Ascendance of a Bookworm episode 34

Rating: 4 (of 5)

One of the truest axioms of security is that even the most robust security plans are still only as good as the people carrying them out. Get careless and the enemy will take advantage of the holes. Normally protagonists are the ones who benefit from this in anime series, but this time around a simple matter of instructions not getting properly passed on to a gatekeeper shift results in calamity for Main.

At least for the moment, anyway. The black stone necklace Sylvester gave Main back in episode 31 was pretty blatant foreshadowing of the very event on which this episode ends, and this is exactly the kind of circumstance that it was intended for. The Next Episode title also supports that we will see what, exactly, it does next episode and exactly how Sylvester can come to the rescue.

But while the cliffhanger on which the episode ends is certainly the episode’s feature scene, it is hardly the only thing going on in the episode. I continue to love how rich the world-building is here, as the content incorporates ideas brought up in numerous previous episodes and shows how they get applied. The signal that Ferdinand used back in episode 25 is shown here to be a standard procedure for summoning knights, including for nobles causing trouble at the city gates. (That raises the question, though, of how the gate guards make that summons if they, as commoners, cannot use magic themselves. They have a magic item for it, presumably?) That the High Priest would know what Dirk’s symptoms indicate is no surprise since the Head Priest also recognized them; presumably such a thing is common knowledge among nobles, since their own children doubtless experience the same. The tau fruit coming up again was also a nice touch, though I had to wonder if Main considered how much of a disaster it would be if the fruit overcharged and turned into a trombe in her quarters. Contrarily, the scene with Heidi seemed an unnecessary reinforcement of the previous commentary on how secretive painters are.

Other little details get thrown around, too, since as the stabilized colors being made reality by the fixing agent suggestion, Heidi earning what essentially amounts to a research grant, and the toy bell Main had made for her baby brother. Delia’s situation merits more attention; sadly, she has no idea how much of a naive tool she is or how disposable she is if the High Priest ever decides he has no more use for her. And now that her role as a spy is done, I have to wonder how far off that time is; I can easily see her becoming a tragic character.

But for now, Main and Tuuli’s safety are the more immediate concerns. That was a gutsy move, grabbing both of them so near to two armed and fit-looking individuals. I am curious to see what their escape plan is.