AFTERWORD

Those of you who are buying one volume at a time, it’s nice to see you again.

For those of you who carried all eleven volumes to the register at once, it’s nice to meet you.

I’m Kazuma Kamachi.

At some point during this relaxing run, I made it to the eleventh volume. This time, well, you know how it is at this point…Still didn’t get to the uniform change. The punishment game was postponed as well. This is the overseas trip arc. It was a curveball, and I took the chance to stray from the beaten path: having not Kaori Kanzaki but the rest of Amakusa, depicting a fleet battle not with cannons but with the exchange of fireships, and things of that nature.

As for the story, it’s essentially about the aftermath of what happened to a certain group. The short girl and the tall girl were mentioned once before by name, but they were major characters here. In a strict sense, there were extremely few new characters, but I think that made it all the livelier.

On the occult side, as well, a certain two organizations were the highlight of the book. It also hit upon things like legends in the Crossist tradition and, though more discreetly, the Twelve Apostles.

The part about the fireships isn’t made up; they were actually used for tactics like that. We’re talking before the torpedo was really introduced, when the English navy apparently, in all seriousness, loaded up their big ships with explosives and sent them to ram unmanned into an enemy fleet. It was a huge battle, where they absolutely needed to come out as the victor—an awfully massive story, isn’t it?

As always, I’d like to extend my gratitude to Mr. Haimura, my illustrator, and Mr. Miki, my editor. With the abrupt change in setting, I think it took a lot of time and effort to gather resources and materials. Thank you so much for all the work you’ve done. I’d also like to thank Miss Haruna Yoshimi and Miss Yuuko Fukushima for their supervision on the Italian translations.

And, even more than usual, I want to thank all my readers. I’m truly grateful you’ve always been with me to the last page each time.

Now then, as I close the final page here,

and as I hope you find it within you to open up the next first page,

today, at this hour, I lay down my pen.

Next time will have the uniform changes and punishment game for sure!

Kazuma Kamachi