Chapter 66

AFTERWORD Thank you very much for reading The Isolator, Volume 5: The Liquidizer. There was already a long space between Volumes 3 and 4, but this time I kept you waiting for two whole years… I’m so, so sorry! But it’s entirely thanks to all your support for this title that I’m able to release a new volume after all that time. Really, thank you so much. Though it’s been two years in the real world, only two days have passed since the events of Volume 4 in the world of this story. In fact, it’s barely even been five days since Volume 3…! We’ve been in the middle of winter for so long that Minoru and friends must be getting very cold. But we’ve finally reached what you might call the first major turning point of the story: Ms. Liquidizer, who’s been a fearsome executive from the SFD’s enemy, the Syndicate, up until now, is a protagonist in this volume. In the past, I’ve gone around saying things like “I don’t like it when enemies turn into allies” and “I make my enemies extra-evil to make sure that doesn’t happen.” But in Liquidizer’s case, I always had a feeling that something might be different about her, so I kept wondering what would happen as I wrote. In the end, this is what happened, but you can’t exactly say they’ve fully become allies, so I think there will continue to be a lot of tension surrounding her activities in the future. For my usual round of casual commentary this time, I’ll be discussing Minoru’s protective shell’s new ability, anchoring. In the story, it’s explained as Minoru anchoring himself against the air, but there’s no such thing as an “absolute state of rest” in our universe (please look up “absolute rest theory” for more information), so that’s technically impossible. If there is a hypothetical center of expansion in our universe, I think you could use that as a starting point to define a coordinate system, but all parts of the universe are constantly expanding equally, so there’s apparently no center… (And if Minoru did anchor himself against the center of the universe, he’d immediately go flying off somewhere at hundreds of kilometers per hour.) Therefore, please allow me to define Minoru’s anchoring ability as “part or all of the protective shell unconditionally maintaining a subjective state of rest.” (The “subjective” part means that Minoru feels as if he is at absolute rest.) …Sorry, I feel like that only made things even more confusing… Oh, and the new character Lubricator’s abilities never got a complete explanation, but I intend to touch on that in the next volume. I have to apologize to my editors, Miki and Adara, and my illustrator, Shimeji, for causing them so much trouble by dragging out the writing of this volume for so long! As always, thank you for doing such a wonderful job! And to all you readers, please look forward to Volume 6, which is planned to cover the long-awaited rematch against Stinger! A certain day in March 2019
Reki Kawahara