Afterword
Four months have passed, and it’s nice to meet you again. Izushiro here.
As the author, I’m relieved to have managed to deliver the latest volume in the series. That aside, thank you for reading Volume 7 of The Greatest Magicmaster’s Retirement Plan.
Thanks to the great reception from everyone, this series has managed to come this far. Looking back on it, it’s been a year and a half since the first volume was published, and it feels like I’ve finally gotten to the end of my summer homework. The intense summer this year has been carrying on later than usual, and I’m sure it will go on for a while longer. But I can’t wait for a cooler autumn to arrive. If this heat could just settle down a little, that would be great.
That said, I still have a lot of space left to fill. I’m the kind of author who struggles with afterwords to the point of wanting to add in a short story. Then again, any story I do come up with ends up as a story-exclusive bonus, so I don’t have that many in stock... anyways, joking aside, on to report on the current status. Or I’d like to, but so little happens from day to day that I have nothing to write about.
As I’m writing this afterword, Comiket is taking place. As someone who loves not just books but illustrations, I’d love to go once, but I wouldn’t stand a chance in all of that enthusiasm. To the point that I’d probably just turn around and leave...
In the author introduction, there’s a line about how weak I am in crowds of people. I mostly wrote it as a joke, but now it’s becoming reality... how scary. I’ll need to be more careful about my health in the future... but that sounds pretty ominous, so maybe I should change that line?
And now that I’ve finished exposing how unhealthy I am, it’s time to start over. As we switch topics, I’d like to touch on what happened in this volume.
How did you like this volume? All of the plot threads starting in Volume 5 are wrapped up here. Volumes 5-7 make an arc where the magical tournament and Devourer elimination run in parallel. But thinking it over now, the end of this volume is filled with Loki content, so I guess you could call it the Loki episode.
Well, you could tell as much when you look at the character on the spine of the book. As I view my bookshelf now, I can finally see all of the heroines gathered, but for some reason Loki hadn’t shown up before. Even the cover and color illustrations are very Loki-focused.
In the book, Loki sees a lot of mental growth, too. I was able to fully write out all of Loki’s wishes and emotions that she’d kept locked up. All of that stuffed inside of her is finally unleashed, as she breaks out of her shell and speaks her mind to Alus. The young Magicmaster Loki has had very unique experiences, and she finally prioritizes her feelings.
There is nothing inherently good or bad about such impulses of passion. However, she simply runs over to Alus’ side by her own volition... there is no logic to it, as she is just being honest with her feelings. Up until then, Loki had bound herself by the reasoning that she was Alus’ partner. As a result, her mind and heart came into conflict. At the end of that conflict, just what does she think and how does she act?
The flow is similar to what I wrote before, but I feel like I was able to put even more heart and passion into it. In short, I’m satisfied that I managed to write what I wanted.
There are also new developments written in, such as the mysterious Mekfis, and the woman with the look of a village girl, Dakia. One could call them the Forgotten and the Wraith.
Dakia, in particular, is a new addition from the web novel version, and just the adding of one character can change the structure of the story so much... It feels like some kind of butterfly effect.
Incidentally, the criminal organization Kurama will play a big part in the story to come, so look forward to it. While this is a battle story, there will be battles, but there are parts of the Friendship Magical Tournament that were abbreviated. Such as the second-year finals between Felinella and Karia in the last volume... if I get the chance, I would love to cover it in more detail, so look forward to that too.
Now then, what will happen in the next volume? As I write this, I realize that the volumes have started stacking up quite a bit. I hope you will look forward to the next one as well.
That should about fill up the space I have, so I’d like to wrap up with my usual thanks.
Miyuki Ruria-sama in charge of illustrations, thank you very much for living up to my crazy requests. I was sure I was going to get a scolding for my recklessness. I told my editor-in-charge that if that was the case, then just tell me off... Thank you for your continued work on this series.
I’d also like to thank said editor-in-charge, T-sama, for always giving me accurate advice. I was in T-sama’s care quite a bit this time around too.
Thank you to the proofreaders, designers, printers, and most of all to you for picking up this book.
Finally, thanks to everyone’s support, there is now a manga and a special campaign. Its name is The Greatest Heroine Fair. There are luxurious prizes to be had, so check the paper wrapper for instructions on how to enter the drawing.
This afterword has been a little longer than expected, but I’ll work my hardest so that we can meet again in the afterword for Volume 8.
—Izushiro
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