Well, I meant that specific reading session is over. I can update it to be more specific about it indeed.
Thank you. I do acknowledge the possibility I’m the only one bothered by this. 
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Somehow I missed this thread until just now despite checking for it a couple of days ago.
I haven’t had much time to post anything yet. At this point I think I’ll wait until the end of the first chapter to write any thoughts since I haven’t started this week’s reading yet and it would feel out of place only commenting on last week’s content.
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I really gotta finish the chapter so I can read all this. Only 3-4 pages left.
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Just wanted to say what a cool feeling it is to finally be getting to a point where I can just read – i.e. be able to read fluidly and actually understand what’s going on without having to frequently stop to look something up 
The writing style and story itself are pretty cool, I’m really liking this book so far, and I think difficulty-wise it’s been perfect! I’m glad this was chosen ^^
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I think your interpretation of all three points is correct, or at least it matches mine.
Kino was trying to “cover up” the words of Hermes.
直に is either じかに (directly) or じきに (directly), it is a rephrasing of the previously used “直接伝える”
あげすぎ is maybe the polite あげる (to do for the sake of someone else). She was watering his plants (水をやる - to water plants) too much.
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Though I have been too busy to actively participate in the thread in a way that I would want, I wanted to say how nice to see so much activity in the intermediate book club! Looking forward to seeing everyone to the end of the story!
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Thank you for clarifying on that!
And, oh, of course she’s watering the herbs, that makes so much more sense. You wouldn’t make tea with 水 
must have been that herb tea they were drinking before that had my mind in that place already.
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I don’t think the あげる is necessarily polite in meaning here, just a different word to say “she watered the plants”. So instead of saying 水をやってて、やりすぎてしまった, あげる is used for giving the plants water (ハーブに水をあげる) which basically has the same meaning here.
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This is probably a noob question and idk if it has been discussed here before, but why are kino’s guns called persuader? 
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Wouldn’t you be persuaded to do anything by them?
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Hahaha true 
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Page 38
Lines for reference:
「『わかる？わかる？』と頭に何か飛び込んできた」
「僕自身が『分かる？』と思っているような感じがしたんだ」
I had a slightly different (or rather expanded) take on this. I think the idea is that even if he was thinking the word 分かる himself, it’s just because that’s how his mind was interpreting the message from the other person.
Not sure I added anything useful here, but I just finished the chapter and want to contribute.
Page 40
Middle-ish of the page.
結局損以外の何物でもないんだ。
“In the end it caused nothing but harm” ?
I understood the general meaning of the whole exchange and the exact meaning of the surrounding sentences, but I wasn’t sure on this one.
Page 40
I think it’s close, but more like “In the end it was just harm”. I see this construction more like you’re trying to find a word that describes the situation, but the only word that fits is 損. In other words, that’s exactly what it is and there’s no arguing about it. I can’t think of a way to say this satisfactorily in English.
That’s just the image I have from seeing it a lot, though 
Could be lacking.
Edit: I could have looked on Google before answering, but hey…
This page lists it as meaning 確実であることを示す表現, synonymous to 他ならない. So I guess it’s more or less what I said.
Curiously enough, there’s also another page in the same site for this word but with 何物 in hiragana, and it seems like a better fit to me:
I mean the second meaning: あるものがまさにそのものである、あるいはそのように感じられるさま.
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I found two different readings for 直に, じかに and じきに. According to 新和英大辞典 and 日本語大辞典, じかに has to do with physical closeness, while じきに has to do with temporal closeness. Below are some examples from 新和英大辞典:
じかに
じかに触る (to touch something with one’s bare hands)
じかに渡す (to deliver/hand over something personally/in person)
じきに
薬がじきに効く (the medicine will take effect immediately/quickly)
彼はじきに帰ってきます (he will be back soon)
I’m not sure if this helps at all with the sentence though. I almost feel like the author didn’t include furigana because it could mean both things. The telepathic thoughts are transmitted both instantaneously and when within a certain proximity to someone. I could be wrong though, and one could be more likely than the other. 
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Yes, those are 2 I found - the others are in the dict without the に and also don’t make sense in context, so we should ignore those probably…
That’s an interesting idea that maybe it’s meant to be ambiguous - then how it’s read depends on the readers perspective of what’s more prevalent, but neither is wrong…
That’s actually pretty cool 
I haven’t read that much, but is that a common thing?
I’ve seen a lot of cases where it doesn’t seem to be ambiguous, where you can use either reading and it means the same thing.
But similar to the word discussed, I can mention 細々. If it’s read こまごま it means minutely; in detail; with particular attention. If it’s read ほそぼそ it means 1. poor (living) or 2. barely continuing; just scraping along. 細々 - Jisho.org
Maybe there’s some case where both interpretations could be right 
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Semi-related: Later in the chapter, was everyone reading 止める as とめる or やめる?
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Or とどめる 
But this one’s not used much anymore with this kanji (留める is more common for that I think)
I was reading it as とめる, but if I remember correctly, in several places there was furigana on it for やめる, so I got lost on which side to pick,
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I was reading it as やめる, but the default with the kanji is usually とめる, so I’m not sure if that was right.
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