Accel World - Volume 10 - Chapter Aft

AFTERWORD

Reki Kawahara here. I’m bringing you Accel World 10: Elements.

…Well, I’m aware it’s a bit late for this, but it is the tenth volume. This story was born from the simple, single idea of “it would be interesting if there was a fighting game that used the real world as a stage,” but then I thought that a few minutes into a carefree fight, you’d be hit by a car, so I added the element of “acceleration” and started writing. Once I began writing down all the various other elements of the story, things sort of snowballed.

The fact that this sort of haphazard story has been able to continue all the way to Volume 10, and by the hand of me, a fundamentally extremely lazy person, is because I’ve had the support of all of you reading this text.

That said, just looking at the other series under the Dengeki Bunko label, there are a lot that have surpassed twenty volumes, forget ten, so I still can’t be getting into an ending feeling, I guess. (lol) Story-wise, I feel like I’m maybe in a place where the setting has come together at last, and now we can finally get into the meat of the battle between the Legions of the Six Kings of Pure Color and the Acceleration Research Society. Or we should be able to, but I won’t know until I write it…It’s that sort of “where the wind takes us” story, but I do hope you’ll continue to come along for the ride.

If I could touch a bit more on Volume 10 here, it’s more of a sporadic short-story collection. The three stories collected here are a bit experimental, with a lineup of “The Sound of Water on a Distant Day” taking us waaaaay back in the past; “Roar of the Sea at the Ends of the Earth,” the first story from Kuroyukihime’s point of view; and “Versus,” a crossover with my other series, Sword Art Online. With the last story “Versus” in particular, there are details that will make you wonder about the relationship between the two series, but as their writer, right now, I’m taking the stance that nothing clearly links the two series. I’d be happy if you read this story the way SAO protagonist Kirito assumed, as a fun short story with the pretext of the dramatic move of a step into a parallel world through a quantum computer. I apologize for always making selfish requests in every book. In Volume 11, coming up next, we’ll return to the main plot. I’m planning to start it at the meeting of the Seven Kings, where Haruyuki will be summoned to testify.

To my editor, Miki, on whom I’ve foisted so much as I flee with a nimbleness on par with Black Vise in the face of the tsunami that is this story being turned into an anime, a game, and drama CDs; my illustrator, HIMA, of whom I asked an impossible schedule from October to December; and to guest illustrator, abec—thank you so much once again! And all you readers, please do join me again in 2012!

Reki Kawahara

On a certain day in October 2011