Chapter 92: Pneumoconiosis

"Father who created all things and gave life, Lord who saves us, we praise you, for you have united us and brought us here..."

The portly priest in white robes stood by the shallow pit, stumbling through the eulogy. A life of wine and meat had made him lax; he hadn't expected to be so rusty with his usual duties. But even if he got it wrong, no one here could tell.

"On this day of sorrow, we come to bid farewell to this brother who shared God's grace. Now he has fallen into a peaceful sleep..."

There was no gloomy sky or falling rain to match the mood; stepping out from the dim room, the sunlight was a bit blinding. Only three people were present: the priest, the doctor, and the deceased's relative.

The men who brought the coffin helped dig the pit, placed the coffin inside, and left, fearing the deceased's ominous appearance. Naturally, there were no friends or family to invite. The halting eulogy didn't fit this hasty funeral at all; in fact, it was somewhat ironic.

Kraft gave the priest several glances, signaling from the perspective of an amateur participant that something might be wrong. But the other man stared fixedly at the coffin, racking his brains for the next sentence, striving to keep the prayer from breaking off. Like a student being called on to recite in class, he had no energy to observe the reactions around him.

He could only turn his attention to Yvonne's reaction. Fortunately, she showed no sign of displeasure on the surface; she looked at the coffin, lost in thought.

"Returning to the Lord's embrace, enjoying eternal rest." Perhaps finding his rhythm, the priest's recitation became smoother, his voice growing louder. "The Father has accepted his soul, granting us wisdom from Him, showing us the end of man, showing us that the day of death is better than the day of birth..."

It really did have a touch of solemnity. His round figure seemed holy for the first time, recapturing the feeling of holding the holy scripture in years past, conveying the beauty of another world to the people on earth.

His pace grew faster, becoming more formal and composed. "Death is the end of all, and the living must take this to heart. The home of this brother is loved by the Father, for he gave his heart to the Lord, asking Him to bless his descendants, bestow favor upon his children, and comfort their sorrow..."

"For this brother is not dead, but asleep, waiting to be awakened again. May the Father, in the days to come, guard his 【illegible】, granting peace, blessing, and joy..."

His chest heaved deeply; the long passage had taxed his lung capacity. Adrian looked up at Yvonne and recited the final sentence seriously: "And he has ascended to the Lord's kingdom, the promised land free from sickness and disaster, watching over the people on earth from heaven."

He picked up a shovel, filled the pit with the first scoop of earth, sprinkling it over the coffin lid, then, panting heavily, handed the other shovel to Kraft.

The two worked together to fill the pit with earth and pat it flat, leaving the final scoop for Yvonne to complete with her own hands.

Though young, her hard life had kept her strength from being poor. Holding a shovel taller than herself, she managed to keep her balance, scooping a barely sufficient amount from the mound, dumping it into the small pit, and smoothing it with the back of the shovel.

A flat patch of fresh earth. The tombstone hadn't been carved in time, so a thick wooden board with writing served as a substitute, written by Kraft himself. The deceased himself might not have known how to write his own name, so they simply spelled out a word based on the natural pronunciation.

As for the name Yvonne, it seemed someone literate had chosen it. Kraft remembered how to spell it and added a line below: "Yvonne's father."

In the terms of a soul from another world—social death was complete. Although there were no social relationships worth mentioning, and the sole blood relative's future was uncertain, she still stood before the crude wooden tombstone, not knowing where to go.

Kraft had never encountered such a scene and wasn't sure whether to turn and leave or say something, so he looked at the priest.

Adrian hadn't decided on the next move either; his plan had ended at helping complete the funeral, with no other ideas.

Their lingering probably made Yvonne misunderstand something, or in her mind, the actions of all visitors necessarily implied an exchange. She stood for a while, realizing the two hadn't left, broke free from the half-day silence, and spoke up.

"Thank you, may the Lord bless you." First came a word of thanks, spoken with confusion and sincerity. "I will try to answer your questions, but he truly couldn't tell me anything."

"Sigh, never mind." Her behavior was too mature; the words Father Adrian had been full of before arriving melted into a single sigh.

He had thought Kraft might have a chance to improve the condition; even getting someone to speak a single word would be a breakthrough, pointing them in a direction. But the man was dead; even if Yvonne was willing to answer, what good would it do?

Besides, he hadn't done this for answers. He signaled to Kraft, preparing to leave. The atmosphere here felt like breathing in candle wax, solidifying in the windpipe, leaving him speechless.

