I’ve let myself get carried away writing once again, and now I’m hitting the page limit. Hi, I’m Aoikou.
Instead of something conventionally popular like a tough-guy power fantasy or a coming-of-age romcom, I decided to write a story about the world’s strongest nun (within the world of the story, at least), forced to fight bloody battles against some of the most powerful life-forms in existence. Thank you for following along with Alicia’s story! Seriously, thank you so, so much.
Whether this series gets greenlit for a third volume is going to depend on this volume’s sales! If volume 2 doesn’t sell, then the curtain will fall on this story without ever revealing the whereabouts of Glasses and Atalanta, or the meaning behind those cryptic references to the Demon Lord... (Right now, as I’m writing this afterword, I genuinely don’t know whether there’ll be a volume 3! I really don’t!)
Well, don’t count your chickens, or whatever they say. For now, I’ll stop talking about the future and say a little about this book.
The pivotal characters of this volume, the Holy Saint and the Deathwatcher, are essentially versions of Alicia and Cion who took different paths. If Alicia had never been taken in by the orphanage, and if Cion had never met Veiss, they probably would’ve ended up like those two—that was my concept for this story. It was a bumpy ride for everyone, but luckily things managed to work out one way or another. (Woof woof!)
But thanks to a certain someone’s misdeeds in the previous volume and a certain someone’s machinations in this one, things have developed into a huge mess while Alicia wasn’t looking. That’s what you get for defying the teachings of the Church...
So I’m planning for the story to take a sharp swerve next volume—hopefully. C’mon, volume 3, let’s go!
I’m running out of space, so it’s time for acknowledgments.
Thank you to Rinrin-sama, who took over as series editor right before the final draft of volume 1, for coming out swinging with the red ink and digging into every stray detail of the story. Your multiple-hour critique sessions-slash-interrogations helped me give the world and characters much more depth and detail. I’m looking forward to working more with you.
Thank you to Enji-sama, the series’s illustrator. I pushed off all the character design decisions onto you, and your vivid illustrations brought the story to life. Thank you so, so much. I’m sorry for always giving you such vague instructions. I truly can’t thank you enough.
Finally, thank you to everyone who kept following the series and picked up a copy of this volume—and especially to all the readers who wrote reviews of volume 1. Every single positive comment made my thousand years of solitude all worthwhile. I’d love it if you’d stick around going forward... We’ll have to see.
This has been a message from Aoikou, moving on from wondering whether Alicia’s wearing panties to wondering whether the saint’s wearing a bra.
Almost-visible is justice.