And so ends another tale within the Vast World, this time heading back to the distant past to finally shed some more light on the Grandmaster Adventurer himself! Avid readers may also recognize the names of Shaid and Olyahim, both of which were mentioned in passing, but nothing more than their names were given out. Now you know that they all existed in the same time, isn’t that just swell?

Much less, the idea that Shaid was a handsome womanizer who was cursed with being too picky, has a thick Spanish accent despite barely speaking a lick of Raamic, and to top it all off, he’s interested in Schnell’s mother! Now that I think about it, I really like this guy!

Olya too, he’s a sleazebag fatso who doesn’t know how to talk to women, and just makes everyone who knows him on a surface level uncomfortable. It’s in his nature to be ugly to the World, but I wanted to play with the idea of a person like him being seen as useful by people who needed someone like him the most, those two being Shaid and Schnell. Having him write what will later be the inspiration for “Schnell’s Handbook” in between chapters is also an interesting take, as we often see him jotting down details of everyday life in Havana, as well as the people’s opinions on him slowly but surely rising over time. Now, I know what you’re gonna say, it’s not a good idea to have him be, ahem, interested in illegal depicitons of children, but I honestly like the idea of having a loner like him go from having such a disgusting vice to immediately regretting it and repenting for it after being shamed by two of his first ever friends. This friendship between them is one that I really wish to explore more of, so I do hope to one day make it as good as I can!

Oh, and speaking of the Raamans, if you recall, these are the guys Meil thinks he’s a descendant of. Sadly, they’ve all but perished over the course of a thousand or so years, but now you can at least know how it was for them to live in such a barren wasteland known as the continent of Abyssus Solis. It’s an interesting tidbit of lore to have them speak Raamic, otherwise known as our world’s Spanish. I like the idea of incorporating multiple languages in my novels, despite it probably being a bit more difficult for people who only know English to understand it. For that, I do hope you can make do with Google Translate.

Let’s see, what else… Ah, how could I forget? Tanathos and Cassandra. If you could at least do me the favor of truthfully answering – did I subvert your expectations with how Schnell’s and hers relationship ended up being like? It’s a somber, bittersweet ending, but I wanted to write a romance that doesn’t just get a happy ending so conventiently at the end of the Volume, so I hope you can forgive me for my transgressions.

That being said, I’ve been writing for a while now, so I’m gonna go play some Celeste now. Thanks again for reading, this is Mikan Akai signing out.