Slayers - Volume 2 - Chapter Aft

Afterword

Editorial department. Come in, editorial department. This is Slayers author Hajime Kanzaka. I’ve escaped the person plotting to hijack my afterwords, and am sending this via text message from inside a closet. Unclear how long I can proceed, but I’ll do my best.

Why, hello there, gentle readers! This is Hajime Kanzaka, your humble author! What’s that, you ask? Wasn’t I acting all dire a minute ago? Well, I can’t keep that up forever! When it’s time for fun, you have fun! It’s true that I spent the first afterword locked away in a warehouse, but as it just so happens, I am a master of one hundred and eight warehouse escape techniques, so don’t you worry!

Now, allow me to say that it’s your support that has enabled us to do these reprints, and I’m so, so very grateful for it. When you’re a writer and you get fan letters or see people say things like, “I just started reading the series. My dad recommended it to me,” and “I started reading this in elementary school, and now I have a child of my own,” it really makes you feel blessed to have such a long-lived fandom.

Of course, I’m aging too! But... how should I put this? It seems like all of my readers have grown into proper adults while I haven’t matured in the slightest. In fact, sometimes I get the terrifying feeling that I might have even regressed since writing this volume originally.

Thinking back on it, this volume was quite a challenge. I entered the first Slayers book as a one-shot in a contest and it won, so my supervisor asked me for a follow-up story. I was like, “Um, but they’ve already defeated the Dark Lord...” It feels weird to say it now, but at its inception, I honestly thought the project was impossible.

To keep Lina from resolving everything with one big spell, I had the idea to set this volume in a city. I think that was a lesson for me about how you can use circumstances and setting to change the flavor of a story. Of course, there are limits to how much you can change—take it too far and it becomes a different story. In fact, I’ve heard people say that The Sorcerers of Atlas was heavier than volume 1. Obviously, that was intentional.

But I don’t think I would’ve learned any of that if I hadn’t been asked to write a second Slayers novel. I think it’s important to try things even when you think they’re impossible. It could be a learning experience! Or you might realize that they really are impossible...

Ah. Of course, I don’t want to hear anything’s “impossible” from a certain woman who takes over my afterwords.

Anyway... In that sense, The Sorcerers of Atlas was a sort of turning point for me. It was really hard to write at first. But after lots of racking my brain, I said, “I like yokai and kaiju! I wanna include those!” And the minute I put the spike-wolves and stuff in the story, the words just flew off the page. What’s wrong with me? Why do I like monsters so much? These are the kinds of things that get me questioning my lifestyle.

But at that time—as a debut writer who still didn’t know what he was doing and was trying to come up with a story on the fly—the one thing I couldn’t do was pen the plot. Editorial kept asking me to write out the plot and submit it before I did the actual writing, but back then... I didn’t really know the difference between an outline and a plot summary, so I didn’t know what to do. In architectural terms, an outline is like the design draft and the plot summary is like the blueprint.

When I submitted the plot (or whatever you’d call it) for the third volume, The Ghosts of Sairaag, my supervisor said, “Hmm... well, for something like Slayers, I guess this is okay.” Then when I sent him the final version, he was over the moon saying, “This is so fun, Kanzaka-san!” I felt like I’d won. I’m not sure what I won, exactly, but I guess the effort(?) paid off, because my supervisor seemed to realize that my finished products were going to diverge wildly from my plot summaries no matter what... And now I no longer get asked for them.

Now, for any aspiring novelists reading this: Please don’t try this at home. My example is not one to follow.

Either way— Wait, I just heard something. Oh, it was the front door! Does she know I’m here?! Has she found me?!

She’s coming! The lady trying to take over my afterwords! I can hear her footsteps now! Looks like this is all the afterword I get! Ack, my hand! It’s caught in the door—

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

This is where the transmission from the author cut off. We have no way of knowing what’s happened to him, but he sent an afterword of appropriate length, so we don’t much care.

-The Editorial Department

Afterword: Over.