The doctor, who hadn't been of much use, kept his attention on Yvonne, his gaze never shifting since the beginning.

"Do you cough often?" he asked an unrelated question, springing from a train of thought neither the priest nor Yvonne could follow.

"No, I rarely get sick," Yvonne replied. This was a question she could answer, unlike those posed to her bedridden father, involving materials and abstruse terms she had never heard of.

The doctor thought for a moment, then pressed on: "Fever? Have you felt daily fatigue?"

"No."

If she got sick often, she might not have survived, let alone cared for an adult.

"Thank you, I'm done asking." Kraft reached out, then restrained himself from examining her physically; it wasn't appropriate.

Before leaving, he recalled the priest's words on the road and, unusually, estimated the size of his purse, finding a reason to offer, "Your answers were very useful. As compensation, I can offer you a job. Come find me at the church later; I will be with Father Adrian for the time being."

The priest led the doctor away. There was nothing more to say here; it was better to leave space for Yvonne. Her mind needed a moment of solitude, not the pale comfort offered by an adult.

Walking back to the main road, the priest looked back to confirm no one else was around, then shook his head. "This kind of thing is unmanageable. We accomplished nothing and only added another trouble."

"I know." Of course he knew. Rationally, such things were everywhere, unseen, and perhaps even worse. But when one had the ability and encountered it, not acting felt like failing a certain test.

Even for Kup, who was courting death, Kraft was willing to pull him out; it had become a habit.

"But there is one thing I disagree with."

"What?" The priest thought Kraft was about to lecture him from a moral high ground, but he didn't intend to argue. Others were willing to take on the trouble; he had heard unpleasant words before.

"Today was very fruitful; they told me quite a bit."

In the sunlight, the priest felt a chill down his back. Yvonne... and her father?

"He had a severe lung disease that lasted a long time, perhaps starting long before he was paralyzed in bed." Kraft took a deep breath, lifting his ribs to expand his chest, mimicking that terrible corpse.

And those nodular lesions distributed in the lungs; he had originally thought it was tuberculosis. If so, Yvonne's risk of infection was high, which is why he couldn't help but ask a couple of questions.

As for the result, the possibility was half-dismissed by her answer. It didn't rule out the possibility of latency, but Kraft pursued another line of thought: what non-infectious disease could produce similar effects?

Ideally, it would have a pronounced effect on healthy young adults with good immunity.

"It's not a contagious lung disease, but another way of causing widespread damage to the lungs. I think it could be inhalation."

It was likely inhaled during work, causing irreversible damage to his lungs over the long term.

"This thing that damages the lungs... it must be a kind of dust, and one that isn't easily cleared." This era lacked advanced industry, narrowing the target down step by step.

【Pneumoconiosis】

"Mineral dust; stone dust works too. He spent a long time in a place requiring deep breathing where stone dust flew about. That place couldn't possibly be a stonemason's shop, could it?"

Adrian stared at Kraft in shock; the transparent sensation of being pierced by a gaze from that night returned. "A mine..."

"That raw material must be a mineral, requiring a mine for extraction."

It didn't have to be; one could explain that Yvonne's father worked in a mine for a few years before serving an alchemist. However, Kraft didn't think an alchemist would hire someone whose breathing was becoming increasingly difficult and whose labor power was weakening.

So this possibility was greater. They must have found this raw material in some mineral deposit, and in large quantities; otherwise, it couldn't have supported the mass production of pure glass.

"But there are so many mines in the entire kingdom; how do we find it?" The scope was still too broad; Adrian didn't think they could search through them one by one.

"It happened around the time the new glass appeared in recent years; this will help us find it." Following the train of thought, the more Kraft speculated, the more logical the causality seemed. "They found a way to conceal the true purpose of this mineral, fooling those seeking new materials, so it wouldn't be easily picked out."

"Add the time the church's glass wings were completed, and this mining district suddenly stopped operating..." Adrian wasn't a fool; he identified another possible characteristic. There wouldn't be many minerals fitting both criteria.

The idea was forming, and this was Consolation Port, the favorite destination for sailors across the kingdom's waterways. It brought not just flowing money, but news from everywhere, true or false, in vast quantities.

"Brew a few more bottles of wine; I'll go ask those people." There was also the drunk priest who was a drinking buddy of all the passing captains; he wouldn't lack people to chat with.

The only question was: why did that mine suddenly stop operating?