Afterword

Afterword

Hullo, light novelist Sakaki here, bringing you Volume 12 of Outbreak Company: The Power of Moe.

At long last, this is the volume you’ve all been waiting for! The one focused directly on...... him!

.................................

.................................

Um... er. You were waiting for it, weren’t you? (Crickets)

To be fair, he didn’t end up having the cover to himself. He and Petralka have a sort of sibling (?) shot there. We were afraid that if it was just Garius on the front, people would have to double-check that they were actually reading Outbreak Company. Or that it might accidentally get shelved with the BL... (Okay, we were thinking too hard.)

You might be interested to know that I never originally intended to do this plot. Hadn’t even thought of it. But the moment Outbreak became an anime...

“Sakaki-san. This is the moment. This is when you do the story about Garius’s ex-boyfriend! You know there has to be a handsome someone in his past from when he was studying abroad somewhere! They (BLEEP) and they (BLEEEEEP) and they murmur ‘It’s been so long...’ while touching each other’s hair...!”

Thus my friend, an author, known for light novels like Gun Princess and Carly, regular novels like the Tokkan series, and also even manga like Makai Ouji—so pretty well-known all around, is what I’m saying—Takadono Madoka insisted—er, persuaded me, and so I wrote this story.

Thank you, Takadono-sensei. No, really.

I left the broad contours of this story about Garius and his ex-boyfriend to my thoroughly rotten assistant (“Leave the brainstorming to me! In fact, just let me write the whole thing!”), and she got to it with an enthusiasm worthy of Minori-san. I’ve been known to turn to her for Minori-san’s dialogue before (with appropriate touch-ups by me to make sure they’re in-character and fit with the surrounding dialogue), but this was something new, what with the entire story having certain proclivities.

When it comes to stuff like the floor and the ceiling never meeting, or a spoon that’s being chatted up by a fork... I mean, that stuff just wouldn’t have occurred to me. The possibilities are truly limitless.

Once again, this tale started life as a short story, but grew in the writing until it filled an entire volume all by itself. I was a little worried that if I focused exclusively on the relationship between Garius and Rubert, I might discover some places within myself that I really didn’t want to find (or am I just imagining that? I am, aren’t I?), so I handled it this way instead.

And so we have Minori-san going completely off the deep end in this volume. I’m no Loek, but I kind of think she’s cutest when she’s like this...

For the past two or three volumes now, I’ve been gradually pointing the series toward its conclusion (not to say it’s coming anytime soon, mind you), and that includes my attempt in this book to start to shatter the love triangle (or however many sides this polygon has by now). It may prove to be a crucial volume in terms of Petralka’s story.

Even I, the author, don’t know for sure yet whether Shinichi will end up making a harem proper, or getting himself stabbed to death by someone (hey!), or something else entirely—all I know is I hope my dear and endlessly indulgent readers will come along for the ride (grin).

By the way, I didn’t put too fine a point on this, but that thing at the end of Volume 11? The power of a bucket of cold water and one very engaged Minori-san helped Shinichi keep his innocence—or, like, something, I guess.

So there you have it: Volume 12, the quintessential love story. Things are only going to get bigger and better from here. See you for Volume 13!

Sakaki Ichiro 29 Jan 2015

Table of Contents

Sign up for our mailing list at J-Novel Club to hear about new releases!

And you can read the latest chapters (like Vol. 13 of this series!) by becoming a J-Novel Club Member:

Outbreak Company: Volume 12

by Ichiro Sakaki

Translated by Kevin Steinbach

Edited by Sasha McGlynn

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2015 Ichiro Sakaki

Illustrations by Yuugen

All rights reserved.

First published in Japan in 2015 by Kodansha Ltd., Tokyo.

Publication rights for this English edition arranged through Kodansha Ltd., Tokyo.

All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property.

J-Novel Club LLC

The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

Ebook edition 1.0: December 2019