Paladin of the End - Volume 3.2 - Chapter Aft

Afterword

To all of you with a completed book in your hands, allow me to begin with a greeting. I am Kanata Yanagino, deeply obliged to see you all once again. With your support, I was able to publish this third book. Thank you so much.

I sit here with the revised manuscript now finished, writing the afterword and thinking back to one year ago. I remember being quite panicked at the time, particularly while I was writing Primus. The problem was the size of it. I discussed the parts that would correspond to the third book beforehand with my friends and set the storyline in stone before I ever started to write. But once I got writing, to my horror, the amount of text started to grow far beyond what I had planned.

I had heard from several sources that this was something that happens sometimes when writing a novel. However, I had wrapped up books one and two with about the amount of text I was expecting—beginner’s luck, perhaps. The pixie of carelessness and conceit took hold of me, I started to think, Maybe I actually have a keen sense for text length? and then reams of text took me completely by surprise.

As the volume of text continued to grow, I got very panicked and started rushing the story along, and my friend K-sensei had some words with me about that. The day I scrapped quite a large amount of text and rewrote it is one I remember vividly.

This work was an amateur creation published on the net. It was something I was writing as a hobby, the way I wanted it, with the story unfolding the way I wanted it to unfold. That was how it was supposed to be. But once I got lucky enough to be published commercially, greed started to surface whether I wanted it to or not. I wanted all the story’s turns to be more interesting, to make sure all the things I mentioned early served their function by the end, to keep it all down to the size of one volume. I even wanted to leave a little bit of extra space if possible to fit a bonus story in the published version.

I wanted it to be popular. I wanted it to sell. I wanted it to be a work that I could show to others with pride. I came to the realization that although the volume of text had inflated hugely, more than anything, what had inflated were my own desires.

After that, I had a change of heart. You can’t eliminate these kinds of desires completely, but I did my best to suppress them and go back to basics. I decided to write as I wanted, not worry about volume, pretend I had never been contacted about a book version, and tell the story of Will’s adventure that I wanted to tell. Before I knew it, my pen was flowing naturally again. As I wrote the battles in the last act in particular, I was very excited and absorbed, and words flowed straight from my mind to the page. I feel as though writing this story has taught me a lot of important things.

This third book was stuffed to the gills with the many things I received from the fantasy worlds I fondly remember from my past. I sincerely hope you all enjoyed it as well.

Finally, some acknowledgments. To Kususaga Rin-sensei, who drew such beautiful illustrations for me: I am filled with happy feelings every volume whenever I lay eyes on your drawings. I also want to congratulate you on the release of your art book, Genji Asai / Kususaga Rin Art Works. I was very moved by the comments you made on the illustrations included from this series. I adore Menel’s design.

To Minoru Kawakami, who provided the testimonial on the obi strip: I am deeply grateful. I have been a fan of yours since the first time I laid hand on your work in middle school.

To all my friends, thank you once again for the many ways you have helped me.

To my editor and the editors at Overlap; everyone involved with this book’s printing, sales and marketing, and everything else related; and to you, the person who took this book into your hands, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Praying that we can meet again,

Kanata Yanagino, November 2016