Chapter 18

Hello again, or possibly for the first time. It’s me, Reki Kawahara. Thank you for picking up this copy of Demons’ Crest, Volume 1: Reality∞Erosion. This book marks my first time publishing a completely new work through Dengeki Bunko (as opposed to online serialization or ebook versions of previous books). And while it’s full of familiar keywords such as fulldive and VRMMO, it is very different in flavor from past works such as Accel World and Sword Art Online… But now that you’ve read it, what did you think? Before touching on the content of the actual story, allow me to explain why I chose to begin a new series at this time. The oldest note I have on hand with ideas for Demons’ Crest is time-stamped November 2016. In other words, I actually had the idea for this work six years ago. It started as a simple idea: “a story about an entire elementary school class who get trapped inside an enclosed space, working together to escape and sometimes bickering with one another.” Little by little, I added more meat to those bones, getting advice from producers and editors along the way and revising and brushing up my ideas. It was about three years ago, in 2019, when the idea finally took on a more recognizable shape. Back then, however, I was getting busy with more and more nonwriting work, and the pace at which I was releasing books for my existing series—Accel World, Sword Art Online, and The Isolator—had slowed. That hardly seemed like the time to start a new series. And so I decided to put Demons’ Crest back on the shelf until at least one of those series came to a close. Before I knew it, however, three years had already passed. Even now, in 2022, those existing series show no sign of coming to an end anytime soon. At first I thought another three years might pass before Demons’ Crest would see the light of day… That is, until Kazuma Miki, who has been my editor since my debut, and also happens to be the current CEO of Straight Edge Inc., mentioned that they were planning on starting a webtoons business and proposed turning Demons’ Crest into a webtoon. I’d been interested in webtoons as a new form of expression for some time, and I was delighted by the prospect of having one of my works used as the basis for one, so I gave the okay immediately. But there was a second part to Miki’s proposal…publishing a light novel through Dengeki Bunko at the same time as the webtoon. To be honest, I hesitated at first. As I mentioned earlier, I worried that if I started a new series while my three existing ones were still ongoing, I would exceed my capacity in all sorts of ways. But the best time to release the first volume would be when the webtoon began running. With everything that needed to be done, a decision needed to be made quickly. What finally made up my mind, however, were several concept sketches created by the webtoon team. They depicted Yuuma and the other characters, set against dynamic backdrops from the two worlds that serve as settings for this work—the VRMMORPG Actual Magic and the large-scale amusement center Althea. When I saw their work, it made me want to create depictions with my own pen as well! Naturally, that didn’t dispel my fears of taking on too much, but now that Yuuma, Sawa, and the others had gotten into my head, there was no way I was going to get them out again. Urged on by the boisterous energy of the elementary-school-age characters themselves, I decided that I would release the first volume of Demons’ Crest in November 2022. There were tough days ahead, to be sure. Volume 27 of Sword Art Online was already scheduled for release that October. My plan was to finish that manuscript early so that I would have plenty of time to hunker down with Volume 1 of Demons’ Crest… But one task after another piled up, and before I knew it, my schedule was in shambles. As usual, my submission of SAO, Volume 27, came right down to the wire. But somehow I managed to submit it and to finish the Demons’ Crest manuscript by the seat of my pants, so now here I sit, writing this afterword. I was extremely pleased to learn that Yukiko Horiguchi had agreed to do the character designs and illustrations for Demons’ Crest. Her depictions of Yuuma, Sawa, Kenk, Nagi, Sumika, and all the other students are incredible, and they make even me, the author, eager to discover what comes next. I can only imagine the effect they have on everyone reading! But with that said, allow me to touch a little further on the story of Demons’ Crest. First, regarding the name… The truth is that ever since I first came up with the idea for this series six years ago, I referred to it by a completely different working title (something along the lines of Code XXXXX). We even continued to use that working title after planning for the webtoon began. But when it came time to decide on a proper title, nothing ever seemed quite right. Talking with editors and producers, we were beginning to wonder if maybe we should just use the working title as the actual one. That is, until one day, when my eyes settled on a certain passage in the book: “…pronounced like the word crest, as in insignia or peak.” Why not something like XXX Crest? As soon as the thought occurred to me, I had a flash of inspiration and knew what word belonged there. Demon. Fortunately the editors and the webtoon team liked the name as well, and it became the current title. Demons’ Crest, the insignia of the demons. Moving on to the story itself… There’s nothing I can write here that wouldn’t be a spoiler (LOL). But I suppose that’s always the case with the first volume of a series. Not to distract you with my tales of woe, but you wouldn’t believe how much trouble I had coming up with backstories for all forty-one of the sixth-grade students at Yukihana Elementary School! I’ve mentioned this several times in interviews before, but I don’t usually like to start by writing the characters. That style of writing doesn’t come naturally to me. I prefer to see what inspiration strikes as the characters show up in the normal course of writing the story…or if I’m trying to put on airs, I might say I believe that characters should not be written into the world by the author, but that they should appear there naturally, by themselves. So if left to my own devices, I would prefer to start penning the story without writing the characters first. In this particular instance, however, I was already laying out the long-term plot from the start, so I needed to solidify the characters from the get-go. The immense pain I experienced in working out the names, personalities, and other details for forty-one characters all at once will be forever branded into my memory. But that character writing was soon put to good use in the webtoons, so in the end, I guess it was all in a hard day’s work (LOL). Speaking of the setting, the magic spells that Yuuma and the others use were a big challenge for me as well. It probably would have been easier if I had stuck with a fictional language and made all the spells one word, but instead, I decided to go the more annoying route of modeling the spellcasting after actual language, with things like elements and forms. I remember spending hours fussing over little details for some of the spellcasting scenes. But the way they depicted the buildup and “activation” process in the webtoons was really cool, so I think all that hard work paid off. The last thing I would like to touch on is why I chose to make the protagonist an elementary school student. My own elementary school days happened long ago, in ancient times, so my memories of back then are fuzzy, but I seem to recall the world feeling very limited at that age. When it comes to school, for instance, your own class is like a kingdom all its own…and the next class over is an entirely different kingdom. But owing to that isolation, the relationships between students in a class can be very complicated and volatile, and I seem to recall the atmosphere often being tense and charged in its own special way. By trapping forty-one classmates together inside the enclosed space of Althea, I hope to show how those dynamics play out as they either succeed, or fail, at working together—or at least that is the starting point for this work. But of course, this is me talking, so who knows what will happen? Dear readers, consider yourselves a boat in the storm as you join me on this adventure! Although I’ve already rambled on long enough, I would like to end by thanking a few people. The illustrator, Yukiko Horiguchi, for using her fine-honed brush skills to draw such lush and detailed characters, in such a vivid and fascinating way. My editor, Kazuma Miki, for his industrious efforts in bridging the gap between the webtoon and light novel editions, and in ensuring that they were released simultaneously. My other editor, Adachi, for helping support my ever-perilous schedule. The creative team behind the webtoon version, for creating such amazing, high-quality work. And all of you who have read this far. To everyone: Thank you. I will work my hardest to ensure that the wait for Volume 2 of Demons’ Crest is not too long. I look forward to your ongoing support! Reki Kawahara September 2022