Reading Is a Poison

Hope had never seen such a shoddy wooden ladder.

It was truly old, rotten in several places, with severely rusted nails at its joints.

If not for the exploitation of the wicked Old Williams, a ladder like this should have retired long ago and become a burst of flame in a boiler.

Hope had never met Old Williams, but he could guess that he was a skinny old man. Anyone who was not skinny could not climb this ladder.

The girl lay beside him. She was very slender, and Hope estimated that she weighed no more than sixty kilograms. She had just fallen from the ladder.

As for Hope himself... he had not had the chance to weigh himself, but at around one hundred eighty centimeters tall with a young body that was not particularly thin, he should weigh around seventy kilograms.

Hope stepped on the broken section, grabbed the rung above him, and gave it a light pull downward.

"Creak!"

The ladder let out a tortured groan, but suffered no further damage.

Hopefully, it could hold on a little longer.

The second rung had almost completely disappeared. Hope braced himself on both sides of the ladder and pulled himself up to the third rung as if doing a pull-up.

The fourth rung was easier, but the instant Hope placed his foot on the fifth rung, the wooden ladder groaned again. Before Hope could keep climbing, the rung lasted only two seconds before snapping into useless pieces of wood.

Hope dropped back onto the fourth rung and swallowed.

The momentum from falling off the fifth rung made the ladder shudder twice.

It was a warning. It was about to break.

Worst of all, the sixth rung Hope was gripping was also on the verge of collapse.

And his hand could not reach the seventh rung.

Damn Old Williams, Hope thought. He should have replaced this thing long ago.

Don't look down. Don't look down.

Hope swallowed again. Raising his head, he saw that he was still three rungs away from the roof.

He took a deep breath and slowly pulled himself upward.

He blinked, lifted both feet off the rung, and suddenly exerted force with his arms, using the rung to swing himself up.

He flung himself upward like a gymnast!

He was going to grab the next rung!

He had never known his body could be this nimble!

"Creak!"

The sixth rung was even more fragile than he had imagined. It snapped ahead of time, and the force it gave him before breaking was not enough for Hope to reach the seventh rung.

He rose to his limit just three centimeters from the seventh rung, and then his body began to fall.

Don't look down, Hope thought.

He exhaled and reached his right hand downward, finding a securing nail where the sixth rung had once been.

This was his new point of leverage!

The nail tore open the skin of Hope's palm under the strain.

It hurt like hell!

But...

His body, which had only just started to descend, rose again!

The gymnast flawlessly completed this uneven-bars transition!

He caught it...

"Creak!"

He had risen too high, and the impact instantly overloaded the rung.

He began to fall at once. The rung broke too quickly for him to pull off the same acrobatic move again.

Hope took a deep breath, slipped one hand into his pocket, and threw out an item he had prepared long ago.

It was a small mirror Hope had found beside the girl earlier.

It spun through the air, reaching the height Hope had failed to reach.

The light was too dim, the mirror too small, and Hope was half-blind to begin with.

But when it rotated to a certain angle, it still reflected what Hope needed to see. It was somewhat blurry, but barely usable.

Hope closed his eyes with satisfaction and felt himself accelerating downward under gravity.

The next second, the sensation of weightlessness vanished.

Hope landed steadily on the concrete platform...

Uh... perhaps not so steadily, because he nearly failed to stand. It was as if something had grabbed his shoulder and would not let him rise.

It was his shirt. Part of it had permanently fused with the concrete roof.

Hope pulled hard, with little effect.

He bit down on the shoulder of his shirt. The yellowing garment was full of sweat stink.

Fuck!

He yanked with all his strength.

"Riiip!"

His shirt tore open. Hope used the opening to keep pulling, leaving the entire sleeve behind on the concrete surface.

The stench of Star Hemp was at its strongest here, and Hope held his breath.

Before him stood a small wooden shed. The thing Hope was looking for was inside.

A gas stove?

Old Williams had actually carried a gas stove all the way up here.

It was so small. Had he modified it himself?

The gas cylinder should still be downstairs. This was just a separate gas line.

Hope turned off the stove and looked around.

Several burlap sacks sat here. When opened, they contained dried rose petals—red, yellow, and white—the same varieties as those in the Rose Garden below.

The smallest sack contained dried grass-like material speckled with white dots. It was all Star Hemp.

Where had Old Williams gotten so much of this stuff?

A gust of wind blew past, sending a sheet of paper resting on the stove fluttering down.

Hope picked it up. Words were written on it:

"Five grams of Star Hemp, ten grams each of dried rose petals in three colors, five hundred grams of water, and one sheet of paper with writing on it.

"Boil for thirty minutes, then let cool naturally.

"After consumption, it increases the reading speed of the corresponding text."

Was this... a potion?

It looked like some prop children would use when playing fantasy make-believe... but in this world, it might actually be real.

Hope silently memorized the formula. He opened the cooking pot and found that aside from Star Hemp, it contained only white rose petals.

She had been preparing the potion when she accidentally discovered me lying among the roses, then forgot to add the other ingredients in her panic?

"Dong!"

The sound of a clock striking disrupted Hope's thoughts. It rang continuously, twelve times in a row.

It was midnight.

It still chimed this late? Hope worried about Old Williams's sleep quality... though of course, he was indeed sleeping very comfortably right now.

The hand holding the note suddenly trembled slightly, and the slip of paper drifted from Hope's fingers once more.

He covered his forehead, feeling his thoughts grow heavy.

The stench in the air had not dispersed.

This was bad. He had only shut off the source of the poisonous gas, but the gas already in the air remained. It would take some time to dissipate on its own.

Hope closed his eyes and pictured the ground in his mind.

His body appeared on the ground, staggering toward the girl.

Her eyes were still open. Hope carefully placed his hand beneath her nose. Her breathing was already extremely weak.

Hope waved his hand in front of the girl's face. Her eyes held no light, yet tears slowly flowed down her cheeks.

"Don't cry, don't cry," Hope said. "I'm scared whenever I see someone cry."

The poisonous gas's radius of coverage should be somewhere between forty and sixty meters.

If I carry her... no, I can barely walk straight myself. There is no way I can carry her.

Wait... I think I teleported while wearing clothes.

"Relax," Hope said. "I have a good idea."

Hope closed the girl's eyes.

He lay down beside her, placing one hand on her shoulder. After hesitating for a moment, he changed to holding her hand, making more direct physical contact.

He closed his eyes and pictured a place half a kilometer from Old Williams's house...

He could not remember it...

Hope switched scenes in his mind and helplessly discovered that most of his memories of this world's scenery were unclear, failing to meet the conditions for teleportation.

Then... the small room at Whateley House.

This time, in his imagination, there was the girl in addition to himself.