Haibara’s Teenage New Game+ - Volume 7 - Chapter Aft

Afterword

The first thing I think of when I hear the word “youth” is not the bittersweet romances I experienced, but the days when I laughed with my friends over the dumbest things. One of my reasons for writing this story was because I wanted to depict that sort of adolescence in a light novel.

Anyway, long time no see. I’m Amamiya Kazuki.

This volume was a tale of Shiratori Reita. Just like volume six, the first half had dreary events, but I think we were able to flip the mood into something more pleasant after the midpoint.

I don’t know if anyone will remember what I wrote in the last volume’s afterword, but I mentioned that I was worried about what to do in the future. My main job had absolutely no relation to writing, and I was only writing on the side; however, I didn’t have enough time. That was the gist of what I wrote.

I’d like to report, as I write this afterword for volume seven, that I have resigned from my main job. Writing novels and scripts is now my sole profession. Thanks to that, I have a little more breathing room in my day-to-day life and can dedicate more time to my writing.

The reason I decided to take the leap and quit my job is because the busy season was worse than usual this year, and I barely had the time to write. It was dizzying how much I had on my plate, and during those days when I couldn’t work on my novel, I reassessed what I wanted to do most.

Before this, I didn’t have it in me to quit my job, because I wasn’t confident I could make a stable living through writing novels and games. However, after continuing to write on the side for seven years, I’ve grown confident in my own abilities, have gradually accumulated more achievements and connections, and now receive commissions from all sorts of places. Along the way, I’ve had to decline many jobs that I wanted to do but couldn’t accept because I was unable to make time in my schedule while also working my main job.

One day, I suddenly realized: At some point, ensuring my life was stable had become my top priority. Over these past seven years, many people have told me that living as an author would be difficult. I thought that was the truth. And honestly, years after my debut novel was published, I still wasn’t earning enough to live solely off of my writing. The years kept on passing, and even though I had built a steady source of income—to a certain extent—I had become hung up on that so-called truth.

Is a life spent caring only about stability and not your dreams worth anything? After ruminating over that question, I eventually came to the conclusion that I wanted to live without regrets. After all, I can’t redo a past that I regret like Haibara Natsuki did.

Of course I was anxious about this decision, but now I feel more excited than anything. Now that writing is my main profession, I have far more time to work on my stories. Thanks to that, I’m preparing all sorts of content. When it’s ready, I’ll announce it on my X account, so I hope you’ll wait with bated breath.

Now it’s time for acknowledgments. To my manager, N-san: once again I seemed to lose all concept of what a deadline is, and I’m really, really sorry about that... Gin-san was once again responsible for the illustrations; thank you for the wonderful artwork as always. Hikari looked oh so cute on their date!

I’d like to give an enormous thank-you to everyone involved in this novel’s publication as well. It would be my pleasure as an author if this story resonated with you even a little bit.

Well then, that’s all for now. I look forward to seeing you again in the next volume, or in another one of my series.

Aaall right! I’m going to create lots of interesting stories!