Chapter 75

Krap, hypersomnia for 2 months, worsened with abnormal dreams for 2 days.

The patient has experienced progressively worsening hypersomnia since drinking contaminated well water two months ago, with no dizziness, headache, vertigo, nausea, convulsions, sensory abnormalities, or limb weakness; symptoms slightly improved after discontinuation. He reports that symptoms worsened after resuming consumption, and abnormal dreams have appeared in the past two days.

Alert, mentally adequate, good appetite…

“Mr. Kraft, I have a question.” The voice interrupted the faint scratch of the pen on paper. Krap could no longer hold back—he spoke the words he had wanted to say since dinner.

The room’s windows were sealed shut; no daylight could be seen, only the glow of the candlestick. But the outside must have grown dark, and Krap felt a touch of fatigue.

Normally he wouldn’t have felt this sleepy so early, but today’s events had been intensely draining, and the rich dinner had quietly lured sleep upon him.

Lying in bed, he turned his head toward Kraft, who had laid down his pen at the desk, and asked: “Is my illness…?”

He left the rest unsaid. Fear of death stemmed from primal instinct and religious influence; Krap knew he was no one destined for heaven, and his soul falling into the hands of demons or hell meant endless torment—he couldn’t help but feel tense.

Even if Kraft were to speak in the vague, terrifying words of those priests, a hearty dinner wouldn’t lie—something far worse than he imagined was unfolding.

“I believe I’ve already said it: your condition is severe. That demon has latched onto you.” Kraft interlaced his fingers, forming an arch before him, and solemnly repeated what he had told Krap earlier that day.

Krap opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again, gripping the double-winged ring wooden carving tighter—he would now understand, deep in his bones, when he must not slack off.

“Can you pray? Say anything—God will protect you.”

Silence. The double-winged ring was moved to his chest. Krap’s lips trembled, but no words came. Finding a sufficient reason to ask God for protection wasn’t easy. He didn’t seem like a regular churchgoer.

Considering the current situation—the Heavenly Father too distant, the demon too near—Krap turned instead to the man who had promised to help him for psychological comfort: “You said you’d help me, right?”

“Yes, I give you my word.” Kraft sat upright, his eyes bright in the candlelight. “I’m right here. I won’t leave. I’ll find out how it found you.”

“I won’t say empty words about fighting it for your life or death. At least, I’ll do what I can—more than any priest ever would.”

This blunt, unpalatable truth made Krap feel slightly better. Compared to the unseen deity and the rare clergy who ever glanced toward the Salt Tide District, a tangible promise from someone right beside him felt far more real.

He closed his eyes, clutching the carving, waiting for sleep. The writing sound beside him had ceased—Kraft had truly stopped his paperwork and was watching him from behind the desk.

Drowsiness, exhaustion, silence so complete not even breath could be heard—Krap’s consciousness quickly blurred, sinking into dark slumber.

Kraft was indeed watching him. He rose from his chair, weighed down the half-written case record with an ink bottle, replaced it with a fresh sheet of grid-lined paper, and walked slowly to the bedside, blocking the candlelight.

The tension had not slowed the patient’s descent into sleep. Soon after closing his eyes, before he reached one hundred in his mental count, Krap’s chest rose and fell in slow, regular rhythm; his facial expression relaxed.

A nail was held in his hand. The dull tip gently prodded Krap’s forearm. No reaction. He had entered an undisturbable sleep—uninterrupted, he would not wake until noon tomorrow.

Kraft lifted Krap’s eyelids, shone light into them—the pupils reacted normally to light. He covered one eye, then the other; both pupils constricted simultaneously—the indirect light reflex was normal.

Based on prior speculation, Krap had now entered the deep stage of spiritual contact, resulting in diminished response to external stimuli.

He had always wondered whether this phenomenon had a pathological basis. His preliminary hypothesis was widespread central inhibition—but the midbrain’s light reflex region remained unaffected.

The brain safely preserved within the skull did not seem to be the cause. Whether “spirit” or “soul” had any material basis remained impossible to determine.

Skeptical as ever, Kraft completed the full physical exam. This habitual routine yielded nothing. Neurology offered no sufficient insight, and he began to suspect whether attempting to apply known logic to the deep layers was itself illogical.

The simplest solution was to use spiritual perception to observe directly. But in this long night, the time available for spiritual perception was negligible, and he needed to conserve energy to prevent accidents—this was inherently contradictory.

