The Power of the Saint is All Around (LN) - Volume 5 - Chapter Aft

Afterword

HELLO, this is Yuka Tachibana. Thank you so much for picking up Volume Five of The Saint’s Magic Power is Omnipotent.

I’ve heard from those who have also published novels that reaching Volume Five is a big milestone. I am incredibly grateful to everyone who supported me along the way to reaching it. Thank you.

As always, thank you to my editor, W from Kadokawa Books, for making every effort to adjust the schedule for me. Also, thank you for being there to give me advice about the plot details. It was such a huge help.

Thank you to the rest of the staff too. After we adjusted things a bit, I fully intended to follow the schedule as planned, but unfortunately things didn’t go as I hoped. I sincerely apologize for that. Surely, surely next time I’ll work hard enough to be on schedule.

So, did you enjoy reading Volume Five? There will be some spoilers from this point on, so if you haven’t finished reading the main story yet, please do so first!

It’s pretty common to model a fictional city on one that exists in real life. However, I guess I’m bad at expressing my impressions about things or something, because I wasn’t able to depict the city with that acute sense of realism I wanted, and I often felt like I needed to be more diligent.

I did indeed base Morgenhaven on a real city. It’s a place with lots of precipitous slopes and hills, and it’s famous for its fog. In fact, it was pretty foggy when I personally visited this city. It’s amazing how many water droplets there are in fog. It felt like my face was covered in them—so much so that, at first, I thought it was drizzling. I had been in fog up in the mountains once before, but I’d been in a car, so I had never actually been outside right in the middle of it. I would never have imagined that it felt like being in rain.

There are a lot of things that are quite interesting to actually experience yourself. I guess another example would be really hot weather, which I got to experience a year ago during a business trip to the Kansai area. It was 104 degrees Fahrenheit! I feel like there’s a real difference in heat between 90 and 100. It was so hot… The reflected heat from the asphalt was so ridiculously hot that I imagined that it had to feel like being in a desert.

I’ll definitely think back on that experience if I ever write about a city in a desert. But before I do that, I would actually like to try going to a desert. I do love to travel.

Speaking of temperature, it’s so interesting how much it can vary in a single day. When traveling from north to south, you can experience quite a range in twenty-four hours. The greatest shift I’ve ever personally experienced was forty degrees. It was like experiencing summer and winter all in one day. It occurred to me that I could use that to describe the general size of a continent. In fact, there is already a novel that does that.

There isn’t such a big change in temperature in a single day’s journey when traveling by carriage in the Kingdom of Salutania, but I hope you’ll be able to get a feel for how big the continent is based on the places Sei goes.

Yasuyuki Syuri-sensei was once more in charge of the illustrations for this volume. Thank you for providing such lovely illustrations again. Seeing your thoroughly on-point character designs makes me pump my fist every time.

The designs for both Oscar and Ceyran look exactly like I imagined them. Actually, Ceyran looks even more handsome than I had imagined. Syuri-sensei does such amazing work. Thank you so much. (And thank you for the muscles too.)

The manga version of the story seems to be doing well also. I’m incredibly grateful to everyone reading it—and to all of the staff involved, starting with Azuki Fuji-sensei. Thank you always.

I checked many different illustration drafts that were included with Volume Five’s release. Thank you so much for drawing Sei in a camisole and with glasses. It was a lovely extra. I’m always unsure about whether to announce what the extras are and often end up not mentioning them, but when I saw that one, I wanted to let everyone everywhere know about it.

You can read the popular manga version of this story at ComicWalker, pixiv Comic, and Nico Nico Seiga.* Part of the series is available to read for free, so please check it out if you’re interested.

By the time Volume Five is released, I wonder how much of the story will be out. I have a feeling that Sei is going to make a big mess of things again soon.

There’s one more person I need to thank this time.

To tell the truth, I had a very difficult time coming up with the plot for this volume. Back when I was writing the manuscript for Volume Three, I had thought up an outline for Volume Five, but it was hard to come up with ideas. It was then that the Demon Lord came to give me some advice. 

Oh, the Demon Lord is the nickname I gave to one of my friends. Normally he goes by Kanzaki Kurone. He’s the author of Demon Lord, Retry! Thanks to his help, I figured out the direction of Volumes Five and Six. Thank you so much for your help then. And I’m sorry for not introducing a young boy (inside joke).

Lastly, thank you so much for reading up until this point. I’ll work hard to make sure Volume Six is in your hands as soon as possible. I hope we’ll see each other again soon.

* Look for it in English, also from Seven Seas!