As always, I’ll start with thanks.
Thank you to everybody reading the story and supporting me on Shosetsuka ni Naro. Thank you for all the fan letters too! Thanks to the editing staff for all their assistance, and to all the wonderful people who help with revisions. Thanks to Kinta for all the illustrations, the book designer, and all the people working on the manga edition—Yumbo, their assistants, and their editing staff.
Really, truly, and from the bottom of my heart, thank you!
It’s because of you that we’re at volume twelve and past 2,000,000 copies sold!
Volume 12 was about temples, priests, gods, and religion. The gods and the holy lands—once mere hazy, fairy-tale existences—have made themselves known and brought great changes to Baarbadal, Dias, and his people. They’re the reason Dias is where he is, and the reason for the state of the world, and one has to assume that they’re far from done influencing events.
There is still much simmering below the surface and ready to explode, and soon we’ll get to see just how Dias and his residents handle what’s coming!
Dias was born at a temple. His parents were high priests and his uncle is a priest, yet during the war he lost his faith. He found himself at odds with what he once believed and could not find answers in either temple or priest. As for the modernists, well...he’s got mixed feelings when it comes to them.
But in recent days, Dias received the blessing of the gods in the form of sanjivani. He’s also quite fond of Uncle Ben, Fendia, and the paladins. All of this makes his relationship with religion something of a mixed bag. But Dias isn’t the type to sweat the small stuff, and he’ll always choose to live to the best of his abilities over moping and worrying. I think in this sense, he and the gods are like neighbors who get along great.
Naturally, the gods have ideas and plans of their own, but Dias won’t learn about any of that until much later down the line.
And I’ve been thinking about all of it too! There’s so much I want to write! Too much, even! But I can’t get ahead of myself!
As for what I’ve been thinking about and what I’ve been planning, I’ve shared that with my editor; our illustrator, Kinta; and Yumbo, who handles the manga adaptation. Usually all of this goes down via email, but I’m lucky to be able to sit down with my editor to discuss things in person sometimes. That said, I’m pretty sure my otaku side comes out whenever we do, and it’s like all of a sudden I’m talking a mile a minute. I always come away thinking I should have done this or that. It’s a bad habit of mine, but I just can’t help it either—I’m so excited about this story, and I really love it to bits.
All that excitement and enjoyment just gushes out of me when I sit down to write, and I’m going to keep doing my best to make sure you get to share that with me!
Okay, okay, I know that’s a weird way to segue into talking about the next volume, but it is what it is. Just like past volumes, volume 13 will have a whole heap of stuff going down in it. So much I really can’t list it all out here in a tiny afterword. And you won’t even believe the expedition that’s ahead! Some of the female characters are really going to shine! I really hope you all like it!
I’ll end things here. I look forward to writing to you all again in volume 13!
Fuurou, Summer 2024