Rokujouma no Shinryakusha!? - Volume 44 - Chapter Aft

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Afterword

Hello everyone, it’s the author, Takehaya, here. Lately, the problem with my eyes has been resolved and much of my life has returned to normal. However, it’s not all back to the way it used to be, and my room is a little dusty. Intraocular lenses aren’t all-powerful, and it’s hard for me to see between different shades of colors, so I can’t see the dust until it piles up a bit. That’s why I’ve taken to cleaning before I can see the dust as of late, haha. So anyway, I’m doing fine.

But enough about my recent situation, and on to this volume. This one contains three short stories from Invaders of the Rokujouma!? Hercules! as well as a newly written half volume. One of the short stories, as well as the half volume, centers around Theia and Elfaria, so it’s a rather Forthorthian royal family-centered volume. And your impression of Elfaria in particular might change. Those of you who have read the volume, what did you think?

The next volume will be a continuation of volume 43. Maxfern has been revived, using Ralgwin as a sacrifice. Supporting him are the loyal Grevanas and the Gray Knight with an unknown purpose. Since they were unable to prevent his resurrection, Koutarou and the others will need to stop his attack in some way. Maxfern ignored the rules two thousand years ago, and there’s no way he will follow them this time. Moreover, there’s no script to follow now, so the battle will be exceedingly difficult. They will only get one chance.

After this, I will begin my work on the next volume. I will continue to do my best to write an entertaining story, so I hope for your continued support.

Ah, yes, I was going to talk about another thing. There is actually an English translation of Invaders of the Rokujouma!? At first, there was only the digital version with no print edition, but the sales of the digital version were strong, so there was a crowdfunding campaign to publish paperback versions. The goal was 50,000 dollars, which is around 7.5 million yen. However, that goal was easily reached in less than a day, and it ultimately hit 165,000 dollars—roughly 25 million yen. Thanks to this support, the paperback edition was published. Thank you very much.

Now then, there was an interesting reward for the campaign, which was to have dinner with the author. I didn’t think it was going to happen, but there were two people who received the reward, with the backers coming to Japan. However, because of COVID, travel restrictions were imposed and the trip was in jeopardy. Two years later, they made the journey to Japan. I’m so glad the series is still going on (lol). For the sake of anonymity, I won’t write their names, but to introduce them, they were the student J-kun and the engineer J-kun. Both of their initials began with J. We went out to eat sukiyaki together. Since we couldn’t understand each other, a staff member from J-Novel Club, who arranged the crowdfunding campaign, accompanied us to translate. A few people from HJ Bunko also came with us, so it was quite a large party, not to mention the restaurant was pretty expensive. I wonder if they were okay. During the meal I received questions that I answered, and I asked them things like what characters they liked. Ruth and Maki, if I recall. I also talked about inside stories for the characters.

For Ruth, I discussed unmanned crafts or what you would call drones nowadays. The method of using unmanned crafts to attack like Ruth did years ago is now something used in real wars, and I’m currently thinking about a new kind of special attack.

For Maki, I talked about her cat. Since she doesn’t speak much for herself, I thought it would be best for her to have a pet to help portray her kindness. There’s also the image of magical girls and witches having cats as familiars, which is why Snoozy was introduced.

I told them that since they’d come all this way, I considered talking about this series’s secret, but since that might make the story boring to follow, I decided against it. I was very curious about talking with people from a different culture and how they saw my work. I had a very good time and learned a lot. Thank you to the JJ pair, and best wishes in the future. Thank you to all of my fans, not only from Japan but around the world.

During the dinner, I got a question from J-Novel as well, which was interesting, so I would like to bring it up here. It was as follows: the parallel worlds in Rokujouma are in the structure of a mesh, where did that idea come from?

The idea for the mesh structure came from imagining a two-dimensional world. Inhabitants of a two-dimensional world would only be able to recognize width and length, not height. They might consider the third parameter to be a parallel world. Meanwhile, we live in the third dimension, so the fourth parameter might be like a parallel world. But in reality the third parameter is height and not a notion of a parallel world. So the fourth parameter might not be a sign of a parallel world either. But I decided to think of it as a parallel world. It’s more convenient for the story that way (lol).

In comparing the second and third dimension, an idea was born. For two-dimensional people, the Big Bang happened vertically and horizontally, but it also happened heightwise as well, which is the direction they would consider parallel worlds. In that case, wouldn’t the Big Bang be expanding in the fourth dimension too, which would be our parallel world? The idea is that just like space is always expanding, so, too, are the parallel worlds.

That leaves one final step. According to modern science, there are two ways for the universe to end: either it will expand infinitely or its expansion must reverse after reaching a certain point and return to being a single point. For this series, I chose the latter. It’s hard to imagine something continuing forever. It also feels like it would use too much energy, and that contraction would apply for parallel worlds too, meaning they wouldn’t just increase, but decrease too. In three-dimensional space there is a constant struggle between expansion and contraction, and right now expansion has the advantage. So parallel worlds split and merge, with splitting having the advantage, creating a meshed universe. And so the setup for Invaders of the Rokujouma!? was complete.

I wasn’t sure I could give a proper explanation when I talked about it, but I’m sure it will be conveyed by writing it here. And that was my private message (lol).

Speaking of private messages, I’ve mentioned my X (formerly Twitter) before, but lately I’ve started a YouTube channel too. It’s called Takehayaojisan and you can find it by searching for @takehayaojisan on YouTube. There you can find me streaming games. I’m approaching my late forties, and at this age my friends are giving up games one after another. Well, they’re forming families and having children, so it’s only natural. In an attempt to resist, I want more people to enjoy the thrills of my games. In other words, it’s a channel to make up for my dwindling comrades in arms. I would be happy if you would think of it as watching your friend play. I would be even happier if you subscribed (lol).

Next year will be the fifteenth anniversary of the novel and the tenth anniversary of the anime. In celebration of that, a Blu-ray with all of the episodes will be sold. With it you will be able to watch all of the episodes in one sitting by pressing the play button once. So let’s all get excited for the anniversary next year!

I have just about run out of space, so I would like to give my usual thanks.

I offer my heartfelt thanks to everyone in the HJ Bunko publishing department and related companies for their help in publishing this volume, to Poco-san for the beautiful first colored illustration of Ceilēshu, to the JJ pair and J-Novel Club, who came all the way to Japan, and to everyone who purchased this volume.