The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick up Trash - Volume 9 - Chapter Aft

Afterword

HELLO, EVERYONE. Long time no write. Honobonoru500 here. Thanks for picking up a copy of The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick up Trash, Volume 9. And thank you to my illustrator Nama-sama for the stern-faced, heroic drawings of Druid and the big, round, cute drawings of Sora and Sol.

Volume 9 ties up everything that’s been going on in Hataka. Hataka’s crisis wound up growing far bigger than I intended at first, but I’m glad it did, because now I was able to fully flesh out exactly what summoning circles are in this world. It truly is a relief to have everything resolved now.

And in Volume 9, Sol had some majorly heroic moments! Don’t let Sol’s cute looks deceive you—little buddy is a powerhouse! And at last, we finally learn the reason behind Sol’s moments of melancholy. Actually, I had two ideas for the source of Sol’s ennui. One was a little dark and serious, and the other was the one I wound up using—Volume 9 was already just so dark overall that I went with the brighter explanation. I think it was the right call.

Then there was Zinal of Zephyr, who was wrongfully accused in Volume 8. I wanted to give him a lot of badass scenes in Volume 9. But then it was like—wait a minute, he’s not in it nearly as much as I planned! He’s going to make more appearances in the story moving forward, so I’ll do my best to write him into a character worthy of Ivy saying “Oh, Zinal, what a guy!” about him.

Volume 9 also had many more side stories. Starting with the captain of the watch and the guild master of Hataka, I wanted to write about what other people were going through. When I write everything from Ivy’s POV, there are just some aspects of the world I can’t bring out properly, so I added more side stories. It’s fun writing from a bunch of different characters’ perspectives, but they also had their own challenges. I like to think I did it justice, though.

Thank you to everyone at TO Books for your help with Volume 9. My editor K-sama, thank you for always putting up with me. We managed to get Volume 9 published thanks to you all.

Lastly, I would like to thank everyone who read this book with all my heart. I hope you’ll give Volume 10 a read, too. The manga version of The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick Up Trash is also selling well. May we meet again in this, “Isekai’ed into a world…where proper waste disposal rules!” light novel and manga series.

—Honobonoru500

June, 2023