AFTERWORD

To those of you who have been reading from the first volume—welcome back.

And to those brave ones who suddenly picked up the second book—nice to meet you.

This is Kazuma Kamachi.

Now then, the afterword. It seems like depending on the person, some of you read this part first. Apparently, the afterword is like a second summary. Or that there are people who read the afterword first, and if it tickles their fancy, they head straight for the cash register.

However, I’d like to advise caution to those of you who dive straight into the afterword. It would probably not be a good idea to read it until you’ve gone through the story first.

The next thing here is an afterword meant for those of you who enjoy reading the afterword at the end or those of you with the courage to brave spoilers.

The concept this time was a “bad end.”

To put it clearly, Aureolus is Touma Kamijou’s failed state. I tried to write this book while thinking about what kind of person Kamijou might have become if he hadn’t succeeded at the end of volume 1. Even Himegami had the pitiful role of the girl who couldn’t become the story’s heroine.

So for various reasons, things were pretty brutal this time around. Contrary to volume 1, where even the enemies would at least hear you first, the final boss—to say nothing of the candidate for heroine—never listened to a word anyone said.

Ars Magna was the occult “keyword” everything developed from.

I mentioned somewhere in the story that it was the “true form of alchemy” or something, but that was actually a total lie. Apparently, the first major school of alchemy, the Bohemian school (the one famous for turning lead into gold) appeared in the later stages of the Roman Empire, while Ars Magna didn’t come in until quite a bit later, in the seventeenth century. In addition, at the time, the seventeenth century was kind of a dark age for alchemy. It was a fad, where fake magicians would con nobility out of their money. In other words, Ars Magna was just some new-age cult sort of thing that rode the tailcoats of the alchemy boom.

Anyway, the real Ars Magna wasn’t something that could create gold or make an elixir of immortality. It was really only something like humans being an incomplete version of God, so if a human was to train and become “complete,” then he could become a god. Obviously that all sounds like a mess of cultic hubbub, but as you can see the term God in there, you can tell that Crossism got mixed into alchemy.

The thing Aureolus was doing in this book, with the “everything in his head becomes reality” and so on, is actually more the Zurich style of alchemy. This mixed the original alchemy with the psychology of Carl Jung; “doing alchemy in your head” is the gist of it.

There was another version of alchemy from Vienna, but that used some perverted techniques called sex magic, so it’s not allowed in Dengeki Bunko (laugh).

One explanation for the abundant number of variations of alchemy is apparently that no one knew what it originally was, but the correct answer seems to go more like this: Alchemists would con royalty by saying they could convert lead into gold, but no matter how long they waited, they could never produce that all-important gold. To soothe the nobles that angered, they told all kinds of different lies.

I wrote quite a bit, but well, in the end, this is what I really wanted to say:

Despite all the investigation, the word alchemy isn’t really used well, huh?

I might as well have given Index a bit more time onstage and mixed in some kind of “easy kitchen alchemy” plot. I wonder how that sort of deep theme would have done in the story?

Now then, here’s where I thank everyone involved with this production.

My editor, Ms. Miki, is an amazing person, and one who placed the order for me to write an entire novel in seventeen days. Seriously, thank you for sticking with this book until the end, despite all the holes in it.

My illustrator, Mr. Haimura, is someone I’ve actually never met face-to-face before. It would sound cool if I called him my “invisible partner,” but I really do want to meet him and give him my thanks. For now, I’ll just practice it on paper: Thank you so much.

And to all of you readers who bought this book, a huge “thank-you” to you for staying with me the whole way. As I pray that you’ll all have the chance to look through the next one, and the ones after that, I lay down my pen for the day.

Mikoto Misaka never got a word in edgewise this time, either (cry).

Kazuma Kamachi