When the professor reached out his finger for the third time to rub his finger against the paper, trying to touch the dent across the carrier limit, Green finally stopped him.

"Don't look at it and it's not badly preserved, it's been nearly a hundred years old, so you'd better be careful."

"Oh, sorry, I just never thought to see this here." Kraft retracted his hand, wiped away the thin sweat from the hem of his clothes, and gently lifted the paper and flipped it to the back.

Seeing the essence of these imitations did not reassure him, but rather gave rise to a kind of unwarranted disgust, like seeing a narrative text that does not distinguish between primary and secondary, or the crooked and barely patchwork face of the facial features.

The molten state adds a bit of uneasiness to this pattern. He had not yet thought of linking the melt to the solid stone carvings, and could not speculate on the motives of such imagery or the copying of another form of unknown form.

"Have you ever seen anything like this?"

"Not exactly, it's not quite what I knew. It's the same style, but it's supposed to be a parody. ”

The author of the manuscript left very little account, and the front and back add up to not much content, and even omitted the time and specific location of the discovery, and scribbled out a few walking letters, which were compared with several forms presumably mentioned above, but still could not make a logically perfect traceability, and could only be self-persuaded as a work of the author's personal will and hand.

"Two symbolic motifs are mixed together." It is much easier for those who have seen the whole picture to distinguish between them, or their characterization is indelible even after breaking up and reorganizing.

If it weren't for the coincidence that they happened to be encountered in both the northern realm of the kingdom and Dunling, it would mean that their influence was definitely more widely distributed than expected.

"What do they mean?"

"I'm not sure." Arcs and straight lines point to the solitary celestial body, while the meandering lines depict what has not yet been able to form a concept in the mind.

The former cannot be explained; In the latter, people can't explain to others what they don't know.

"I've only seen it on some relics and antiquities, and it's absolutely right to deal with pagan symbols." Kraft concluded with more certainty than Green, so adamant that one wondered if he had a personal vendetta against Morrison.

"Nothing to do with that potion? We have encountered some people who let their followers take hallucinogens, and through the effect of drinking them, with a little inducement, they can easily coax people into believing them. Is this possible from a medical point of view? ”

Kraft shook his head, "It's very unlikely. As I said, with such a medicinal effect, you can get more things in the open. ”

There was a silence at the table, and both sides were ruminating on the information they had gained.

"Where did you see this?"

"The kingdom is far north, not to mention two or three months away by boat, and you have to ride a few days into the remote places of the mountains, and you don't know where it is."

"Then there's no way, there's still no way to check it out, and it doesn't make sense to bite it to death if it's a pagan symbol." Green let out a long breath, tilted his head and craned his neck, squinting at Kraft, "That's all you know. ”

The latter has little interest in this kind of casual agitation, and is hesitant to throw out some information that he has not been able to confirm, on the one hand, for fear of misleading, and on the other hand, he is not sure what will happen if he investigates, hoping to lead the direction and progress of the investigation.

He believed that Greene thought the same way, and that the priest on the side of the church system was not the kind of person who would be easily led away.

And the other party can also mobilize considerable manpower and material resources locally, and can completely leave others alone.

Flipping a few pages forward, Kraft found the remaining pages that had been seized with him, and pulled them out of the protective parchment: a badly damaged ruin outside the city, a ditch, and then a drain.

"Have you tried to find this?" In terms of rubbing area, it can be inferred that it is at least larger than the paper surface, and with the supporting carrier, the whole picture is no less than some inscriptions, and there may be other related accessories.

And it can be accidentally discovered by amateur architects, and probably won't hide in a location that can't be reached by normal means.

"I've asked some people who like to delve into old architecture, and there are many people who can participate in the restoration of the cathedral, and they say that if there is such a thing, it probably won't be unknown."

"Could it be underground? Look at these, such as sewers and the like, well, sewers that are wide enough to enter people, have you narrowed down a little? ”

Green gathered the papers and tucked them into the vellum, "Would you try to find a special drop of water in the Tem?" ”

"Huh?"

"The last thing that Dunling lacks is this kind of place, and no one can tell which places are there and how long. Or conversely, one should ask where there is none. ”

"I don't understand." This is a far cry from the stereotyped impression of the sewers of this era, and he feels more like describing some kind of large ant nest entrenched in the underground of the city, and the tunnel traffic hollows out the building foundation.

"Excuse me, are you digging sewers or underground rivers? Who pays for this kind of work? ”

"No, we rarely bother with drainage."

"Are you going to tell me that these sewers grew on their own?" Planning a city's drainage and sewerage system, especially in a large city the size of Dunling, is wide enough to walk on, which is definitely a big project.

