Accel World - Volume 26 - Chapter Aft

AFTERWORD

Thank you for reading Accel World 26: Conqueror of the Sundered Heavens. I feel like lately I start every afterword with an apology, but I must offer up a giga-apology this time for this volume being delayed the most out of any previous volume! I was planning to bring it to you a little sooner, but I was in poor health from August to September 2021. I couldn’t quite get back into my writing rhythm after that, so the schedule ended up being delayed. As of the time of this writing in January 2022, I’m essentially back to full strength, so I will be working hard this year!

(I’ll be touching on the details of this volume in the note below, so please be aware, if you haven’t read it yet!)

In the afterword for the previous volume, I wrote that I was planning to end the White Legion arc in volume twenty-five and start in on the Seven Arcs storyline. But in terms of details, it does feel more like this volume is actually the White Legion arc? After all, the Seven Arcs and TFL appear in name only. But it was actually a lot of fun to write the Seven Dwarves in the real world. Unfortunately, White Cosmos, aka Enju Kuroba, does not make an appearance in the real, but if Haruyuki has another opportunity to visit the Eternal Girls’ Academy junior high division student council office, then…I have a gut feeling about this.

If I could comment a little here, Cypress Reaper, aka Airi Sagisu, serves as vice president of the EG junior high student council, Rose Milady, aka Tsubomi Koshika, as the treasurer, and Snow Fairy, aka Nanako Juholt, as the secretary, which would make it seem that Cosmos is the president. But she is in high school, in grade ten, so the job of junior high student council president is assigned to another person. That person is scheduled to make an appearance in the next volume, so please look forward to that!

In this volume, not only is the real name of the White King made clear, but that of her younger sister, the Black King, aka Kuroyukihime, is also revealed: Sayuki Kuroba. That said, however, Haruyuki learned it in the last scene in volume one, and Fuko and Utai, who call her “Sacchi,” also clearly already knew it. Kuroyukihime says that she likes her name, but the reason she goes so far as to use an SSS order to overwrite her name tag despite this is related to her mother’s family, the Kamuras. I do hope I can go into a little more detail on this in a future volume.

Additionally, I suppose I must address the people who appear—or rather invade—the Accelerated World at the end of this volume. I believe that some among you will recall that in the previous volume, when Haruyuki tries to escape from Snow Fairy’s suffocation attack, he perceives the existence of a new world that is very small, but very active. This fourth world, after AA2038, BB2039, and CC2040, is Dread Drive 2047. “Dread” means “to be feared” and “drive” is “to charge.” As to whether the name of this game indicates the BB world of Haruyuki and his friends, or…Well, I hope you will be excited to find that out.

And now that I’ve written that, I’ve gone over the usual two-page spread for the afterword, so I’ll go ahead and lay out the start dates of the three—now four—games, alongside the ages of Kuroyukihime and the others.

  Sept. 2031: Start of commercial Legion sales

  Dec. 2031: Birth of Enju Kuroba

  Sept. 2032: Birth of Sayuki Kuroba

  April 2033: Birth of Haruyuki Arita

  April 2038: Distribution of Accel Assault 2038 program. The originators are one hundred children who started first grade that same month (born between Apr. 2031 and Mar. 2032).

  April 2039: Distribution of Brain Burst 2039 program. The originators are one hundred children who started first grade that same month (born between Apr. 2032 and Mar. 2033).

  April 2040: Distribution of Cosmos Corrupt 2040 program. The originators are one hundred children who started first grade that same month (born between Apr. 2033 and Mar. 2034).

  2047: Distribution of Dread Drive 2047 program. The originators are unknown.

That’s basically how it looks. The time line around this becomes a bit important in future volumes, so I believe that if you could keep this in some small part of your mind, you’ll be able to understand the story that much more smoothly. And I will work hard to bring you Volume 27 before your memory grows hazy!

Related to the discussion of time, I have one item that I must atone for.

At the time I was creating the plot for the OVA Accel World: Infinite Burst (IB), released in theaters in 2016, I put together a time schedule with the intention of merging it with the main story at some point, but with this volume, I at last catch up to the time in IB. To be more specific, it is July 21 when Risa Tsukiori, the heroine of IB, falls into a coma (this incident is mentioned in Volume 22, Sun God of Absolute Flame), and it is a week later, on July 27, that the dark cloud is generated in the Accelerated World. But I was unable to take care of the Tezcatlipoca threads by that time…I sincerely apologize to anyone who was anticipating Risa’s appearance. The time line of the main story looks like it will be about a week (probably) off from that of IB. Well, with this and that, the OVA main story and the bonus stories (“Leap to Infinity” and “Return to Eternity”) have already diverged a fair bit from the main story, so I suppose it’s a bit late to be on about this now. I do intend to have Risa and Nyx join in the climax of the story, so please wait a little longer!

And now I’ve come to the end of another two-page spread, so I’ll write another two pages.

This year is the thirteenth year since Dengeki began to publish Accel World (the fifteenth if you start counting from the “Transcendent Accelerated Burst Linker” serialized online), and I’ve come to feel that my expectations for changes in social structures and scientific and technological advances largely missed the mark. (lol) Meanwhile, the age of majority will be lowered in April of this year (2022) from twenty to eighteen, and I’m forced to consider a number of things about this, the reason for the change supposedly to encourage the productive participation of young people in society.

To be blunt, I believe they merely wanted to increase the number of taxpayers. In Volume 6, released in 2010, there is a passage that reads, “Japan in the 2040s was on the brink of a total collapse of the nation’s social security system due to the unbounded decline in the birth rate and the rapidly aging population. …Thus, it appeared the government intended to also increase the number of young people legally allowed to work by lowering the age at which a person could obtain certifications or qualifications, typified by the driver’s license.”

When I wrote this, I thought that it likely wouldn’t actually happen, but it does appear that things are indeed heading in this direction. I am a person who has postponed engagement in the real world, doing nothing but watching anime, reading manga, and playing video games from my school days until now, and because of that, I was able to become the light novel author that I am. So it’s unfortunate that we’re shifting to a society that demands labor from young people even earlier, or rather there is something shameful about this to me as one adult. At the very least, I would like to keep doing whatever I can to bring you a story that you can enjoy just the same whether you’re in school or out working in the world.

With all that said, we come into our customary recent update section. In the afterword I wrote in July 2020 for the previous volume, I noted, “I think that everyday life won’t be going back to pre-COVID times for the time being or even ever if we blunder too badly,” and the situation as I write this now in January 2022 is such that I can’t see any exit whatsoever to this COVID pandemic. Naturally, I still haven’t been able to return to my family restaurant workplace, so I’m doing what I can to write at home and in my office. I’ve gotten somewhat used to this environment as compared with the previous volume, and if I really make the effort, I can get into fifth gear now. But it is truly irksome that there is no drink bar, and I can’t order a dessert as a treat to myself when I meet my quota! I’m sure you’re all encountering all kinds of difficulties as well, and I would be very happy if this book could replenish your energy so that you can overcome them.

Once again, my deepest gratitude to HIMA and my editors Miki and Adachi, all of whom I inconvenienced so greatly with a series of postponements. Let us meet again in the next volume.

Reki Kawahara

A day in January 2022