AFTERWORD

It’s been a long while. This is Isuna Hasekura. Time has passed, lots has happened, and another year has come and gone.

This was supposed to come out last year, but I wasn’t making any progress on my writing, and now look what day it is. I feel like it eventually took me nearly half a year to write it…It was perfect plot-wise, but when I started writing it out, things got all winding and confusing like a maze, as always. I was told not to make it too serious this time, so I wanted to concentrate on cute scenes with Myuri, but my pen just started writing out apocalyptic scenarios like it had a mind of its own. But in the end, it was worth the trouble, since I think Myuri is the cutest in this volume by far. If you are finished reading already, I’d like to ask, what did you think?

But while I’m glad I managed to write something I am personally satisfied with, the struggle has left scars on my computer folder. I would save a previous version of a file before I made any deviations, so file names would start looking like “Wolf and Parchment Volume 5 Draft 4 Copy copy (1) December NEW ver Copy (3) copy.docx.” It’s so painful…

In the end, the printed book reached around 200 pages, which meant my composition was no good! So I got a month-plus extension, and two weeks before the deadline they announced the release date for this volume, so there was no going back. It was a similar situation to volume four, but it was much worse this time. I couldn’t stand it, so I started writing from scratch. I think it was volume five of May Your Soul Rest in Magdala that I rewrote in about ten days, and I was recently thinking about how I managed to pull that off because I was so young, but it seems like I still got it. I don’t want to do that again, though. Well, it’s more like I’ve been writing novels for over ten years, so I at least want to write things without too much fuss and actually go according to plot, just once…! The Spice and Wolf short stories are going comparatively smoothly, but I end up with many more page rejected compared to a complete manuscript. Since they’re short stories, the time I suffer is simply shorter compared to longer volumes, but the suffering that comes with each page is just as painful…

I feel terrible for making you wait a year for a volume, so next time I will be sure to get a manuscript done in three months! I’m sure I will! I think! Please root for me!

Well, there isn’t much different in my private life—which is what I wrote earlier, but around the time I submitted the manuscript, stock prices went wild, and I’m glued to the prices morning to morning. “Dow!” I’ll stand. “Dow!” I’ll yell. It’s a lot of fun. It’s been a lot like a chicken pecking at food on the train tracks, building up bit by bit, then coming face-to-face with disaster in a marvelous fashion: Run over by the train just when it’s plumpest. Right now, I’m entranced by the Nikkei’s double-impact credit purchases…I look, they’re going down! They might be saved! That’s how my days are going. I’ll see you in the next volume.

Isuna Hasekura