Let’s all take a moment of silence for Lune... Okay, got it all out of your system? Now let’s get on with the afterword.

The story of Volume 10 was always a highly anticipated one, and also the one I was most anxious about getting wrong. I was worried on how to “get everyone to come together” in a way that felt natural, so I finally decided on a hybrid narrative approach, in that the Volume would be split into 3 Sub-Volumes. Sound familiar? Well, that’s because the Volume was centered around Trivis Numerica, the country divided into its three Sub-countries – Primis, Secundis and Tertis.Pretty cool easter egg, eh?

In any case, this idea kind of backfired on me, as I came to the realization soon enough that I really don’t have enough space to cram in the entirety of the World War all into this one Volume. A part of me feels like I kind of made it seem too lighthearted in a way, given how little the characters actually cared about it. Must be because I don’t have any experience in wartimes, but I’ll take that as a blessing. That being said, the war is far from over, so I hope by the time I finish writing about its saga, I would have properly explained its vastness.

I think I’m the happiest with Lune’s side of the tri-story, since I think I mostly knew what to do with him the most in the original draft. The other two kind of blended in together, despite occurring immediately one after another in succession. If you hadn’t already realized the timeline up until now, Lune’s story paused in Volume 8, and Volume 9, as well as Ed and Meil’s subplots of Volume 10, happened a bit earlier. This was done to properly showcase just how much Lune, Nelly and Cecily were missing out on the events happening in Trivis Numerica.

In terms of differences from the original draft, there wasn’t a lot, but the ones that were there were HUGE. For example, Vivia wasn’t ever planned. She suddenly popped up when I was designing the Cover for Volume 10, and it got me thinking: “Hey, TraCon doesn’t yet have a single Blue Haired character, why not have this girl show up?”… Back then, I had no idea what kind of character she would come to be, so this final twist was a surprise to even me.

The idea to have Ed and Meil meet up was always in the plans, though, and I’m super glad with how their dynamic turned out. Both of them see the positive aspects of Lune in each other, but both only see themselves as a sort of shadow of Lune. It’s a quirky little bit of irony, and it lends itself well to comedic dialogue, what with Ed being all bark and no bite, and Meil being all bite and no bark. I wonder, what else is there in store for them in the future? Humu…

And that’s basically it for now. The Volume is pretty good all things considered, but definitely not at the stage I want it to be one day. I guess I’ll just leave it to my far future self to fix, but until then, stay tuned for Volume 11, which explains some more in-depth lore about this Vast World and stars some surprising faces! Your friend Mikan Akai hopes you continue to enjoy the story forever more!