Chapter 208

AFTERWORD Thank you so much to everyone who picked up this book and read it. In the afterword of Volume 5, I wrote about it being the conclusion and so forth, but I was able to take the side story posted on the Internet as “The Alchemist Who Survived and the Abyss in the Fell Forest,” rewrite it, and publish it as Volume 6. I have no words to express my gratitude toward everyone who enabled me to put it in novel form and cheered me on to the very end. A big thanks to ox the illustrator, Shimizu, and everyone else at Kadokawa who worked to create this. Volume 6 was conceived as a tale focusing on the identity and real goal of Freyja, Mariela’s master, who remained a mystery even after she left following the Labyrinth’s subjugation. The opening scenes of being chased by black monsters while moving through locations resembling castle walls were inspired by a castle in India that’s said to be haunted. I started writing it because I wanted to tell a story with a gloomy atmosphere about a powerless girl escaping from a scary place with some sort of frightening creature lurking about. Well, Mariela is a greenhorn in terms of fighting power, but she’s strong in terms of personality. So, far from trying to flee, she ended up making fire bottles to go “Fire!” After deciding on that sort of framework, I incorporated the Black Iron Freight Corps members’ backstories. They all had deep personalities but had hardly appeared in the main story. I wanted to give them more time to shine, since their pasts were too much to include in the first five volumes. The Internet version of this story always got warm responses, and that was really encouraging. Using the feedback from a questionnaire I sent out partway through this novel’s online edition, I decided on the best way to continue the story. When making something into a book, the complete version comes together by cutting out the redundant parts and adding the paths that weren’t chosen before. By the way, the true purpose of that questionnaire was to find a companion for the boyish girl, Yuric. The contenders were Franz, her foster parent, and Edgan, who’s never treated seriously because of his personality. Unfortunately, Edgan’s route ended up being completely, utterly ignored. I was really impressed at the magnificent swing and miss. That’s our Edgan. And the mermaid’s tear from the bonus chapter “The Flickering Shadow” in Volume 2 was the perfect item for the ending in this volume, so I used it to make a happier ending. I hope you enjoyed it, along with the subsequent “Unlimited Meat Festival” that depicted the state of the Labyrinth City. Now that I’ve plunged into my third year of novel writing, I think it has finally become part of my daily life. I had to update the Internet version and work on turning it into a physical book during my first two years, but from now on, I’d like to write at a balanced pace as part of my life’s work. I hope that someday, I can provide an exciting tale again. Usata Nonohara