Krafft's Notes on Anomalies

On the way to report, Kraft met Martin who was also waiting. They both had time to change their clothes, and came wearing muddy boots with their hair messed up by the wind and dust.

But what I stepped on was not the inner castle carpet.

They followed the attendants into the tower on the blocked mountain road. A series of coughing sounds were blown into the lower level by the cold wind from high altitude, making people worried about the condition of the owner of the sound. On the top floor of the tower, the Duke in chainmail pressed against the parapet, looking down at the buildings below where people were coming in and out from time to time.

The attendant reported the arrival of the visitor and quickly stepped away, but did not go far. He stood a few steps away and paid close attention to the Duke's condition.

"I'm glad to see you again." He turned around, his face as cold and wrinkled as the cliff, showing no mental activity, "But we have lost some people forever."

"Including House Officer Wilbert. The last time we met, I thought I could see him before dinner, but the fate given to mortals by Heavenly Father is always cruel. Fortunately, I have got used to it."

Kraft didn't need to look to know that Martin's face must be ugly.

"So please tell me if you've found the guys who caused this."

There was anger burning in his slightly cloudy eyes, but he controlled his emotions very well, which only made the person facing him feel even more stressed.

"We found the lair of paganism and burned their evil creations and idolatry together." Martin held up a corner of the mural taken from behind the church pulpit. The lifelike limbs of alien angels were on the indigo background. stretch.

"And their leader received an end worthy of his evil deeds."

The Duke took a look at the mural, and the twisted and evil shape made him feel disgusted and repelled in his heart. He waved his hand for Martin to take it down.

"That's exactly what I want to hear. Take it down later, burn it with those things, and don't leave anything behind this time." Hearing this means that the matter has been revealed, and there is no intention to pursue the abnormality before. The corpse of a believer left in the castle.

"Even people who were born and raised during war will encounter things they have never heard of. People should not bear the price of situations that are impossible to predict... But I hope you can learn your lesson.

"Definitely." Martin nodded quickly and promised. Craft felt that if it wasn't too rude, the knight might hold the Duke's thigh and cry and swear an oath. Regardless, it's great to see him not being held accountable.

He waited for a while and felt that they did not intend to talk about the relationship between the king and his ministers, so it was time for him to report.

After sorting out the drafts he had made along the way, Craft had already prepared a set of arguments, including how to dispel the Duke's thoughts when he asked himself whether these things could be applied to the war.

"Your Excellency, please allow me to describe to you what I see from my own professional perspective."

"This is a special disease-causing mechanism similar to the way the plague spreads, using mushrooms as a vector. We encountered some bodies driven like zombies, all covered with mushrooms without exception, and secret settlements of pagans A variety of mushrooms were also found that were extremely luxuriant."

"This is consistent with the previous scene where Diego Cavalier was murdered. Combining the two, I think the mushrooms with a growth density that is obviously different from normal can be used as a characteristic criterion."

"The change in your condition may have come from eating contaminated raw white-bellied mushrooms while passing through the Hudson Town Manor. Paganism has developed in the local area to the point of occupying churches. It is difficult to say whether all this was intentional. The design was an accident.”

The Duke listened silently, then looked at the building below. Masked soldiers were moving some bright and unusual things out of it, and setting up a bonfire in the open air.

"I want to take back what I said before, Knight Kraft. Although you are not quite like your ancestors, you have indeed inherited the most important things." He tightened the collar lined with cotton armor, coughed repeatedly, and vomited from behind. What fell, "is the same as what is seen here, and you may not guess to what extent this heretic has corrupted Westmin."

"Brimmer, professor at Rivers University and pupil of Viscount Fernand, drowned in those abominable mushrooms. Soldiers found a tattoo of a circle on his back."

"Poor Fernand, I don't know if I should hide the truth from him. He may not be able to bear such a big blow."

He shook his head and sighed. This action seemed to affect his lungs again, causing several coughs. "It's far away, please continue, Knight Kraft."

"As you can see, this method of making mushrooms grow vigorously will eventually turn people into zombie-like things. Since the pagan leaders who know the inside story can no longer speak, I will stop at the principle. Guess, maybe..."

"No, I don't want to know these things, and I advise you not to delve into it." The Duke blocked the rhetoric that Kraft was about to use to fool him. Not only did he not consider using it, he didn't even want to understand it.

"In an age when everyone is willing to use any means to kill each other, as long as you live long enough, you will see some unusual things. At this time, the church people can't say anything useful, except for one sentence ,I agree."

"The little tricks of the heathen will sooner or later play with fire and burn themselves to death."

"Of course, it would be great to burn them clean." Kraft breathed a sigh of relief. It was not accidental that some people could live so long.

"So am I going to end up like those things? If so, I'd better start preparing the wood now."

"Well, your situation is probably not that serious. If you don't mind, can you come back indoors and let me check you again? It's not a good thing to blow the wind here with your physical condition." The attendant's nervousness was as the Duke coughed. The frequency has skyrocketed, and the only person suitable for persuasion here is the doctor.

"No, wait a while." The Duke rejected the suggestion and returned to the parapet, overlooking the platform below.

The bonfire wood pile has been set up, and the soldier holding the torch looked up, obviously knowing that the owner of the castle was watching here. After receiving hand signal orders, they lit the pyre one by one.

The black smoke from the ignited flames engulfed the colorful objects, and some strange smells rose up with the heat. The parts that had not been blown away by the wind could be smelled at the top of the tower, making people sick. The Duke didn't seem to smell it, and stood for a while in the wind where the smell was strongest.

"Goodbye, Wilbert," he whispered, leaving the edge of the tower and descending the stairs, followed by the others.

…

In the hearth-burning room of the inner castle, Craft had a second chance to inspect the Duke.

This time, no one was around to criticize his etiquette. While performing a physical examination, he turned on his mental senses and scanned the entire lungs. The sphere slightly smaller than the inner diameter of the cavity was found in the last nodule cavity.

Unlike Yvonne's situation, the Duke's mental body is in a normal invisible state, which shows that he has not been deeply infected.

The sphere was not a void, but a real substance, a spherical lesion formed by fungal infection, which conformed to the pathological description of tuberculosis combined with Aspergillus infection.

"Sir, I will try to touch your lesions for examination, which may induce some symptoms."

"I'm ready," the Duke replied with his eyes closed.

Kraft held the hollow position and tapped lightly on the body surface, but the mycelium ball remained unmoved. The second tap increased the force, the muffled sound could be heard throughout the room, the vibration impact was felt, and the velvet scattered on the surface of the sphere swayed slightly, as if to detect changes in the surroundings.

The controller was also exposed. This time he clearly felt the active bacteria inside, and the surrounding hyphae arranged along the bronchioles also caused a commotion and triggered a cough reflex.

And when the spirit presses on the bacteria and tries to exert influence, the hyphae throughout the body are activated at the same time, and then the fever and convulsions seen before are triggered, and even the hypothalamus finds a small amount of suspicious filaments. There is a reason. It is suspected that the sudden onset of high fever is caused by the control of the body temperature center.

It was a completely different parasitic pattern from Yvonne's, but it had to be said that this was the correct style of bacterium, which made Kraft more and more confused about the cause of Yvonne's illness.

However, one of them hijacked the mental body, the other threatened the body, and both achieved the goal of hijacking the host to refuse treatment, achieving the same goal through different routes.

[Have to change my mind]

Yvonne's spiritual body cannot be solved, but the parasitism on the material level is not necessarily impossible.

Since this thing can move and migrate between tuberculosis cavities, is there any way to "persuade" it to come out on its own, such as...making the space in the lungs less suitable for survival?