Chapter 124: A Sense of Urgency

As Kraft himself believed, he could barely remember what it felt like to forget. When thinking, his consciousness wandered through the library of memory, plucking out the needed files as easily as looking up a word by its first letter.

It wasn’t just his memory—this also meant improved thinking efficiency, faster and more abundant indexing, aiding the formation of tight logical chains.

So when someone said “I forgot something,” it wasn’t like finding a book in the memory library with faded ink—it was lacking a title’s first letter to guide consciousness toward where and what to seek.

In other words, at this point, it wasn’t so much that he’d forgotten something as that he hadn’t thought of it. A hole had appeared in the web of thought; something he shouldn’t have ignored had slipped through—likely something basic.

【Honestly, I’ve been reading novels on Yeguo Reading lately—switching sources, multiple voice options, works on both Android and iOS.】

“Help me think—what did I fail to do?” One hallmark of many psychiatric patients is lack of insight—they’re completely unaware of their own mistakes. Self-checking is unreliable, but behavioral anomalies are real and observable by others.

He needed a “cue card” to trigger memory and provide a line of inquiry.

“Uh, you mean that ore?” William took back his bottle of strong liquor, sipped a small mouthful, savoring the strange sensation—the liquid moistening and burning his tongue, then warming his belly as if endless heat surged from within, dispelling the chill in his marrow.

He gently swirled the bottle; Kraft had been relatively restrained, leaving plenty of liquor inside.

Though alcohol had long been used to prevent and treat illness, using it lavishly to clean wounds still felt wasteful.

“Of course not.” Kraft reached into his pocket—the ore lay there, just a sample. Since the old mine shaft had now been breached, losing it was no matter; he could pick up another anytime. “It’s something I need to do now—or right away.”

“Like what?” Two sips down, William’s drunken haze steadied. The small cuts from the stone shards no longer hurt as much; his hands stopped trembling.

The dread of the deep earth had slightly eased; the persistent illusion of trembling ground, of some massive thing slithering beneath the rock and soil, ready to burst forth, had faded.

For now, the liquor offered a false but necessary relief—even if it didn’t bring the same comfort as being back on his own ship.

Seeing Kraft’s paranoid demeanor, William handed him the bottle. “Have a sip?”

“No.” Kraft pushed the bottle away, continuing to ponder what he’d forgotten. Alcohol wasn’t good for thinking—at least not for him.

No matter how many times, William found such disregard for fine liquor incomprehensible. After being refused, he passed the bottle to Kup. “Alright, Kup, want a sip? It might ease your wound.”

Kup took the bottle and cautiously took a sip.

“Cough! Cough!” Just like the first time—he’d only ever drunk weak beer and couldn’t handle this liquid fire. The violent coughing tugged at his waist wound, sending fresh tearing pain through him, as if the newly clotted scab had ripped open again.

But Kup gained a spark of insight. He pressed his hand to his waist, scanning up and down, and found the one thing out of place on Kraft.

“You’re injured?”

“Yes, but nothing serious.” Kraft touched the bandage wrapped around his chin, answering casually. The jaw, neck, and face were rich in blood vessels—so the wound looked terrifying, but it wasn’t deep, and no major vessels were damaged.

Now only minor pain remained, throbbing with each breath near the trachea.

Between the pain, his consciousness directed attention, scanning everything: the sheathed longsword, the tool box, the money pouch—he simply couldn’t recall any urgent matter needing attention.

It was like wearing glasses and searching for them, holding a phone and looking for it—but the confusion ran deeper, harder to escape. Everyone around him was useless. Clearly, his behavioral anomaly hadn’t become obvious enough.

“Did you encounter a heretic? Or that thing?” Neither seemed capable of causing such a wound—the former lacked the skill, the latter would’ve left no corpse if it had so much as grazed him.

“Neither. It was…” Kraft couldn’t think how to describe the creature that had wounded him—mixing faces with insect traits? The jointed limb had sliced into his skin; he’d almost believed it could peel off his entire face, but precise distance control had drastically reduced the cost.

He hesitated, then chose not to describe its appearance. His hand reached out unconsciously, taking the bottle of liquor. The scent of alcohol reminded him of the days before povidone-iodine solution—alcohol swabs really did hurt.

“What, changed your mind? Believe me, take a sip. You’re too serious sometimes—like some ancient, rigid priest.” Clearly, as long as he stayed near William, he’d never escape the man’s relentless sales pitch.

【PAIN】

Now, Kraft needed to make this deep sensation clearer.

He pressed hard against the bleeding gauze. The strongest sensation in his body, the most vital warning signal, became an effective cue. Pain drove like an iron rod straight into his brain, elevating the wound’s weight in his thoughts until it became an unavoidable part of his awareness.

“Damn it—the wound!”

Kraft moved quickly, untying the knot and unwrapping the fresh bandage. He’d just finished debriding Kup’s and Peter’s wounds—but he’d overlooked the third person with a deep wound. A classic case of wearing glasses and searching for them.

After being wounded by an unknown jointed limb, the alien soul, steeped in sterile awareness, had only performed a cursory cleaning and temporary bandaging—and hadn’t even considered using his spiritual senses to inspect the wound.

Was this normal negligence?

His consciousness didn’t think so. Day after day of repeated emphasis and practice had forged habits into his life, reinforced by memory. If he could still forget these things, then perhaps degenerative brain disease had already begun to claim him.

Without sufficient rest, Kraft forcibly activated his spiritual senses, sweeping a thin layer over skin and muscle, soaking through the red-black scabs—finding no obvious foreign objects embedded.

Maybe he was overthinking. Like a clean blade, the jointed limb had emerged from shadow, carved the wound, and left no bristle behind.

Or perhaps it was already too late—his forgetting had caused him to miss the optimal observation window; the factors affecting his cognition had already vanished.

Or worse—there had never been any chance at all. He traced the limb’s movement path. What if it was a limb already wounded? Like a bleeding wound on an infected patient, transmitting something invisible to both eyes and spiritual senses?

Perhaps the disease had already entered its early stage, with subtle mental changes as prodromal symptoms, and an unknown consequence growing within his body.

“Get back to Comfort Harbor as soon as possible. If something’s going to happen, I must finish it before then.” He soaked cotton gauze in liquor and scrubbed the wound, gritting his teeth through the cleaning.

He didn’t know what had happened—but he knew why he’d come here.