Thank you for picking up the seventh volume of The Invincible Little Lady! This is Chatsufusa, the author who recently grunted “Mraghf” as they sat up instead of the usual “Oof” everyone else does. Maybe my weird way of speaking is an isekai language and I was born in a different world in my past life... No, wait. Recently, my hips start to hurt when I sit for prolonged periods of time—this weak body of mine couldn’t possibly have gotten any reincarnation cheats from some sort of deity. Yeah, I must be imagining things.
All right, scratch everything I’ve said up to now. Hello everyone, it’s been a while. As usual, there were many twists and turns to publish this volume, but I managed to get it out. It’s all thanks to the publisher, everyone involved in the making of this book, to my readers who’ve supported this series, and Micro Magazine, who benevolently allowed me to take my sweet time and write such a thick book. And thank you to my editor, who’s always helping me out when I need them most. Another thank you to fuumi for providing fantastic illustrations to yet another volume, always illustrating Mary and all the other new characters so adorably—whether it’s a half-dragon half-elf girl or a mermaid in a shell bikini, you never fail to beautifully depict all my blatant fixations, ahem, I mean, this series’ diverse cast.
I may have touched upon this earlier, but yes, this volume’s length is my personal record and the largest yet for this series, clocking in at over five hundred pages! I really troubled everyone. I know that. I just started writing and got carried away, failing to actually condense everything that I wanted to write. I know...my fault. I thought that I could just do my usual of writing up a plot and solving it at the end to reach a volume’s length, and in my excitement, I said to myself, “Wait, this plot’s going kinda long... Nah, I must be imagining things. Yeah,” refusing to face reality in the same manner our plucky protagonist does. I sure was sweating bullets once I finally finished writing! But I’ve got no regrets!
That all said, I do want to go back in time to the me who was asked, “Hey, don’t you already have enough for a volume?” and replied, “Nah, not even close” and slap them in the face. This volume revolved around the Argent Knight, with our cast following leads based on various events throughout the series until everything culminated in the truth. When I began to write about the Evening Primrose Festival again, I was stunned to realize that five years had already passed within the story—when I thought about it from the perspective of Mary and her friends, it kind of moved me to tears.
And then there’s Belletochka, who appeared in previous volumes in name only. How many of you came to the part where Emilia mentioned her and were like, “Oh, yeah, I remember her coming up before”? To be fair, it’s not easy to recall a character who was only ever name-dropped, so I don’t really blame anyone for forgetting. She’s a little unusual for a mother. I wonder why I ended up writing her like that... (Gazing into the distance.)
There were also Noa, the Argent Armor, and Agard. I’d always wanted to make the Argent Knight a reincarnator like Mary, but back then, I hadn’t imagined that the armor itself, with no one inside, would be the main fighting force. That detail happened to result in all these pages... Ideas are really terrifying, especially when you give in to them.
From there, Noa was born, and she had a sorrowful past...sorry about that. I sort of just take it for granted that all heroes are fated to walk an arduous journey. And so, when it came to the Argent Knight, all talks of gags and jokes were off the table, and in a sense, that was a trial for me. How did you like the story?
I’d be delighted if you enjoyed this volume. And with that, I pray that we get to meet again! Until then, I’ll be off.