In such a place, there is a sanctuary so well preserved. Duchamp found it incredible.

Seeing the incredulous look on Duchamp's face, Fried added, "Three years after the disaster, the Seven Jewels Church used their strength to rebuild the original Great Chapel on the site of the original Great Sanctuary. ”

There is such a thing, you must go and see it, Duchamp raised his leg and walked towards the side of the church.

The templar looked close, and it would take a while to walk. Duchamp was walking ahead when he suddenly heard a voice shouting, "Hey, where did you come from, how did you come to this hellish place?" ”

Duchamp turned his head and saw a living person on the other side of the street.

It was a man of about forty years old, with a mustache, a straw hat, and a thin adventure suit, his hands and face exposed to the air.

Duchamp took off his hat and hood and greeted him in a friendly manner: "Hello, we just read from books that there is such a place, take advantage of the holiday to see for yourself." ”

"Oh, I'm still a student. It's been a hard ride. Seeing Duchamp's young face, the man was relieved. He introduced himself: "I'm Walker Bergmann, the head of the Principality of Remephilia's permanent monitoring station here. ”

"My name is Stellary Duchamp, and I'm a college student from the Erebonian Empire."

"Oh, you're interested in this, are you studying archaeology or soil science?"

"No, I just studied conductivity. But because everything that happened here couldn't be explained by the principles of conductivity, I wanted to read it after reading it in the book. ”

In this empty, dead city, where no new faces have been seen for a long time, Walker enthusiastically walks around and introduces the situation of the neighborhood:

"This street, which was the welcome road of Khalyaske, is the most important road in the whole city, and at the end of it is the Grand Duke's Palace. Now it's completely white. He sighed and asked Duchamp:

"You've seen it all with your own eyes, how does it feel?"

Duchamp turned around in front of the former Gongfu Square, held his head with two hands, and said with emotion: "It's shocking, and it can even be said that it feels like something in our minds has been completely subverted and overwhelmed." ”

Walker nodded and said, "I'm a soil and climatology student, and I feel the same way when I first come here. All this, with what we have learned, does not make sense at all. ”

"In that case, why are you staying here?"

"Because it's my job. There's a lot of trouble here, and as the years go on, the salt keeps seeping into the ground, contaminating more of the soil. During the rainstorm season, the rainwater carries a large amount of salt downstream, and the river water is not only unable to be used for irrigation, but also turns the land along the river into saline land that cannot be cultivated. In order to treat this widespread pollution, monitoring stations have been set up here and in the upper and lower reaches of the river. ”

"Is there anyone else at the monitoring station here besides you?"

"There are two other people, but they are monitoring other things, and I am monitoring the soil and rainwater."

The two talked for a while, and Walker warmly invited Duchamp and his companions to visit the monitoring station. Duchamp had this in mind, and shouted to Fried and Goethe to come this way, and the four of them walked towards the monitoring station together.

"The monitoring station seems to be right next to the Sanctuary." Duchamp looked in the direction and estimated.

In fact, it was set up in an annex building of the church. The sanctuary is the only reconstructed building in the city, and it is the only one that can withstand the local wind, sand and salt in winter. ”

"And how are you going to resupply here?" Goethe had a key question in mind.

"Fly in directly from Miano in Remifilia by airship, and come once a week to replenish it." Walker said.

"Miano, is that affected by this?" Fried asked.

"No, it's on the west side of here, and in the upstream area, the water pollution is gradually going northeast, and then there is the sea, and the heavy rains in the rainy season will gradually wash the salt into the sea."

"What other specific remediation methods are there?"

"There was once a proposal to build a dam on the periphery of the polluted land, and then build an artificial river channel to speed up the erosion of the rainwater and discharge the flood water directly into the sea, but the budget and the amount of work are too large to do so."

The monitoring station is on the second floor of the annex of the Great Church, and consists of three rooms, one for people, one for the laboratory, and one for the office, which is full of things.

"The conditions are not good, because they are only stationed for a few months a year, so they will be fine." Walker struggled to put away the clutter in his office and beckoned everyone to sit down.

Duchamp took out the black tea in his bag and gave it to Walker, who was very happy.

"Aha, it's been a long time since this thing was out of stock, you wait, I'll boil some hot water right away."

When the aroma of black tea filled the hut, everyone's conversation turned to the current situation here.

"I heard that the center of the disaster is a park on the outskirts of the city, can we go in and visit it?"

Walker frowned: "The place where the big pillars once appeared has been tightly sealed, and it is not accessible to ordinary people except for archaeologists and researchers. ”

"But now that it's been more than a decade, what else is there that hasn't been thoroughly studied?" Duchamp did not give up.

"Actually, there's nothing special there, I've also gone down to see it, except for the salt crystals that are a little special, there's nothing worth studying."

"Go down?" Duchamp keenly grasped this keyword.

"That's right." Walker grabbed a pencil and drew a rough picture for Duchamp, "When the big pillar appeared, there was crystallization around it, and it fluttered around with the wind blowing up the big pillar, which aggravated the spread of the disaster, but the degree of damage was proportional to the distance of the pillar, and the entire building of the Gongdu, even the underground space, became hard salt crystals, and the hardness of these crystals could not even be melted by rain." But other affected cities were not so bad, because crystallization seeped down from the surface, and in the south, there were survivors who escaped by hiding in basements. In the very central area, the ground and underground have become extremely hard crystals, and even corroded into a large crater. But now there is nothing in the pit, and there is no research value. ”

Duchamp brewed a new question: "Why do you call this phenomenon crystallization?" Is this a term? ”

Walker flipped through the shelves, took a book and tossed it over. Duchamp took it and looked at it, and it turned out to be a novel "Black Doctor Gray".

Walker said: "This is a novel published in our country, and the story itself is fictional, but the disease mentioned in the book, the crystallization disease, has existed in our country for decades, and I have specifically learned that the incidence of this case in Northumboria is also quite high." However, "

He paused and said, "Since the salt disaster, the incidence of crystallization disease seems to be higher, I don't know if there is a connection between the two. ”

"You're saying that the root cause of the crystallization disease has something to do with that thing?" Fried asked.

Seeing Walker's astonished gaze, Fried explained, "I lived in Harias many years ago, so I'm familiar with everything here. As soon as you say this, I am reminded that before the disaster, it seems that crystallization disease began to appear in the Duke, and the local inability to treat such a serious illness was transferred to the Duchy of Remiphilia for treatment. ”

"Oh, it turns out that you are a survivor of Gongdu, which is great, can you tell me about the situation at that time." Walker was very interested.

"There was nothing to say about the situation. The Grand Duke hurriedly ran away in an armored car, and the only people who could run away were some of the officials and members of the army who were the first to know the news. The conditions of communication between the cities of the duchy were very bad, and the soldiers rode their horses to inform the other cities of such a big news. At that time, if it had been more effectively organized, or if it had been willing to build communication lines in the city, such a catastrophe would not have happened. ”

As he said this, Fried looked at the non-existent enemy in the void with a kind of hatred.

"Where is the Grand Duke now?" Duchamp remembered a topic that interested him.

"Oh, he seems to have been staying in Remephilia, and he has a house in the public capital to retire in, and I remember any magazine mentioning that he had a difficult evening." The person who answered was Professor Walker Bergmann.