Krafft's Anomaly Notes

Chapter 45 The Edge of Reality
It is noon, but it actually feels a little later than noon.

Kraft and Lucius took turns resting on the relatively clean board, and it took several rounds to wait for the sleeping people to wake up.

Like a huge alarm clock that couldn't be heard, the residents in the sleeping area were woken up consistently within a few minutes, even more consistently than waking up in the different world high school dormitory.

There was a sound of activity in the previously silent room.Different feet stepped on the wooden boards, unknown metal and wooden utensils collided, and a few unintelligible swear words were mixed in the noisy conversation.

The consciousness of human beings was returned in large quantities from the dream, and thrown back into reality, starting with the day they had missed for half a day.

Then there was the jerky and harsh sound of the poor-quality door shaft turning, and people pushed the door out one after another, holding what looked like food in their hands, and walked towards the port while eating.

Kraft stopped one of the middle-aged men holding moldy dried fish.

"Hello, if you don't mind, can I hire you for a while?"

"Of course!" He agreed as quickly as possible, and stared back at the people who were watching, "It only takes four copper coins, and I may help you with half a day's work."

Perhaps it was hard to find a job after noon, so he accepted Kraft's employment at a very low price.

The yellowed and blackened teeth bit down hard on the somewhat brittle dried fish, and the fibrous fish meat and fish bones were crushed together, making a tooth-stinging sound.He chewed a few bites in his mouth and swallowed with difficulty.

"So what are you going to do?"

Kraft was shocked by this way of eating raw glass, and sympathized with his mouth and esophagus, "No hurry, you can eat first. I want to ask something first, how long ago did you start to wake up more and more? late?"

"Now that I think about it, it was like this about a month ago. I didn't feel much at first, but I didn't expect it to become like this. This life is getting worse and worse."

Although he didn't know why anyone cared about this, the middle-aged man answered the question while eating, the crumbs splashed with saliva, and he didn't notice that his new employer moved half a step to avoid his front.

Kraft stood by and watched him finish the fish in his hand, swallow the last bite, his Adam's apple rolled with difficulty, and thought he could write a case report on the scarred esophagus caused by a special diet.

"We came here just out of curiosity. Now we suspect that there is something wrong with the water you usually drink. Can you take us there to have a look?"

"Yes, although my family members usually go to fetch water, I still know the way." The middle-aged man pressed his chest, which seemed to be caused by pain, "Then let's go."

He took Kraft and Lucius along the twisting and winding narrow alleys, and along the way he kept encountering people who had just gone out to look for work.

The opposite direction caused them to frequently squeeze sideways, or one side retreated to the back side of the road to get out of the way.

Generally speaking, they traveled in the same direction as they came from. They staggered from the previously investigated route, passed by the red algae well, and walked forward for about ten minutes to reach their destination.

A fairly normal-looking well, surrounded by the most regular stones Kraft has seen here.

There was an open space around, and the people who came to fetch water formed several long queues.There is no winch, and the wooden barrel with the rope is lowered and pulled up again. The progress is quite slow. It is not easy for them to check it in time.

Kraft doesn't like the crowded environment, especially when the frequency of bathing is not so high. Gathering together will make the already stale air even more turbid.

The smell of sweat, body odor and some indescribable smell came from his nose after he had just adapted to the local air, which made him quickly give up the idea of ​​queuing up in person.

"Here are eleven copper coins, and five are your reward." Kraft found most of the scattered copper coins in the purse, and handed them to the middle-aged man, "Go buy a cleaner bucket for the rest. Line up for a bucket of water for me."

It's a shame to be a lazy dog, but it's very comfortable.

Kraft and Lucius found a shady spot and stood watching the others line up.The small wellhead allows at most three people to fetch water with buckets at the same time, and three teams can barely be separated at the wellhead, but they are scattered into a pool at the back, and it is impossible to tell which one is which.

The middle-aged man managed to buy a bucket after negotiating with a few people at the end of the line. He jumped left and right without a trace in the line with blurred boundaries, and chose the nearest direction to move over.

In the crowd, Kraft quickly lost track of his position, and began to feel drowsy out of boredom, propping his head on his hands.

It was mid-day, and it was already the time when he usually took a nap after lunch. The biological clock urged him to find a comfortable surface and put his face on it to enjoy the rare relaxation time every day.

Today, in order to reserve time for the investigation, I set off from the college very early, first to Elm Street, then to the Salt Tide District. I didn't even eat lunch at noon, and I didn't have the appetite to eat.

When you are free suddenly, fatigue will take advantage of it, making you feel like you can fall asleep standing up.

With slightly squinted eyes looking through the red lenses, the unreal picture becomes more and more blurred, the crowd is shaking in front of the eyes, and the outline is blurred.

