, like scales and feathers.

The horseshoe irons under the eaves swayed slightly, and the airflow carrying crisp clanging sounds and moisture blew into the shop, a signal that a mountain rain was about to come.

After days of continuous rain, it was time to bring out the books again to air them out. He thought of the collection, which had been rarely updated since the church was built and which he knew by heart, and prepared to walk back alone first.

My waist suddenly slammed into a hard horizontal bar. Looking down, I saw a hammer.

The handle was in the girl's hand, clearly defining the boundary between inside and outside the house.

"Where are you going?"

“Go back…and organize the books.” He was surprised by the reason given, as he didn’t think of himself as someone who didn’t know what was important.

Not long ago, he rushed here because of charges of heresy, but in the blink of an eye, he plans to abandon the investigation team and go back.

"why?"

"Because I suddenly realized I need to prevent mold on rainy days?" There are still many days until the next sunny day, but he felt a strange sense of urgency.

Yvonne shook his head, the hammer handle in his hand remaining motionless.

“To be on the safe side, I suggest you temporarily close the library.” Kup came out of the inner room carrying a small crucible, effectively shutting down the priest’s idea with a single sentence: “Until you are cleared of suspicion, all written records could be evidence, and you don’t want to cause trouble for unnecessary reasons, do you?”

"Let's put the rest aside for now; we need to find what's been cast into the holy emblem first."

He placed the crucible under the light, and the solidified form of the black and silver residue was clearly different.

The silver coating didn't cover the entire pointed side of the pot; instead, it left a shallow, irregularly shaped depression in the center, surrounded by intermittent condensation patterns that disrupted the smooth cooling surface, resembling nested vortices on a dirty surface. Someone repeatedly poked at something while it was still undiluted, and after it cooled slightly, they removed it, revealing pry marks and peeling edges.

Judging from the marks left on the silver surface, it was a flat, irregularly shaped piece, about three fingers long and two fingers wide. It's hard to say exactly what it was, but it was probably the kind of thing that would be lost somewhere and never be found again.

Kup felt dizzy and wondered whether he should ask the blacksmith to take the item back.

"Where does he live?"

"Over there, the houses south of the church, nestled against the mountain."

The group dragged the priest along and knocked on the blacksmith's door right at dinner time.

The woman with her headscarf looked behind the door for a while, confirming that he was indeed a priest. She carefully opened the crack in the door and cautiously observed the unfamiliar stranger.

When asked if the blacksmith had any special items with him in his last few days, she thought for a long time before giving an ambiguous answer:

"He did come home very early one day before he got sick. He hadn't gone out for drinks, but he was a little drowsy. He covered himself with his clothes and wouldn't let anyone help him take them off. He just went straight to sleep."

Can you tell what it is?

“I didn’t see it, but I felt like he was hiding something. Was it that thing that made him sick? I’ve told him countless times that greed is the original sin and that we shouldn’t take what God hasn’t given us, but he always ignores me. I never expected this time…”

Her eyes reddened as she spoke, and tears welled up in her eyes. Inside, two children were watching the fire by the stove, glancing curiously in their direction, seemingly not understanding what was happening.

Kup pressed on, forcing himself to ask, "Did he go out during those days?"

"Perhaps he went to the mountains. When I saw him come back, his shoes were covered with mud and grass."

Do you know which mountain we went to?

"There's only one road up the mountain here, and the highest one is to the north."

“Okay, I understand. May God bless you.” Coop roughly understood the situation. These people were like pilgrims, going to the “holy land” whenever they could, or running to higher places. Their behavior was fairly simple.

"If you find anything strange at home afterward, please hand it over to us immediately, as it may be inhabited by an evil spirit."

After giving a final reminder and adding insurance, Kup took his leave.

Stepping out of the courtyard filled with firewood, it was already dark. The wet, cold, muddy path underfoot led out of the village and into the distant, somber outline of the peaks.

The towering cliffs and precipices piled up and clustered together, blurring the boundary between heaven and earth in the night. The earth lost its sense of weight, like a tattered rag with one corner lifted, being torn apart by the gradually strengthening night wind, as if it might fall into the bottomless darkness above at any moment.

It looks like it's about to rain.

"Is it easier to go up the mountain now, or on a rainy day?" Kup took a deep breath, trying to calm his wildly beating heart.

An intuition sounded an alarm, indicating that he was approaching something, not in terms of spatial distance, but in a more abstract concept.

“It’s impossible to go up in the rain,” the priest said, shaking his head. “The mountain path is more slippery than a spoon handle that’s fallen into soup. Of course, it’s also dangerous at night. It’s best to wait a few days.”

"Thank you all for having an extra meal of dry rations. We'll be setting off soon."

I'm experiencing severe writer's block and I'm not satisfied with any of my writing. I urgently need some feedback and suggestions for the recent chapters.