Spice and Wolf - Volume 17 - Chapter Aft

AFTERWORD

It’s the last afterword, but actually, I didn’t want to write it.

I truly have written all in the Spice and Wolf series that I wanted to.

This volume is centered on an episode taking place a while after the events in volume sixteen, but midway, it became harder to write than anything before it. I really didn’t want to write it.

But rather mysteriously, this brought me no anguish. Indeed, it made me very happy.

Really, really—really, I’ve done this, I’ve done that, I’ve done it all, there’s no more!

I was able to think such a thought for the first time in my life. My personality has tended to make me get tired of anything, discarding things midway as soon as I get used to them, over and over again.

Besides, in the beginning, not having anything left to write was my nightmare. Fearing this, I reada a great many books. But it seems that the true meaning of not having anything left to write laid elsewhere. So there are things like this, I thought in exasperation; I slumped and grinned a pained grin.

(Bit of a Spice and Wolf joke there.)

Even so, having written these characters for a whole five years, I was able to gather the vestiges of my memories and commit them to paper, but this is a method permitted only once, at the very, very end.

The “intermission” and “conclusion” comprise that one last time. When I reread the short stories I’d jotted down during the same time, made with the sense that I was finishing somewhere, I really surprised myself.

I’m happy that I was able to have fun with the series Spice and Wolf until the final seventeenth volume.

Now then, even though I just said I’ve written everything I wanted to, I have a bunch of other things I already want to do. Volume sixteenish in…you might blame me for writing “summerish” as too optimistic, but it’ll be within the year! I’m sure of it!

After that, I’m picking at some private creative activities, so if you see me somewhere else, please take a look!

And so, the long journey of Spice and Wolf comes to an end.

To all who participated in this series, and to all the readers who read to the very end, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart as I lower the curtain.

Isuna Hasekura