Star Hemp Is...

Hope raised both hands over his head.

The woman in front of him held up a shotgun, its hollow barrel aimed at Hope's head.

Just over ten minutes ago, Hope had been held at gunpoint by this very gun. What a strange coincidence—they had met again so soon.

Hope felt somewhat uneasy, suspecting the woman might suddenly misfire.

He looked around in confusion.

This was... Old Williams's Rose Garden. But why was he here? He had clearly been in that small room just moments ago.

Some kind of spatial transportation ability?

Had someone used it on him, or had he accidentally used it himself?

Hope closed his eyes. In the darkness, a series of numbers gradually emerged:

Talent: 1.31, Physique: 1.55, Vision: 0.67, Mana: 0, 0, 15

Everything was normal. Nothing had changed.

Uncertainty... Source-ification... It should have something to do with those two words whose functions he did not know.

Probably not Source-ification... It did not sound like it.

Neither Wilbur's last ability nor Lavinia's ability to "see" things had consumed mana.

I have no mana, so I must have used an ability of that kind.

Wilbur said Lavinia's vision came from a gift bestowed by the King of Kings. Then where did my ability come from? Was it also from that King of Kings?

Hah... It seemed possible. After all, he apparently was the eldest son of this cultist family.

...But if that was the case, wouldn't that make him a cultist too...

What had he been doing before coming here... He had closed his eyes, prepared to sleep, and imagined what this place looked like.

Hope closed his eyes and pictured the little room that had trapped him. Then he opened them.

Nothing changed. He was still in the Rose Garden.

Did it require an interval of time?

Or were there other restrictions?

"Why did you come back?" the woman holding the gun interrupted his thoughts and asked.

She seemed to be about the same age as Hope. She wore a white shirt and a brown skirt that fell below her knees, her brown hair draped casually over her shoulders. He could not see her face clearly.

At that age, it was more appropriate to call her a girl.

Talent: 1.01, Physique: 1.41, Vision: 1.09, Mana: 0

Her values were normal, and her mana was zero. Wilbur had said his spell had not worked on her. I thought she had used another spell to resist it, but now it seems she probably cannot use spells.

Why did I come back... Hope bit his finger.

In other words, from her perspective, I had not appeared out of nowhere.

Maybe she had only just come over, and by then I was already lying here.

No one here had seen me appear, and no one in the small room had seen me disappear... Uncertainty. The name reminded him of Schrödinger's cat... Could the restriction be observers? Without observers, was my position in space "uncertain"?

He could test it later.

Hope added "transportation" after "Uncertainty."

As for why I came back... I do not seem to have any reason to return.

Should he tell her it was an accident, an extraordinary incident? Or should he make up an excuse and say he had forgotten something?

The former might let him get some help from her. Perhaps there was an extraordinary organization behind her. The latter would let him get out of trouble quickly and leave this place.

Hmm, the ability that let her resist Wilbur's spell might also have come from an outside force...

Hope could not hesitate for long. The person before him was not trustworthy enough. "I lost something and came back to look for it."

"But you were lying here just now, with your eyes closed."

Only then did Hope remember that he was actually half-reclining. He did not look like someone searching for anything at all.

"That was... uh, I have a mental illness. I had an episode just now and passed out."

"Really?"

"Of course."

"Where's your younger brother? Isn't he helping you look?"

Hope licked his lips. "Ah, he... he fell asleep. I couldn't bear to disturb him."

The girl seemed to relax, and the gun barrel no longer aimed so precisely at Hope's head.

Hope noticed that her hands were trembling slightly.

She seemed exhausted already.

"Did you lose something important?" the girl asked.

"It's fairly important," Hope lied casually.

"You can look for it here, but don't damage the garden again."

No, I want to leave right now, Hope thought.

How did that saying go again... Once you told one lie, you had to use thousands more to cover it up.

"No need... I remembered wrong. I thought I had dropped it here, but I actually left it with a friend."

As soon as he finished speaking, Hope sniffed. He suddenly caught a foul odor. It was faint, mingled with the fragrance of roses, but it made him intensely uncomfortable.

"Do you need help—"

Hope interrupted the girl, the words slipping out before he could stop them. "Did you use Star Hemp?"

Hope frowned before the girl did.

What was Star Hemp?

The words had slipped out, but he did not remember ever encountering such a thing. Yet it did not feel unfamiliar.

Hope felt as though a database hidden in some unnoticed corner of his brain—something that had always existed but that he had always overlooked—was being unearthed.

Star Hemp... A tough grass with coarse fibers. Once dried, its leaves became covered in pinprick-sized white spots.

Highly poisonous... Some medicinal value...

Is this... Number One Hope's remnant...? I failed to obtain his memories, but did his knowledge remain?

"What did you say?" the girl asked, confused.

"Star Hemp. Something like dried wild grass, but covered in white spots. You've seen it, right?"

The girl froze. "Yes, I have..."

She suddenly pinched her forehead.

"If you boil that stuff in a pot, its toxicity will intensify and drift far away. It could kill people if you're not careful. Why did you boil it?"

The girl did not answer. As though she had not heard Hope clearly, she gave him an apologetic smile...

After a bout of trembling, the shotgun fell from her hand to the ground with a bang.

She leaned against the nearby wall, unable to focus her eyes on Hope. "What... did you say?"

"Are you all right?" Hope asked.

He stood up, raising his voice slightly. "Star Hemp... Can you still hear me?"

"Mm." That was all the girl could make out. Speaking seemed to have become difficult for her.

"Can you still move?"

The girl swayed. She probably wanted to shake her head, but she slowly slid down the pillar uncontrollably.

"Where is that stuff?" Hope walked over and crouched beside her. "Can you still talk? Tell me where the Star Hemp is?"

The girl's eyes were open but vacant. He could not tell whether she understood him.

Hope frowned.

These symptoms... She had stayed in this environment too long and inhaled too much poison from the Star Hemp.

Five minutes. He had to get her out of this state within five minutes.

Hope went around the girl and entered Old Williams's house behind her. It was only a one-story house with five rooms in total.

In the middle of the first room hung a huge, old pendulum clock, its pendulum swinging ceaselessly beneath it.

Eleven fifty-six.

A calendar hung beside it.

June 5, 1928.

Hope silently memorized the time. But this was not the time to think about that.

He moved through the house:

Living room, bedroom, another bedroom, storage room, kitchen...

Three iron pots, all empty; a gas stove, unlit; seven or eight earthenware jars; oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar, and tea.

No Star Hemp.

Hope was already starting to feel slightly dizzy.

The third time Hope passed by the girl, he saw her finger pointing toward the sky.

Up there?

The image of the girl aiming a shotgun at him from the rooftop flashed through Hope's mind.

"You mean upstairs?"

Her finger dropped.

"How do I get up there?"

Her finger stretched out again. With difficulty, it bent toward a direction.

Hope walked over. It was a wooden ladder.

The bottom two rungs were broken, and the breaks looked recent.

Hope looked at the damage to the girl's clothes and recalled the sound of a heavy object hitting the ground that he had heard at the beginning.