Astrea Record: Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? Tales of Heroes - Volume 2 - Chapter Aft

Afterword

I’ll leave you with my tales of woes for a bit.

Converting a script intended for a game into a book was unexpectedly difficult (at least, in my experience). For example, in a game, you can easily switch scenes with a fade-to-black and/or some special effects, but if you have only text, a sudden scene change can seem abrupt and can wreck the pacing and flow of the writing.

Another thing is when you take out all the passionate voice acting and scene-appropriate music, the text can seem staggeringly dull by itself. Three or four scenes’ worth of moments get crammed into a single page spread, and the story just flies by without giving you time to digest it. I was always prepared for this to be a problem ever since Volume 1, but this time was even worse, and I found myself standing alongside Lyu, screaming, “Go away, Erebus. It’s not your time yet!”

But I learn a lot when creating adaptations. It feels like I’m gaining experience points and leveling up alongside our wayward elf and the other characters in the story. Adapting a game into a novel requires addition. Adapting a novel into a game requires subtraction and sometimes multiplication. It’s an embarrassing process to have to reveal, but I do it in the hopes of leaving my tracks in this afterword and reminding myself how far I’ve come.

Now for the acknowledgments.

First, to Usami, my editor, I give my utmost thanks for supporting me throughout this second volume. I’m going to get some sleep now, and I hope you do, too. Second, I’d like to thank Kakage for once again decorating this volume with their wonderful illustrations, and I apologize for the trouble caused by any controversy over the size of Lyu’s breasts. I would like to make clear that I am not a radical flat-chest extremist by any means, and I like big boobs, too, honest! My sincere gratitude goes out to all the staff at WFS for their help and assistance in obtaining materials. And finally, a very big thank-you to all the readers who chose to pick up this book.

This long struggle, recorded on the infinite stars of the boundless sky, will finally come to an end in Volume 3, War of Good and Evil.

I hope you will see this tale through to the end, come what may. Thank you for sticking with me this far, and until next time.

—Fujino Omori