However, what he didn't expect was that Green actually nodded in agreement, "So to speak." ”

"They're there, and the Dunling is just using it, and it may have played a negative role - in fact, only a part, a smaller part of it, was built by the 'Dunlings'. You see, the Dunlings are a concept that came after the founding of the kingdom. ”

"What about the rest?"

"I don't know, they've always been there, one of many ruins, and you can see them in most places in and around the city, just like any other old building." Green said rightly.

The last thing that is lacking in this land of change is the age, and a piece of the foundation of the Cathedral of Our Lady has to be multiplied by the age of the manuscript in the hand to catch up.

"And who built them?"

"Everyone, perhaps? Each generation builds on the previous generation, and then it becomes like this, probably. Nor does the experience of going through the church books make the tone firm.

Unlike above-ground buildings, the underground part of the city has historically received little attention, and the use as a sewer makes it more difficult for visitors to these spaces.

"Fit for all things that are not suitable for the ground, sewage, garbage, including some of the creatures that are not tolerated by the law, and occasionally find a hiding place in it, so that we have to go down and get them out."

"So I know how big it is, the countless forks, the branches, and the difference in height between the top and bottom, the cobwebs of masonry, and even the gangsters who use it to evade the search don't dare to go too far."

There is reason to speculate on how the ability to draw a sword in the dark was acquired, and the actual work creates technical requirements.

"Not even the manpower of the Inquisition can be tried?"

"The Inquisition is not my hall, and even the Bishop can't get everyone to go down the drain because of an incomplete piece of information. There are also quite a few people who have some opinions about a colleague from a poor background and would be happy to have one more reason for impeachment. ”

"Well, I'll admit it's a bit of a hassle." Kraft had a rough understanding of the dilemma that lay ahead of him.

There are clues, but not much, there is a high probability that it is hidden in the sewer, and it needs to be fished out by hand, and the scale of this sewer is a little larger than imagined.

Besides, they didn't know if the clue was useful, just a lost traveler in the night blindly rushing to the only source of light in their field of vision.

But Kraft had another idea, one that seemed to be able to piece together the clues in the hands of both sides.

"So the sewers should be quite dense under our feet, so dense that we can dig down in any place."

"It's a bit of an exaggeration, but it's actually pretty much the same, digging the foundation and collapsing the space-time hole is nothing new."

"What if it's a quarry?"

"What do you mean?" Green asked rhetorically, almost at the same time, remembering Kraft's trip today, "You mean?"

"Not long ago, I went through the academy's treasury borrowing records – whatever I saw." Seeing that Green suddenly became anxious again, Kraft pressed down with his palm, signaling to be restless.

"It just so happened that I knew the handwriting of one of the professors, who repeatedly scrapped and did not return the surgical instruments on the grounds that he had come into contact with patients with virulent infectious diseases, and the same process was repeated many times for months."

"Hypothetical, I mean hypothetical, what does that mean; Whether it is a careless omission or a hint of a clear conscience, I can only think of one place, the most likely destination for a sick person who has been rejected by an ordinary cemetery. ”

"The problem was that I didn't know what to look for." Blind and boundless search is enough to destroy any trust in one's own inferences.

[But now I probably know]

"It doesn't prove anything." After a few breathing aphasias, Green controlled the urge to gather people and re-examine this purely subjective speculation from an objective perspective.

"Aside from the possibility of mere accompaniment, it can also be said that the target of their lure is a patient seeking to be cured, and under the threat of death, as long as a little hope is given, there is almost no price to be paid is unacceptable."

"At present, there are no cases of surgical cure for infected patients. It is generally believed in the academic community that you have to rely on medicines, although they are not very useful. ”

"Isn't it traumatic surgery to stick a needle into the chest?" From a purely layman's point of view, it's easy to question, "What's more, Morrison also has a special potion that can easily create a 'miracle' effect." ”

"But at the moment we only have this clue, if you want to continue to catch tomb robbers on the streets, you might as well give it a try."

“.”

"Vardine, tell our people, I'm going to see them here tomorrow, in their regular clothes."

Kraft took off his gloves and held out his hand to Grimm, "My grandfather told me that when I needed a little temporary trust on the battlefield, they would take off their hand armor to show harmlessness, and then shake hands, which represented the simplest form of alliances. ”

The two hands were clasped together heavily, and after a brief touch, they parted. Bystanders could faintly hear the faint crunch of pressing on the joints.

"By the way, don't let the academy know, I don't want to be discredited in the industry."

"It's really the easiest alliance."

(End of chapter)