Chapter 84

AFTERWORD Hello, it’s Kisetsu Morita. Did you know that I moved into a little corner of Tokyo during the hottest time of the year? I’ve been visiting temples and shrines at my leisure. The sheer number of people here is incredible. Now, Volume 5 has a connection to my move, with Ryouta going to serve in Tokyo for some reason… Well, that was retrofitted to the situation, but I came up with this plot before I decided to relocate. This volume is what we’d call the Alfoncina volume. Her character strikes me as the kind who would be familiar with the big city, so I bet she knows Tokyo well—that was my train of thought anyway. So here we are. Honestly, I’ve been going around to a lot of temples and shrines in the city, but I don’t know anything about downtown Tokyo, so I tried to stick to places I was most familiar with. (As of now, a temple called Shiofune Kannon-ji is my favorite in Tokyo. I got there by bus from Kabe Station on the Ome Line.) Akihabara, where Ryouta and Alfoncina go for shopping, is a place I would often visit for meetings and not shopping before I moved here. Then when my meetings were over, I would go back to Tokyo Station from Akihabara, then ride the Shinkansen back to Fukui. If I wanted to return without staying the night, then I would have to take a Shinkansen that left at around eight PM exactly if I wanted to make it back on time, and I’d get home in the middle of the night. Worrying about the time like that really takes me back. I also edited and included a short story from an online magazine, which is a fun little extra, so I hope you enjoy it! But it’s only been about a month since I moved to Tokyo, and I’m feeling a whole lot of potential since I have so many colleagues from the industry here… Back in Fukui, I never met anyone else writing stories, not counting the times when people from Kanto would come visit, so I honestly thought there were only one or two people writing light novels per prefecture. I was uneasy on my own. Now that I’ve come here, I get the impression that there are one or two light novel authors per neighborhood. I have so many colleagues that it feels kind of weird… If I threw a rock, it would probably hit another writer… And now for our regularly scheduled thanks. As always, big thanks to Hiroki Ozaki for such beautiful illustrations! I know you will take very good care of Ryouta, Shiren, and Morita in the future! Also, I’ll pray for the good fortune of all those who’ll take part in the process on Mount Takao! See you in Volume 6.