Afterword

Hullo, novelist Sakaki here.

Recently I’ve started trying my hand at stuff other than light novels, which is why I decided to drop the “light” from my usual sobriquet. ’Course, I’ve dipped a toe in video games and anime screenwriting already, so maybe “novelist” isn’t quite right, either. I guess “professional talker” and “storyteller” sound a little funny, though.

I’ll have to think about it.

But anyway, here we are at Outbreak Company, Volume 15. I feel like it’s been a while since Volume 14. I mean, it has been a while. There ended up being three or four extensions to the publication deadline...

There was a little accident (I mean literally), and my editor-san ended up in the hospital, having surgery, being out of touch, and meanwhile I managed to fall down the stairs and need an x-ray, whereupon they discovered something “wrong” with my elbow, and the doctor ordered me to stop writing. Let’s just say a lot happened. I know, none of this technically has anything to do with any of my long-suffering readers who’ve been waiting for the newest volume... In any event, I’m terribly sorry for the delay.

I’ve been doing some foreshadowing here and there for a while now, and with Volume 15 I’m finally starting to make good on it. I admit to wondering, as I built up my clues over volume after volume, whether I could really make it pay off, so I’m privately thrilled that I was able to bring it all together. Especially stuff like the reason they were able to use magic in the supposedly magic-less Akihabara during the car-chase scene in the “Japan arc”... It was such a subtle detail I almost thought it wouldn’t work as foreshadowing, but I wouldn’t have wanted it just hanging there as a loose end.

Anyway...

With Volume 15 being the first of a two-part arc, and with the end of the series in sight at that, I hope to get the next volume, and the one after that, out promptly. Hope...

All right, then, I hope all my readers will stick with me to the end of the series. See you in the next volume!

Sakaki Ichiro

26 May 2016