Volume 1, Afterword
And with that, this is Kamachi Kazuma.
The stage this time is an alternate world and the main activity there is exploring a labyrinth! ...For some behind-the-scenes information, I felt my story structures were getting too complex with A Simple Series, The Zashiki Warashi of Intellectual Village, and The Unexplored Summon://Blood-Sign, so I decided to steer in the opposite direction this time.
I made the battles and story as simple as possible.
But there had to be a Kamachi Kazuma style twist to things.
What could be simpler than exchanging video game magic attacks and a protagonist that’s all muscle? And a lot of you probably noticed, but none of the male characters in this story, including the protagonist Boo Boo, were given an official name. For a little more detail, this too is a part of the story structure. And try to restrain your surprise over the fact that, “Hm? Then...Thousand Dragon, you were a girl!?”
I included a number of “twists” to things, like the truth of the festival and the secret of the Shining Weapon, but the biggest and most obvious might be making the Labyrinth a complete black box and not having a single scene set inside it even though it’s central to the setting. I just find the inns and weapon shops around a labyrinth so much more appealing than the labyrinth itself...
Yes, the hurdle I set up for myself was to see how much information I could leave out (e.g. leaving out male character names, avoiding scenes depicting the Labyrinth, keeping the battles simple, and giving basic names for the magic) while still having a functional story. This was a test to see if I could solve a problem I’ve been having with my books lately: the number of pages keeps getting out of hand.
The Break News quite literally have broken powers, but I did my best to not create an all-out “most powerful” character this time. Someone who is flustered and easily defeated in one chapter will display hellish fury in another chapter. I felt I had to include the enjoyment of finding your impression of a character changes based on the viewpoint. True to a fantasy story, the battles had a lot of freedom, so I hope you enjoyed them.
By the way, you might have noticed familiar elements here and there: Boo Boo putting himself in danger to save someone close to him and two worlds divided between magic and science is a lot like A Certain Magical Index. A different Break News displaying its unstoppable power in each chapter is a lot like Heavy Object. The Labyrinth’s Traps and the Break News being unwittingly linked is a lot like The Zashiki Warashi of Intellectual Village. Finding a horrible secret behind one’s normal memories and weapon is a lot like A Simple Series. A heroine falling in love with an orc protagonist and the troubles that brings her is a lot like The Circumstances Leading to Waltraute's Marriage. A violent heroine who is willing to burn down the world and kill for the happiness of the protagonist is a lot like The Unexplored Summon://Blood-Sign. Instead of making something entirely new after cutting away all my previous methodologies, I lined up all of the weapons I had built up over my life as an author and only then focused on smoothing out the awkward corners that always show up when creating something new.
After that, I worked at demonstrating the things I could only do with this story.
I wanted to show a never-before-seen side of Kamachi Kazuma.
I wanted to create the ultimate capsule that would allow the readers to smoothly swallow a theme or a story that would normally stand out as odd and be difficult to accept.
I hope I managed to set my sights on a story like that.
By the way, Boo Boo’s principle throughout the novel is that he will kill to eat (or to preserve his or his allies’ lives) but he will not allow it for any other reason. It is an extremely harsh and dry thought when summed up like that, so did you manage to smoothly swallow it?
I give my thanks to my illustrator Mahaya-san and my editors Miki-san, Onodera-san, and Anan-san. Thank you all for continuing to work with me! This had to have been a pain with the weapons, armor, and the increased level of nonhumanness. Thank you for everything.
And I give my thanks to the readers. I was already adding in some nonhumans with Intellectual Village and Blood-Sign, but what did you think? I hope you were able to accept it.
And I will end this here.
I get most excited while thinking up the broken powers for the Break News...
-Kamachi Kazuma