Thus, intermittent monitoring was the only option: using discrete time points to glimpse the whole picture. The drawback: he would almost certainly miss the exact moment of critical change.

A new small candle was inserted into the candlestick. By Kraft’s own intuition, this candle would burn out in roughly fifteen minutes—matching his recovery interval for brief use of spiritual perception.

“Alright, alright. Tomorrow’s going to be a headache. Don’t expect thanks—just hope you remember to listen to your doctor from now on.” Kraft muttered, then connected his spiritual perception. “If there is a tomorrow.”

Under spiritual perception, Krap’s body lay entirely exposed before Kraft. He instinctively first reviewed the gross structure, comparing it with his memory from earlier that day.

No difference—except for a pile of food paste, some incompletely chewed fragments still lingering in the stomach, repeatedly mixed by peristalsis, with minimal liquid seeping out from the cardia.

Possibly some gastric emptying disorder, perhaps with gastroesophageal reflux—should remind him to improve his poor dietary habits. Kraft made a note of this.

The structure showed no change—but subtle alterations were still occurring within Krap.

A non-material presence had begun to fade—a thing Kraft had not observed at all during the day.

It drifted naturally within Krap’s body: illusory yet undeniably real, a mist-like form, yet far more ethereal than mist. Nearly half concentrated within the skull, the rest scattered unevenly throughout the rest of the body.

This familiar heavy-head-light-feet distribution recalled the cortical representation of body parts—where the more complex and precise the region, the richer its presence.

【Somewhat scientific, yet entirely unscientific】

Minute, discernible “fading” created contrast with its surroundings, making it distinguishable by spiritual perception. He guessed this was the initial contact with the deep spiritual entity—or soul.

Strangely, Kraft had never observed anything similar on himself—neither in deep states nor during medium-assisted transit. His spiritual perception had never detected any such thing within his own body.

Time allowed no further delay. After clearly recording the degree of fading, he swiftly severed his spiritual perception.

About ten seconds—the narrow, constricting sensation lasted only a few breaths. Kraft sat at the desk, lit the small candle, and began his first timing.

He wasn’t idle during this interval. He dipped his pen in ink, paused to consider, then marked a single dot on the grid paper at the corresponding height of the first measurement, as a reference standard.

“Hmm. Let’s call this ‘standard depth.’ From now on, we’ll compare against it.”

While the candle had barely burned a fraction, and with nothing else to do, he took the opportunity to complete the rest of the case record. He pulled the paper from under the ink bottle and wrote furiously, reaching the personal history section before the candle burned out.

When the last bit of the small candle burned away, “Denies history of promiscuity” ended with a period—the second spiritual perception scan began.

No major change. The fading of the spiritual entity had increased only slightly beyond its previous level—only precise memory comparison could confirm the shift.

At the second recording position, he raised the dot by half a grid square. Compared to the fading observed during entry into the deep state, the critical threshold likely lay between fifty-two and fifty-five.

Kraft was uncertain about the exact number—the boundary was fuzzy, indistinct until the precise moment of crossing, when his position became unmistakable.

He lit the second small candle. This time, he wrote until the specialty examination section, then stopped—mainly because Krap had no marital or reproductive history, and no knowledge of his ancestors; these sections were skipped, and he jumped straight to the physical exam record.

Kraft used spiritual perception for the third time, quickly recorded the state of the spiritual entity, closed it with practiced ease, endured the discomfort, and recorded it on paper. This time, the change was about one-third of a grid square.

At this rate, Krap would need to sleep a full day to approach the deep state.

Over several consecutive measurements, the rate of deepening hovered steadily between one-half and one-third of a grid square per interval—slow, consistent.

If statistical tools were applied to fit the data, a roughly linear relationship between time and depth would emerge—very gradual.

But the recorder’s own condition was far worse. Kraft realized he had overestimated his endurance—or underestimated the pressure of continuous use.

Even with intervals of over ten minutes between brief seconds of use, the discomfort faded but the mental burden accumulated—small, yet undeniable.

After the tenth measurement, he had no choice but to extend the interval to the burnout of two small candles, to last until noon tomorrow.

The record continued. Kraft had long since finished the full case history. Now he considered whether to write the entire progression now, to buy himself time for sleep tomorrow.

The candle extinguished—the eighteenth recording. Spiritual perception swept over as usual; Kraft marked a new dot on the paper.

【Two squares】

He shook his head sharply, dispelling the dizziness. Kraft compared the current dot with the previous one—the once-flat line of points now showed a steep upward trend.