Chapter 146

"So this is the place shown on the coin?" Kraft asked uncertainly. He only remembered being told about the coin once, and connecting that abstract pattern to the complex fortress around them was difficult.

"Yes, and I recall you asked this yesterday." Kraft placed the wooden cylinder-scroll on the table as he spoke—it was what Wilbert had spent the entire night preparing, delivered alongside two kitchen menus and a list of visitors for audience. "Random quiz: how do you spell 'castle'?"

"Huh?"

Kraft caught Kup off guard. Since leaving Comfort Harbor, Kraft's rigor in lessons had grown increasingly unbearable; random quizzes were relentless. Who could have predicted a confrontation the moment he opened his mouth?

Yin Feng, who had appeared to be ignoring them and silently reading with her head down, quickly looked up and raised her hand to gain Kraft's attention.

But her preparation was clearly insufficient; she stumbled through the spelling and missed a letter. Kup, prompted by her mistake, answered correctly afterward.

"Could be more precise, but still quite good." Kraft considered, then, as he needed to clear the table, handed the fruit platter to Yin Feng. "Winner takes all—the fruit's yours today."

The small victory gave her considerable encouragement. She happily took the platter, revealing a rare smile—harder to catch than the sweetness of wild blueberries—and picked up one ripe orange before returning the platter to Kraft.

It was rare to see Yin Feng express clear joy. The last time she had shown such emotion seemed to be when she was playing with the rusted dagger she hadn't yet discarded. As her self-appointed half-guardian, he always felt she was perfect—ambitious, sensible—yet somehow… too introverted.

According to the last remnants of his educational knowledge, guiding children's psychology should focus on affirming correct behavior and positive reinforcement.

Amid Kup's confused skepticism over the fairness of the contest, Kraft shot him a look—"You really dare compare yourself to a child?"—then pulled one end of the scroll and handed it to him. "Hold this end for me, please. This thing seems large—what exactly is it?"

The wooden roll unspooled across the table, revealing its contents: a long, elliptical drawing centered around a blue line.

The title at the top identified it—Map of the Vestermin Region.

This left Kraft somewhat baffled. A black line, consistent with the ink on other documents, began at the central fortress symbol, curved halfway around the map, passed through a series of labeled or unlabeled points, then looped back to the fortress.

"What does this mean?" Kraft flipped through the visitor list and menus, finally finding the source on the last sheet—a list of over a dozen place names and annotations.

It looked like a travel route?

The annotations noted that the Duke did not reside permanently in the castle; by tradition, he inspected his direct territories and occasionally took leisurely trips to the countryside.

This directly shattered Kraft's plan to trace the patient's environment. During the three-month period from winter to early spring, the patient had been wandering all over the domain. Tuberculosis didn't stop him from riding in a carriage from one settlement to another, even reaching a logging estate on the forest's edge.

At the current pace, though the Duke had held on this long and wouldn't die within a month or so, even if Kraft grew wings, he couldn't fly the entire route.

"Sigh." He let out a weary breath, opened the Duke's menu, and skimmed through it.

It overlapped significantly with banquet menus, but as daily fare, it reduced the number of dishes per meal while increasing overall variety.

Among poultry alone, it included pheasant, duck, sparrow, swan, and even peacock—the last two marked as served only at small gatherings. Fish generally appeared as side dishes or garnishes, except for one dish that challenged imagination: roasted dolphin, served once as a main course.

Among mammals, besides common pork and beef, there was rabbit, bear, and horse meat. Cuts were remarkably diverse—legs, spine, head, tail, heart, liver, even another tail—everything was included.

Vegetables, benefiting from the local natural environment, matched meat in volume. Adding fruit to meat stews and roasts to cut greasiness was routine; even apple meat soup—a dish that struck at the soul of any outsider—was standard. In comparison, mushroom-based dishes were far more conventional; even sweet mushroom pie was acceptable, and raw sliced white-bellied mushrooms with sauce were perfectly fine.

In this brain-upgrade-level reading experience, his mind drifted over each absurd dish, gradually giving up on understanding.

Yet this perfectly explained why the Duke had still been able to wander about. With this appetite and protein-rich diet, surviving tuberculosis wasn't luck; enduring bloodletting wasn't chance. Had it not been for the new symptom changes, his overall condition would have been ideal for treatment.

Chaotic, unimaginable recipes intertwined in his mind. From a standard perspective, the number of dangerous factors was countless—especially the wildly varied meats—but none matched the existing clues.

Vast amounts of information flooded his mind like Brownian particles, colliding or brushing past each other randomly, forming either meaningful or meaningless combinations.

They collided with his disciplined, specialized knowledge and mingled with the grotesque lesions he perceived through his spiritual senses.

He couldn't tell whether these contents were driven by his own will or had escaped his control, wandering beyond the boundaries of thought, generating ideas beyond his awareness, then returning as some form of revelation. An instinct guided him, pulling from them…

【Inspiration】

Kraft suddenly felt his hand held a direction—that somewhere in this tangled ball of yarn was the thread he needed—but he couldn't find it yet.

He needed more information, more inspiration—perhaps it lay just below, if he took just one more step…

"Thud! Thud! Thud!"

A knock interrupted his thoughts. Martin's voice came from outside the door: "Professor Kraft, good day."

"I apologize for the intrusion. I know you're all busy with the Duke's matter, but I thought this news might be… hmm?"

The Duke's knight opened the door to find Kraft bent over several sheets, silent. Two attendants—one leaning against the table, nearly asleep; the other quietly flipping through a booklet—had clearly been maintaining their separate activities for some time.

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"Oh, Knight Martin, please speak." Kraft swept aside the pages he'd already memorized and sat back in his chair, looking slightly distracted—exactly as Martin expected of those academy types who constantly vanished into their own worlds.

"If you have no essential activities planned recently, please don't leave Vestermin Castle." He still wore yesterday's armor, now covered by a robe, with a weaponized helmet under his arm, its blue-dyed feather plume visible.

"What's wrong?"

"We went to the servant's residence. Neighbors said he's recently shown unusual interest in church rituals, often going out to attend gatherings and prayers." Martin watched Kraft intently. The latter immediately understood his implication.

His still-warm thoughts resumed, shifting greater weight toward this new information. He seized upon a factor that seemed unrelated.

"Martin, when exactly did this heretical sect begin operating in the Vestermin region?"

…

It was indeed a kind of inspiration—but the instinct still whispered softly. This wasn't the original "Inspiration."