Fremd Torturchen - Volume 7.5 - Chapter Aft

Afterword

Hello, Keishi Ayasato here. As you can tell, Volume 7.5 was a series of short stories. I wanted to make sure everyone got a chance to read these before you all headed into Volume 8, so I’m really glad I was able to get these tales compiled like this.

Now, there’s no page count to stop me, so it’s time to dive into some backstory on each of the sections!

Kaito Sena’s Daily Routine (Front Side/Back Side)

Chronologically, this story takes place right after the battle against the Knight. At this point, Kaito hasn’t met Neue yet. Back when these short stories were being released as a web serial, this was the very first one I wrote. It was also where the idea of having a front side and a back side written from different points of view started out. What is a daily routine anyway? Incidentally, this was also the story that I needed to rewrite the most extensively for this compilation. I hope you enjoyed it.

Elisabeth’s Daily Routine (Front Side/Back Side)

Chronologically, this story takes place before Volume 2 and after Animal-Ear Capriccio, the side story about the Grand Governor’s defeat. Out of all the short stories, this one was definitely the most “Torture Princess-y” of the bunch. Although Duke of Exeter’s Daughter doesn’t show up in the main story, it’s a personal favorite of the torture devices I’ve written into the story. I’ve also always wanted to try having Hina and the Butcher team up, so it was a lot of fun writing those bits. When those two get together, no straight man can possibly keep up.

Hina’s Daily Routine (Front Side/Back Side)

This one also takes place before Volume 2, but even further after Animal-Ear Capriccio—in fact, it takes place after the special edition of Role-Swap Rondo and a Kiss for Sleeping Beauty. This story definitely skewed heavier on comedy than the others. When I was writing a story based around Hina, it was nice getting to come up with something that would let her spend the plot happily working away.

The New Content

As you could probably tell from reading this story, it takes place immediately following Volume 7. It was designed as a series of highlights to reminisce on where we’ve come and how we got here before we get into Volume 8 and the meat of Part 2, so I borrowed a lot of bits and pieces from several different volumes for the various scenes. It might be interesting to go reread it and see what you can find. The setup afforded me a lot of freedom in how I structured and wrote the story, so I had a lot of fun working with it. With this, we’re ready to head into Volume 8. I really hope you enjoyed everyone’s final party.

A Message from the Saint

When this was part of the web serial, it only went as far as A Message from Someone. Back then, I already had the outline of the Saint’s story laid out, so I wanted to make sure these sections were set up such that it would all make sense later down the line. Finally getting to finish her Message came as a big relief. Now you have the full picture on what she thought and felt.

I hope that someday, we’ll get a chance to see her again.

The Parent and the Child, or Perhaps the Enemies of the World

Originally, this story wasn’t part of the manuscript at all. Because of how the page count on the compiled short stories worked out, though, the book ended up having a lot of blank pages. That was when my editor O suggested that I write a story about Alice and Lewis, and the rest is history. I was really happy to have the chance to touch on their lives in this compilation, and I hope you all get a chance to read through it before you move onto Volume 8.

In the end, it made me really happy to get to show off so many different aspects of Torture Princess here.

I will note that the beastfolk didn’t get much of a chance to appear this time, nor did the saints, so ideally, there’ll be an opportunity to tell more of their stories in the future. For now, though, this intermission has reached its end, so I hope you all look forward to the main story continuing in the next volume.

Finally, as usual, we move on to the acknowledgments section.

I’d like to thank Saki Ukai, for the gorgeous cover and in particular for being able to fit so many characters on it; my editor O, for everything as always; Hina Yamato, for delivering a manga adaptation packed so full of love; everyone else involved in the series; and my beloved family, in particular my older sister. Thank you all so very much.

And above all else, I’d like to give a heartfelt thank-you to every reader who picked up Volume 7.5.

Next up is Volume 8. After I finished Volume 7, I could tell that the rest of the plot was going to be even more dense and detailed. Putting everything down on paper is going to be a challenge, but I’ll do my best to get it right. If you don’t mind, it would mean the world to me if you continue following along and watch the characters confront their destinies.

“And yet even so,” she said.

And now it all begins.

This material was originally published on ComicWalker from May 21, 2017 to October 21, 2017 and is presented here with amendments, revisions, and new content.