Krafft's Notes on Anomalies

From Port Wenden all the way to the Wood family's territory, it only takes six or seven days to ride on horseback if the weather is good.

However, the actual situation is always slightly different from the theory. Spending the night in the wild is obviously not only unpleasant, but also unsafe. That's why they both chose to set off in the morning, so that they could have more time to rush to a village or town as far away as possible to spend the night, and then set off the next morning.

After the snow melted, some sections of the road were still a bit muddy. It took two days after the two set out to set foot on a relatively solid road again, and a thin crust of mud formed on the outside of the cloak. After spending another six days walking and stopping in the villages and towns along the way, we returned to Wood Town in the evening of the ninth day.

Like most settlements, Wood Town was chosen to be located relatively close to a water source. It was built in a valley surrounded by low mountains, with mountains on its back and water on its side, and the shape of the land was relatively narrow and long. The width of the river is about ten meters, which is not too wide, but it is difficult to cross.

When Old Wood was young, the town developed on only one side of the river. To cross the river, you had to make a large circle and go around the shallow water upstream, or choose between swimming or taking a boat.

Old Wood, who hated this deeply, wanted to make full use of the land on the other side of the river. After building the castle, he used the remaining stones to build a stone bridge across the river. It was really a convenience project.

Lane and Kraft are now crossing this stone bridge, and they are going through the town to the castle on the hill behind.

The location of the castle is very comfortable. The low hill behind this town is a gentle slope with a small slope on the side facing Wood Town and the river, while the back side is a steep cliff. When defending, you only need to face frontal enemies climbing up the slope from a downward angle, which greatly reduces the risk of enemy attacks. The amount of work behind it.

At the same time, this small slope will bring an extremely uncomfortable experience when someone attacks. It consumes physical strength and also eliminates the possibility of charging upward. On the contrary, the defender can go down when the situation is reversed, accumulating energy in a short distance. Momentum that can send people flying.

In the past thirty years, Old Wood first cleared the trees on the top of the slope, used wood to circle a wooden wall as a transition, built a sturdy tower as the main body of the castle against the cliff, and built stables, workshops and kitchens around the tower. and other demountable wooden buildings.

This stage lasted for more than ten years and accounted for half of the entire project. That is, until around Kraft's birth, wooden walls were used around the Wood family's castle.

The long construction period is mainly due to economic conditions and practical considerations. Although the territory theoretically includes Wood Town and several surrounding small villages, and the economy is considered good among the small nobles, this is not the only expense for a newly established family. Old Wood also has to pay The old guys who came back with him bought some properties, and the descendants of these people will also serve the Wood family.

Wood Town is not a military location. Although a family castle can effectively prevent various risks, it must have this risk to play its role. Even if a war did break out one day, no one would bother to dedicate an army to attack here. It would be enough to send an envoy to symbolically accept the surrender of the lord.

It wasn't until the time was right, or when Old Wood felt that the family's financial situation had improved, that the Wood family began to remove the wooden board walls and replace them with real stone curtain walls.

The smaller amount of work allowed Old Wood to stubbornly increase the height of the curtain wall to more than three meters, which would be very useful when the Kraft family could save enough crossbows and bows to match the concave and convex crenellations on the wall.

The auxiliary buildings that had been repaired over the past ten years were replaced by expanded towers, gradually integrating into a stocky fortress with a tower. At this point, the entire castle has completely matured and become a disgusting thing that is neither easy nor necessary to fight. It is very suitable for a family to rely on for inheritance.

Time passed and Kraft grew up. In recent years, the road from the castle gate to the town was paved with gravel, which avoided many problems of horses and vehicles slipping.

Kraft and Lane followed this zigzag road all the way up. The setting sun slowly sank behind the castle, casting the elongated shadow of the building on the gentle slope with sparse trees. Its future enemies would be cast in its shadow every evening, preparing their hard-to-move siege engines on the slopes, guarding against the heavy rolling stones that would fall in their direction.

Even a soul from another world would have to lament how powerful this thing was in the cold weapon age. When water and food reserves were sufficient, it would take several times more manpower to besiege such a stone building complex.

Don't even think about moving large siege engines here. During the war, once the stone bridge over the river below was destroyed, it would be troublesome for people to come over. Equipment made by logging on-site will be extremely difficult to push against a slope. Then he went through all the trouble to face a group of militiamen led by professional armed forces in front of the castle, which was the ultimate torture.

Yes, to be prepared for danger in times of peace, the Wood family still has independent armed forces in their hands. Although there are indeed not many, only a dozen or twenty people, mainly from old comrades who retired with Old Wood.

As Old Wood developed, they were also allocated to surrounding industries, and like Old Wood, they were also people who liked to train their descendants from childhood, forming professional soldiers with a family tradition.

The people Kraft and his father brought to the battlefield were just such a group of "private soldiers" as followers, and then some improvised militiamen were added to the number, and a small army came out. The misfortune that happened in the end was purely due to bad luck, not the poor level of these people who had been trained since childhood.

In Kraft's generation, there are also young people of the same generation receiving training in the castle, but most of these people have to guard the castle for the rest of their lives and have no chance to make a fortune on the battlefield.

In the dim sky, you can see the flickering fire at the entrance of the castle. It is the torch held by the guard responsible for keeping watch. The faint clanking of metal can still be heard.

"John? Or George? Don't close the door yet!" Kraft shouted, "No, I don't want to wait outside for you to play with that damn winch."

"Aha, it's our little baron who's back!" Laughter came from the other side of the door, and the sound of metal collision stopped. A young face poked out from the wall holding a torch, "Come in."

"I'm warning you one last time, George, there's only one person here who can be called Baron!" Kraft has a good relationship with these young people. After all, they were trained by Old Wood together, and the country nobles don't have that much etiquette to speak of. "I am Don’t you have a name?”

Lane and Kraft took the horses to the stables, and then found Old Wood and Anderson enjoying dinner in the restaurant. Under the candlelight, bread, thick soup, and homemade sausages from the castle were placed on the long dining table. The gray-haired old man and the somewhat bald middle-aged man were sitting at the table. The atmosphere was like a charity show for empty-nesters on TV. advertise.

"My dear Kraft, you are finally back. Anderson and I were talking about you." The burly old man put down the bread in his hand and warmly welcomed his grandson, "And Ryan, come and sit down. Well, you must be hungry already."

…

…

"So you didn't see that person in the end?" After the two of them had eaten and drank enough, and Ryan remembered to take out the stone hand, Old Wood suddenly remembered what else Craft had to do when he went out.

It's been almost a month since I went back. From the time it snowed to the time it melted, it felt like half of the winter had passed. If Ryan hadn't brought back a gift, everyone might have forgotten about it.

"Indeed, he was just an unskilled liar. He burned his hands and died before we reached Wenden Port." Kraft crossed his arms and expressed helplessness, "It's not as interesting as what Cousin Ryan bought. , at least this hand won’t burn itself.”

"Haha, indeed." Anderson took the hand from Old Wood and looked through it but couldn't find out why. "But this one does look interesting. The seller said where it came from. ."

"I haven't said it, but I don't think it's like something from North." Ryan said without changing his expression. "If you want to talk about something interesting, you have to look at Kraft. You will never guess what happened." He gave up. , but the smile on his face cannot be hidden.

"It can't be that Kraft was admitted to Wenden Port College, right?" Old Wood guessed in the most unlikely direction as usual. This outrageous guess made Anderson laugh.

"..."

"..."

"What's wrong, why aren't you talking? What interesting thing is so mysterious?" The sudden silence made Anderson stop laughing, thinking that he was laughing inappropriately.