Accel World - Volume 20 - Chapter Aft

AFTERWORD

Thank you for reading Accel World 20: The Rivalry of White and Black. I wrote this on the inside of the cover, too, but ah, we’re finally at Volume 20. Back in 2007, when I was serializing the prototype story Absolute Acceleration Burst Linker, I never imagined I would still be telling this tale. But strangely, the story itself is proceeding toward the climax I vaguely envisioned all those years ago, even as it goes off on any number of tangents. Once again, I’m wondering if I have the strength to drive the story where it needs to go.

To begin with, it’s incredibly rare for me to feel that I am creating and controlling the story as the author. It’s more like I’m simply putting into words a story that already exists. One of my favorite authors, Stephen King, has said something about how an author just digs up the vein of the story that’s buried in the earth, and that’s really exactly it. There are places where I feel as though I’m just a reader myself, watching over the story and going “Wow” and “Ooh” as it goes along, so I still don’t know where Accel World will end up, but I’d love it if you would all keep chasing after it with me!

Now, then. On July 23, a month and a half after the release date of this book, the new Accel World animation Infinite Burst (IB) will finally be released in theaters.

Naturally, movement started on the IB project quite some time ago, about a year and a half ago, I think. At the time, I wrote the story proposal based on the idea that since they’re going to the trouble of making a new anime, rather than go backward into the past of novels, we should do a story about the future. But the story’s already very much in the future, so let’s set the time axis a little ahead of the novel that will be on sale at the time of the theatrical release. But when I think about it, there’s no way that I could arrange something as skillfully as that given how I have no power to control the story, and as I proceeded with Volumes 18 and 19, I was anxious—“Will this really connect with the IB time axis?!” But when I lifted the lid on that pot, the time period for Volume 20 here overlapped perfectly, and I am heaving a huge sigh of relief. The staff from the TV anime were passionate enough to come together once more to pour all their energy into this project to make a giga-wonderful movie, so please do see it on the big screen in the theater! I’d appreciate it very much! And HIMA, Miki, thank you so much for this volume, too! The three Petit Paquet girls on the frontispiece are just amaaaaaazing!!

Reki Kawahara

On a certain day in May 2016