Majo no Tabitabi - Volume 3 - Chapter Aft

Afterword

Long time no see. I’m Jougi Shiraishi.

Time passes quickly, and before I knew it, two years had gone by since I first self-published The Journey of Elaina. At the outset, I myself didn’t have the slightest idea it would get published commercially, yet here I am writing this afterword two years later. Life truly is a mysterious thing.

So that was The Journey of Elaina, Volume 3.

This time around, I snuck in an explanation of the title, Elaina got a haircut, and all kinds of other things happened. Most importantly, I think I originally said in the Afterword to Volume 1 something like, “There’s no deeper meaning to the title, and such a word doesn’t exist,” but…that was probably a version of me from another world who wrote that. I would be much obliged if you would allow me to explain it away in such a lazy way.

When I wrote Volume 2, I was feeling hopeless, like, “Ah! I want to write dark stories!” so I only sent the editor dark, depressing stories, and that book turned out pretty heavy overall. I regret that. That’s why this time around, I decided to make this book basically all lighthearted stories (though I’m not saying there aren’t some dark ones).

I’ve got several lines left before the thank-yous, so I’d like to get deep and talk about my memories of The Journey of Elaina for about four more lines.

It was about five years ago when I first thought up Elaina’s character. At that time, as I recall, I feel like I established her as just some cute girl who flew in from a parallel universe or something, but after letting the character sit for about three years, she turned into a traveler with lots of toxic baggage. I started to feel like, What’s the deal with this parallel universe stuff? Storytelling truly is a mysterious thing.

With that, I’ve used up my extra lines, so on to the Acknowledgments.

Azure.

Thank you as always for your adorable illustrations. At this point, you’ve drawn all sorts of characters and various aspects of Elaina, but personally, I really like Elaina with short hair. When you showed me the cover of Volume 3 for the first time, she was so cute, I wondered, Oh, is this an angel? Truly, thank you.

M, the editor.

Thank you very much for not tossing me aside when I wanted to write dark stories right away and for digging deep into the story until the manuscript for Volume 3 was completed at last. This is off topic, but I hear that M’s daughter is reading The Journey of Elaina, and that is this year’s biggest news.

Finally, all of you readers.

The fact that I’ve made it as far as Volume 3 is wholly due to the support of you readers. Thank you very much. It’s an honor to think the characters I wrote in The Journey of Elaina are so beloved.

Since I assembled fourteen chapters into this one volume, the story has grown to a total of forty-two chapters, and the page count is not insignificant, either. Despite that, you’ve all come along with me this far, and I truly have nothing but gratitude for that.

Now—

I’m going to talk with the assumption that you have read the preceding fourteen chapters of Volume 3.

I think that anyone who has read through to the end might have guessed certain things already, and largely in accordance with your suspicions, The Journey of Elaina, which I have been so humbly allowed to write for GA Novels, will be coming to an end for now.

At the same time, I will be starting a new series.

I want to tell a story that will appeal to those of you who took a liking to Elaina in this series, though. That is, I want to write a sequel to this world. Also, I think that Caliostro from Granblue Fantasy is cute.

After discussing the matter with M, the editor, and then a plot meeting with other editors, the end result is that I’m going to pen a different work set in the same world as The Journey of Elaina as a new series for GA Novels. It seems like it will be a story where two protagonists stay in one country and solve various mysteries that happen there. (That’s the plan.)

It will be published in a paperback edition this time, so there will be no difficulty finding places that sell it. Also, the price is going to be about half as much as Elaina (sales promotion). Now, I said it was going to be a different work set in the same world, but in actuality, it will be more like a sequel to The Journey of Elaina (blatant sales promotion). As a matter of course, Elaina will make an appearance—or more like, she will play an active part as one of the main characters, complete with her usual sarcastic yet polite way of speaking (extremely blatant sales promotion). Also, as far as the illustrations go, it sounds like Azure will remain in charge of them (yay!).

As for the release date…it’ll probably be around the spring of 2017…maybe (wishful thinking).

Something like that.

So there you have it, The Journey of Elaina is going to end for now, but I’ll see you in the next series!