Chapter 149: Silent Legacy

Outsiders' concrete understanding of Westmin Fortress often begins when they make a request; at that moment, they realize this is not a town-sized fortress, but a town fortified into a fortress.

Within this complex occupying the entire hilltop, there are not only residential areas, storages, stables, and training grounds for long-term garrisoning, but also a small, exquisite chapel, a brewing area with accompanying cellars, livestock pens, and small vegetable plots, mainly lettuce. It is not hard to see the attitude of staying there until the end of time.

While impertinent besiegers suffer from objects thrown from heights on the long slope where rolling stones take minutes to descend, the castle lord tastes fresh, plump vegetables and meat on the upper terrace of the inner keep, sipping cold beer or wine just drawn from the deep cellar, looking down on their performance.

Of course, various workshops are not lacking, handling wood and stone engineering, iron forging and repair, and luxury craftsmen meeting high-end needs. They have participated in the construction since their fathers and even grandfathers, inheriting the service of this building; most objects seen here, regardless of size, are made by their hands.

However, today, the craftsmen were presented with a special request they had never heard of before.

"No, no, no, I think a feather quill won't work; it struggles even to pierce skin and breaks easily." With a slight force, the feather quill in hand was snapped into a bent angle. The demanding outsider tossed it into the nearby furnace. "We need a hollow tube at least as thin as this one, but with much greater hardness and toughness, preferably metal, capable of connecting to an air pump."

Everyone present looked at the jeweler; the skilled hands capable of setting gemstones the size of wheat grains onto earrings were stumped. "I have never seen such a thing, but I have seen hairpins made of bird bones before; they are indeed both hard and thin."

"If you insist on it being made of metal, then I can try, but I cannot guarantee success." He added with a bitter face. This profession, unlike most of his peers who merely follow inherited crafts, also faces the endless strange demands of nobles; the request made by this young noble ranks among the most outrageous of all whimsical ideas.

The high-quality medieval client held his chin in silence, looking unsatisfied. Today he had already accepted too many compromises; the inflation device might have to use an enema type, the soft tube only leather stitched and glued shut, the length is short, plus a bird-bone chest-piercing needle, as if a shaman in a primitive tribe were about to perform a ritual.

He fell into self-doubt, wondering if his request was indeed inappropriate and if he should adjust the equipment's form according to objective conditions.

"Is Professor Kraft here?" The hurried sound of clanking armor interrupted the conversation inside the workshop.

Kraft stepped out of the crowd, looked toward the door, and unexpectedly saw someone who should have left the fortress three days ago. "Martin? Didn't you go to the port?"

"There is an urgent matter; is it convenient now?" Martin wiped the sweat from his face, removed his helmet; his wet hair clung together and pressed flat, looking much like seaweed just hauled up, capable of yielding salt crystals when dried.

"Of course, anytime." It is hard to imagine what it is like to run to Westmin Fortress wearing this full set of equipment under the sun; Kraft believes no one would willingly torment themselves like this for no reason. Martin must have brought him the answer he wanted.

Out of respect for someone who has been traveling outside, he could put aside the shaman-style problem for now. "Let it be; try both. I will return tomorrow. Before then, any questions can be relayed to my squire. Kup, Yin Feng, could you watch over this for me for a while? If anything is needed, you can tell them too. No need to wait for me for dinner."

Kraft quickly left the workshop, following Martin toward a path he barely remembered, as the sounds of people faded away from them.

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"You asked when that cult appeared?"

Martin took the water skin from his belt, gulped down the last mouthful, and licked his dry lips. Clearly, this was not enough to replenish the lost moisture, but he had no intention of spending any more time on it. "At the earliest, four months ago. The church handled the first case; the cause was that fellow trying to swindle money from believers, but he took too much and got caught."

"And then more and more were discovered," Kraft continued. "I recall you saying some people have believed in them for years; they could have continued in peace, so why have they become active recently?"

"Although it makes no sense, and there is only some temporal overlap, I feel..."

"You feel they are meddling in things they should not touch." A declarative sentence, spoken with a tone of certainty.

This actually surprised Kraft, after all, he had only grasped an uncertain thought from trivial fragments without any intermediate evidence; on what basis did Martin think the same as him?

He re-examined Martin and discovered the knight had put on that stuffy, damp helmet again at some point; the hot and humid weather could not stop him from gaining a bit of subconscious comfort through this action. "What happened?"

"Do you remember Diego? The steward at the banquet." At this moment, Martin instead brought up something seemingly unrelated. "We had some acquaintance before. When we first arrived at the port, I intended to find him, but heard he went outside the city chasing some criminals involved in the disappearance case."

This indeed left an impression; it was obvious then that he was familiar with Martin. "Yes, I remember. That slightly portly knight."

"At first, we thought he went to catch some irrelevant little thief to pad the numbers." Some emotion, like plaque, adhered to the tone, giving the narration a complex color, probably regret, low spirits, and something that shook his spirit. "Perhaps he thought so himself; twenty men, not far outside the city, what could be the problem?"

He seemed to be reconstructing Diego's thoughts, or perhaps was incredulous.

"And then?" Kraft felt something was wrong.

"Diego, knight of the Duke of Westmin." He paused, continued walking forward, shaking off something invisible behind him. "And my friend, returned to the embrace of the Heavenly Father in a manner befitting his status, proving his loyalty and bravery."

Kraft was momentarily speechless, confirming he had not misunderstood the meaning; someone he had only met once was confirmed dead within a few days, told to him by another person he barely knew, lacking a sense of reality. He only blurted out, "May the Heavenly Father bless him."

Immediately, he connected the dots before and after, looking at Martin in surprise.

"That heretical cult?!"

He had seen the equipment of those guards; a knight under a duke, with about twenty men and squires, actually fell not far outside the city. His guess was likely correct; a heretical cult capable of such deeds makes it hard not to associate all bad things with it.

But what is most important now is that with Diego's death, the clue stumbled upon has been cut off here. The people of that heretical cult have probably cleaned up and fled.

"Is it too late to continue the search now? Or can we find something else?" Kraft asked without hope.

As they talked, they had already reached a secluded courtyard, which looked like a training ground, but the dummy wooden stakes had been moved aside. The duke's soldiers guarded several long wooden crates, sized just right for an adult to lie in.

Kraft realized what these were and quietly closed his mouth. He still did not understand what help Martin needed from him, and if this served as a coffin for a knight or squire, it was too simple, not befitting the status of someone who died in battle normally. However, this was someone else's internal affair, and he did not intend to comment.

"This is where we need your help. Have you ever seen such a thing?" Martin drew a dagger from his waist, inserted it into the gap, and pried open one of the crates.

Surprisingly, Kraft stepped forward and bent down to look inside the crate; it was not the corpse of that portly steward as he imagined, but a hideous face.

In the white circle on the chest of the robe, a sword wound pierced straight through the heart, with filament-like substances faintly connecting and spreading within the wound.