Afterword

Hello, kentusrpg here. Seriously, this volume had serious problems in the making. Little time to write, usually on the way to and back to work, some work-related issues that tied me up more, writer’s block, editing on volume 5.5 and 6, and more made it more of a swamp than volume 6 showcased.

Then the trouble in editing and especially in writing the Extras that stem from health and personal issues and then the whole mess is complete. Sorry about these huge delays. Hope, that I didn’t lose all readers and that you remember what I’m talking about now.

This volume pushes all hero-groups further and Correo a bit away. Correo is an interesting villain, as he’s crafty, yet not afraid to take a loss to turn it into a win. He’s a businessman after all, in this volume he did a lot of investments and market research and will put it to use after getting some more customer feedback (the Lady).

Speaking of the Lady, Orinaenielle’s name is now known! Her name is based of basically every name that is supposed to sound as fantasy-like as possible without any regard to how the readers will be able to pronounce that. If you feel like your tongue turns into jam while speaking that name aloud, I did my job well. Her greater goals are still unclear, yet she has big things planned with Rine.

One of the themes of the volume is “too many cooks”, which is apparent by adding so many heroes to the mix. Lent and Star are great adversaries as they’re powerful, yet they’re also arrogant and overestimating themselves. Of course this will lead to conflict with Masahiko’s party and they could show why good plans aren’t overly complicated as they fell prey to their own plans.

Another theme is “chaos” as at some point nobody knows anything about what the others will do. This may have off-put some readers, but it clearly pushed me to my limits as an author and may put the question into your mind: When can you actually make a plan? What are the conditions?

The third theme would be “bonds”, as they’re all questioned and ultimately deepened here. They will be tested soon.

Each party has learned a valuable lesson. For Lent and Star, it’s about learning their limits, not in terms of strength, but in terms of responsibilities. They overstepped them and therefore lost all control over the situation. For Masahiko’s party, it’s about sharing feelings and thoughts. For Kenta’s family it’s all about their relationships to each other and what they mean to them.

By the way, a duel between Rine and Masahiko was planned for volume 2, yet I dismissed that plan as it didn’t fit the story there. It was a nice way to push Rine’s character-arc though.

Next time, we push it even further, down a cliff! Hope to see you read that volume as well! To be honest, I don’t know when it’ll be finished. Usually, I’m around a volume and a half ahead, but the combined problems caused me to run dry on things, and I’m just almost finished with the alpha-draft (means the first writing) and there are usually some months between the finished alpha-draft and the release, as there is beta-drafting (often the part where I rewrite, add, and remove stuff to make the volume wholesome), the proofreading, and final touches.

So it may be still some months (making the gap between releases even huger) but my hope is to get back to writing, slowly increasing the amount of story I have in the back, and maybe getting back to where I was.

Until then, have a great time, even with a pandemic going on!