Krafft's Anomaly Notes

Chapter 419 Inconsistent Timeline
The vibrations spread along the wood, and you could feel how it seeped into the cabin from the water. The low, rumbling vibrations shook your jaw and made your teeth chatter.

Like an invisible giant hand slowly caressing the hull, it followed the ship's ribs, climbed the deck, and made a muffled sound as it passed the base of the mainmast.

It then continues to extend, penetrating the raised tail section, touching the rudder post, passing through the spokes of the wheel, and landing in the palm of the hand tightly gripping the rudder.

Oliver felt himself being lifted up for a moment, then sink almost imperceptibly.

There is no doubt that the ship's hull struck something, and something heavy enough to shake the cargo-laden vessel. Even the slightest tremor indicates that the object was incredibly heavy.

If it's ice floes, the portion above the sea surface cannot be ignored. The likelihood of other floating debris appearing here is extremely low.

As for the possibility that it wasn't an inanimate object, he dared not think about it, nor could he imagine it.

Of course, even if you know the answer, it won't improve the current situation at all.

All a person can do is make minor adjustments to the rudder in the direction of the waves, follow the flow of the sea, and let it carry the ship into the unknown.

This realization unexpectedly made him feel better; at least he no longer had to worry about making the wrong decision. It was like driving on a straight road with no forks; even if the destination was hell, he could calmly straighten the course and enjoy the last moments of peace.

Another vibration came. Standing at the highest point of the deck, I could feel its process more clearly—it grew forward and backward in a pushing and pressing manner, without stopping at any specific position, and then smoothly decayed after reaching the midpoint.

To be precise, it shouldn't even be called a collision.

A collision is a concentrated outburst, focused on a point or surface; while this travels along the hull, with both a beginning and an end, closer to...

【touch?】

Its arrival was without warning, and its departure left no trace, vanishing in an instant. Only a few suspicious eddies in the waves hinted at its incongruous and faint presence.

The entire ship returned to the rhythm of the wind and waves, the timbers groaned, the ropes tightened, and the waves continued to push in from the stern, with the white line catching up with the sternplate one after another.

He waited a moment, hoping the vibrations would return, but the ship fell silent. If it weren't for the lingering tremor in his palm, he would have almost suspected it was an illusion.

However, something more subtle, something that was ignored due to vibration, did not disappear with it.

He suddenly realized that the intervals between the waves were even more difficult to judge.

The hands, which had become accustomed to the rhythm, became clumsy again, frequently going half a beat too late or gripping the steering wheel too hard too early.

When he tried to regain his rhythm, he found that he couldn't accurately recall when the last wave arrived.

Visually, the white lines are still evenly spaced and the pattern remains, but the "gaps" between them seem to be gently stretched and then suddenly tighten when they get close.

He rubbed his eyes, turned his head to look behind him, and in the surging snow mist, his well-honed sense of distance became ineffective.

The experience of estimating speed by visual inspection was insufficient to provide an accurate judgment.

It's not because the fog is thicker, but because some things are no longer so clear.

The ridges rise and fall distinctly, arranged in layers, clearly separated from one another, yet not in a progressive manner, but rather in a parallel manner—like an old painter who has never learned perspective drawing several blue-gray arcs on the limestone wall of a church, using shades to distinguish the layers, but without making them truly recede.

There is a lack of natural attenuation between near and far objects. The obstruction of snow and fog, and the fading of colors, make the visual perception almost ineffective due to the absence of these gradations.

The transition between near and far gradually becomes blurred, and the outlines of some wave ridges are so sharp as to be unreasonable, making one feel that they are not on the same level, but rather flattened images that have been torn from elsewhere and randomly pieced together.

The sailors on deck were still busy.

The winch turned, the rigging rubbed, and a bloodshot shout staggered back and forth in the cold wind. Perhaps due to fatigue, the sound seemed to travel in a strange way.

Just moments before, he had witnessed the sailor using his shoulders and back to twist the wooden handle and completely furl the last triangular sail, securing it with the sail-furling rope, the cloth clinging to the wooden frame without the slightest loosening.

A few breaths later, the familiar, faint trembling sound came again.

It was neither an echo nor an illusion created by the wind. It came from some uncertain height on the side of the deck, with a definite texture, belonging to that piece of cloth, yet no corresponding movement could be found.

It's more like a part of the sound that bypasses the present and comes from the past.

Sometimes, the sound of slapping precedes the sound of waves crashing against the stern.

His overburdened mind could no longer bear any more unfounded suspicions and speculations. He tried to explain them as auditory hallucinations and banish them from his mind, but he couldn't help but listen intently, trying to catch more sounds and distinguish the order in the noise.

But the sounds don't line up; they crowd into the same air, and trying to distinguish them doesn't make the logic clearer, but rather makes the memory less credible.

How many times did the sails sound? Did that call actually ring out?

Did he mistake the delay for a repetition, or did his mind prolong the sound?
He almost gave up, no longer trying to think about which sound was happening in the present moment, accepting that the sound of waves could be stretched and flattened, and the sound of sails rubbing could be broken into several pieces, letting them pile up like fragments in his ears.

Amidst these chaotic fragments, a voice suddenly caught their attention.

Its deep, muffled sound, coming from an indistinct distance, jolted consciousness awake.

Oliver's gaze shifted to the brass horn beside him, lingering on its rim for a moment before looking up at the deck.

He wasn't the only one; everyone looked up, stopped what they were doing, and looked at each other in bewilderment. No one spoke.

They read the same thing in the eyes of others, and they were waiting for the same voice.

The deep voice sounded a second time, lasting for two to three breaths, followed by a third time, which was short and abrupt, forming a combination of long and short sounds with the previous two.

It was the sound of a bugle, the bugle of the Xuesong ship, which meant—please report your direction.

"Blow the horn!"

Before the words were even finished, some people on deck had already started moving. Risking being thrown off the ship, they rushed to the horn, took a deep breath, and blew the response signal.

The resonance of the copper cavity broke through the air, producing two long and one short notes, deep and powerful, with precise intervals.

Oliver looked around anxiously, trying to spot the ship in the treacherous, chaotic, gray-white expanse, but to no avail.

Immediately following the horn sound, two short blasts followed, their direction obscured by the fog, only their distance discernible.

"Two short...approaching?" The trumpeter's joy was tinged with doubt as he looked to Oliver for help. He couldn't understand how, in these sea conditions, one could approach another direction of unknown location.

"At least he heard it."

Oliver gave no instructions; he suddenly realized a problem.

The response was so fast it arrived almost instantly, right at the tail end of their signal, as if no listening, confirmation, or command was required in between.

It was as if a spot had been reserved in the fog long ago, just waiting for them to put their voices in.