Chapter 49

AFTERWORD I’m sorry to have kept you waiting for so long! Thank you for reading Volume 4 of The Isolator! The previous volume came out in February 2016, so this is the first new book in a year and three months. As if that weren’t long enough, from the perspective of those readers following along in real time on the web version, they’ve been waiting for the continuation of part three for eight years now… And since I was continuing a story that I left off eight years ago, it was naturally rather difficult to remember what ideas I had at the time. In the beginning, my no-planning method totally backfired, to the point where I thought I would have to come up with a new story entirely because I couldn’t remember anything… But strangely enough, as I started writing, it felt as if my characters were telling me, “This part was supposed to go like this!” So I think I may have managed to stay fairly close to the original plan. On the other hand, since scientific knowledge has been updated so much in the past eight years, it was hard to bring things up to date. For instance, in this volume, the Third Eye’s power to manipulate molecules is called the “seventh force,” but it was originally going to be the “fifth force.” Why fifth? Because of what’s known as the “four fundamental forces” that work between elementary particles: weak forces, strong forces, electromagnetic forces, and gravitational forces. To sum it up, weak forces are carried by elementary particles called weak bosons, strong forces are controlled by gluons, electromagnetic forces are what make giant robots move and stuff, and gravity is what makes them fall when they’re defeated in battle. So, eight years ago, I thought I would call the Third Eye’s ability to manipulate molecules (elementary particles) the fifth force… But when I did a little research as I was starting to write this book, I found out that a fifth force had been discovered just last year! (It’s the intermediary between protophobic and boson particles…so cool…) And then there were more essays that said things like “There might be a sixth force, too?!” so I figured I’d just have to make it the seventh one instead! That’s why it became the seventh force. There will probably be more problems like that in the future, but I hope you’ll still continue to cheer on our heroes, as Minoru grows little by little and Yumiko starts to soften a bit. Finally, I’d like to once again thank Shimeji for drawing such beautiful, impressive illustrations this volume! I’m so sorry to you and Miki for how last-minute everything ended up being! I’ll do my best for Volume 5, so I hope you’ll continue to support me! A certain day in April 2017
Reki Kawahara