Scattered double images, red filters, human-shaped color blocks move slowly, just like red paint on a slope merging and blurring, not only not bright, but the color tone gradually darkens.

Red generally makes people feel vigilant and stimulating, but this kind of red makes him feel more gloomy, thinking of viscous venous blood flowing and coagulating on the transparent container wall, no longer alive in the living body.

He felt that he was falling, which was the feeling of weightlessness in normal sleep, lighter and softer, leaving the cumbersome and chaotic reality in half-dream and half-awake, falling deep, hiding in a place where there was no surgery, no complications, and no investigation.

The sense of hearing also becomes dull, the noisy human voice weakens in the ear, the constant consciousness no longer pays attention to what they say, the language area of ​​the brain enters a state of low power consumption, and is unwilling to translate the vibration in the air into effective information.

The dull sound of buckets falling into the well, wooden products bumping against the stone wall, loud coughing, and simple sounds can barely be distinguished.

Instinct lazily adjusts himself to a half-dream and half-awake state, ignores the nerve impulses from the senses, and allows himself to be separated from the world.

Kraft felt that he was in the same place, but it seemed that he was no longer in the same place. In the midst of drifting, he heard a particularly clear sound of falling water in his ears, and the feeling of weightlessness came to an abrupt end.

The misty state has not been broken, but fixed, and the sound has become more delicate and gentle, like the transformation from gravel to milled flour, and it is more difficult to distinguish the content.

Consciousness spreads out softly, enjoying a moment of peace.

The only fly in the ointment is that there is still a strange smell lingering at the tip of the nose, not sweat, not rancid, and not the smell of herbs in the bird's beak, which does not seem to be collected by the sense of smell.

It seems to be getting heavier, and the soft and comfortable part of the voice is getting closer.From intangible to tangible, sticking to the clothes behind, stroking his consciousness.

All the senses are pleased by it, sending out "soft" and "comfortable" signals, and the sense of smell also participates in it, recognizing that its smell is strange but soft and pleasant.

Like a girl's hand, like a silk tulle, it gets closer, and the sense of weightlessness reappears.

The eyelids drooped, and the black and red light in front of his eyes became thinner and almost completely disappeared, replaced by a moonlit night-like darkness, with soft white light growing.

The consciousness is bathed in it, just like enjoying every nap normally, the slightest suspicion flashes past in the intoxication.

It gently stretched out its cool and soft hand, trying to remove the disharmony in this ray of peace.

This self-defeating action awakened Kraft's keen consciousness. Suspicion quickly developed into vigilance, and everything that happened was retrieved from memory and re-analyzed.

Intuition tasted the malice that shouldn't exist in the soft and gentle feeling.

The speed at which it fitted suddenly increased, as if sensing Kraft's change, it wrapped up from behind faster.

The reckless movements exposed more of its incongruity, like a starfish flipping over its colorful and beautiful back, spitting out its stomach pouch to eat.Extreme incoordination, viscous nausea, impacting the senses that were still immersed in comfort at the last moment, the drastic nerve impulse stimulates the brain and reaches the depths of the soul.

Before the part in the foreign world responded, the conditioned reflex formed by the local Kraft in his soul over the years was activated, and his grandfather's countless teachings and beating experiences gave him extraordinary reaction speed.

The muscles of the whole body were mobilized, and he lowered his head to avoid possible attacks, smashed back with his elbow, and turned around to create a distance.

He felt as if he was tearing something apart when he moved. Fear forced him to touch the hilt of the sword hidden under the robe. His newly opened eyes could only see the red color of the lens because they were not used to the light.

The blade came out of its sheath and swung upwards towards the position he felt. He tried his best to restrain his urge to slash with all his strength, leaving room for changing moves.The first sword was just to force the opponent back and buy time for his vision to return to normal.

He carefully felt the power coming from his hand, no matter whether the opponent chose to avoid the edge temporarily, or to parry head-on, it was just what he wanted.

Unexpectedly, the blade seemed to cut into something, and it was like breaking through the loose and fragile object, splitting several uneven structures.

There were exclamations and screams from behind, and the chaotic footsteps in the distance indicated that many people were fleeing here. Fortunately, there were no approaching footsteps to interfere with the judgment.

His vision was gradually recovering, and he looked through the red glass to inspect the results of the chopping.No matter what it is, whether it's a human or a ghost, being pulled out a big hole will never feel good.

Kraft forcefully opened his eyes wide, the glare of the light caused the pupillary circular muscles to contract sharply, and the lacrimal glands secreted tears.He had to fight against the instinctive reflex of closing his eyes, and tried his best to see clearly ahead.

He saw the huge and hideous crack, which didn't exist on any slime monster or mysterious enemy.

It was a wooden wall.

(End of this chapter)