Majo no Tabitabi - Volume 5 - Chapter Aft

Afterword

Hello. It’s been a while.

I recently started playing Fate/Grand Order, and I’m around Level 70. I have zero friends. My name is Jougi Shiraishi, a man who’s lost himself in the solo play mode of a mobile game as Kirito. Very nice to make your acquaintance.

One way or another, we’ve already come to the fifth volume of the Wandering Witch series. When I first started writing it, I never imagined it would be so long. But I did want to write at least five volumes, so I’m really glad that I made it this far.

I’ve been allowed five pages for the afterword again, so I’ll postpone my rambling a bit and start off with my comments on each chapter.

Chapter 1: A Certain Witch’s Stories

The prologue. I don’t really have anything else to say about it. It’s just the prologue.

Come to think of it, I didn’t write anything that matches the illustration on the cover. Crap!

Chapter 2: Castle Town Fresia: Gardenia’s Carrier Pigeons

I wanted to write a story featuring carrier pigeons. This chapter came to being when I indulged in that desire.

When you do nothing but work, it really starts to affect the way you think, and I realized it’s rather important to take a bit of a breather once in a while.

Chapter 3: Castle Town Fresia: Plumeria in a Cage

A long time ago, in a commercial or something, the husband of Kazue Fukiishi, a certain musician-turned-actress, said, “Is it far away because it’s so beautiful? Or is it beautiful because it’s so far away?” That phrase really stuck with me.

Even if you could gaze on a beautiful city from atop a distant tower or gaze up at that far-off spire, you would never reach mutual understanding. By the way, how do you figure I should go about acquiring a handsome voice, à la Mr. Fukuyama?

Chapter 4: Two Teachers

A story from Miss Fran’s past, which I hadn’t written about at all. I’m sure there are some people who were able to guess, based on their witch names, but it turns out Fran and Sheila were classmates. My initial plan was to debut Sheila in Volume 2, then reveal their past in Volume 3…but…I got sidetracked…

Chapter 5: Cute Makes Right

This is a reworked version of a special edition bonus story that I wrote to be a store exclusive packaged with Volume 2. I think that including this story means that all of the special edition bonus stories I’ve written up to this point have made it into the books.

Chapter 6: A Honeymoon and the Lily Flowers of Happiness

I got a report from my editor right after Volume 4 was published, telling me that we had gotten mail saying that readers wanted to see the continuation of Amnesia’s and Avelia’s travels. I had been occasionally getting similar reactions on Twitter as well. And in my in-box. I had already been planning to write more about them, but your feedback fueled me to write this chapter. I also casually reintroduced a certain married couple whom you might recognize.

Chapter 7: The Yellow Flower of Happiness

This one is a revision of a story that I wrote around the time of Volume 2 or 3. It was rejected at the time. Those two volumes were a little too involved, so it had been hard to squeeze this one in… Just your typical story, you know…

Chapter 8: A Certain Girl’s Predictions

I turned the story of the boy who cried wolf over in my mind and granted the main character the ability to see the future, and the result was this sort of story. I think seeing the future and stuff might be really useful to cheat in battle, but it would actually hold you back if you’re trying to get through everyday life. If you knew all that was going to happen, life would be so boring.

This is tangential, but when I hear the name Anemone, the “Ballet Mécanique” episode of Eureka Seven flickers into my mind. It’s a problem. I know.

Chapter 9: Two Pupils

A reunion with Saya and the debut of her little sister. Since Elaina has been inspired by a book with five volumes, I wanted to dive deeper into it in the fifth volume of this series.

I feel like Saya has a screw loose, so her little sister would naturally have some loose, too. I considered whether I should write a serious story, but I figured the brutal atmosphere of this story was tasteless enough, and this was the result.

In this volume, I used flower names for the names of characters and countries. Not because these stories all had to do with flowers or anything, but simply because it felt kind of fancy. I did consider creating characters that corresponded with their floral meanings, but I realized they would all be a bunch of lovesick dummies, so I gave that up really quick. Plus, it would be hard to explain, so I chose not to pay much attention to the meanings themselves.

However, I did make the characters’ hair colors match their flowers. Purple irises and pink plumeria and red anemones do all exist. By the way, you might be thinking, Huh? There’s no such thing as a green gardenia, you idiot, but gardenia have green leaves. So hush, and leave it at that. Green stems are an acceptable interpretation, too.

…After I decided to match the hair to flower colors, I found my color choices were narrower than expected, and I had a hard time.

While I was writing this afterword, I did a little Googling and discovered the astonishing fact that there is a rose known as Amnesia, and it means “memory loss.” What a coincidence!

At any rate, that’s the fifth volume.

Perhaps because I’ve purged myself of the darkness in my heart that I was harboring around the time I was writing Volume 2, I think this is a very upbeat volume. Maybe because past stories and characters made new appearances.

Even if The Adventures of Niche was five volumes in total, I’d like to continue Wandering Witch. I feel as if I sound like a broken record, but I wish I could write these stories forever.

All of this is to say that I’d like to continue writing these stories, so please keep reading!

All right, on to the acknowledgments.

Azure.

Thank you for your adorable illustrations. While I was taking a break from work, I got your rough sketch for the cover from my editor, and it was too cute. I imagine I made a strange squeal when I saw it. Also, thank you for the limited-edition covers! Now we’re doing limited-edition reprints, and I’ve been allowed to see the covers for Volumes 1 through 5. They’re way too cute, and I let out another weird noise when I saw them. To tell you the truth, I almost always make strange sounds when I receive the illustrations.

My editor, M.

Thank you for your revisions and jokes at my expense. Also, my sincerest apologies for my constant emotional instability. It would make me very happy if we could continue to work together for many years to come. I’m going off on a tangent here, and I know I’m always tweeting…but only when I’m taking a break…or doing something other than writing…! Whenever I’m home, I promise I’m clutching my head in front of my computer… I swear…

To everyone else involved, thank you very much. I hope we can continue working together.

To everyone who has kindly read this far, I’ll see you in the next volume, if there is one!

See ya!