Majo no Tabitabi - Volume 6 - Chapter Aft

Afterword

On a certain day in 2017:

“Heh-heh-heh… Journey of Elaina, Volume 5 should start circulating any day now… Huh? What’s this? There are a whole lot of Twitter posts about buying it this time around…? Huh? Whaaat? I can’t keep up at all… What on earth is going on here…? The signed copies sold out right away…? Huh? What…in the world…?”

“Jougi.”

“Editor! What’s going on here…?”

“It looks like the initial response to Volume Five was quite good.”

“You can say that agaaaaaain! Whooo-hooooooooo!”

“We’re doing a second printing.”

“Even though it’s only been a week since it went on saaale? Five volumes, and this is the first one that got an instant second printing? All riiiiiiiiiiiight!”

“There’s also talk of a drama CD and possibly a manga.”

“Seriouslyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?!”

“You’re awfully loud.”

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh!!”

“Shut up.”

“…Okay.”

Hello everyone, it’s been a while. Or maybe this is our first meeting. I’m Jougi Shiraishi.

All sorts of things have happened recently. Honestly, it’s been a lot to take in. But even as prone to absentmindedness as I am, I managed to finish Volume 6. Ever since Volume 5 went on sale…or rather, around the time it started really selling…there were all sorts of developments. Elaina was featured in the GA Novels Big Three Heroine Fair for books already in publication, and I was thrilled to hear discussions about turning the series into a comic and a drama CD. Up until now, I was troubled, and troubled, and troubled some more. Sometimes I could hardly write because I was so worried, and other times I would steep myself in sentimentalism, and I often suffered from a terrible fear that I would be canceled right then and there. But at last, I feel as if my flower has bloomed. Hooray for that.

I have every intention of continuing to work hard into 2018 as well. I will have made it through one of my unlucky years, too! Though nothing really unlucky happened anyway.

All right then, before getting down to business, I’d like to give my commentary on each of the chapters in Journey of Elaina, Volume 6.

There are tons of spoilers coming up, so if those of you who like to read the afterword first would kindly skip the next three pages or so, that would be great.

Chapter 1: Broom Racing

I was thinking about the kinds of sports that mages might play and hit on the idea of a broom race. But then I decided that writing out “broom racing” every time would shoot my word count straight through the roof, so I came up with the abbreviation “BR.”

Volume 5 ended with a certain finality, so I wrote this story as a kind of new start for Volume 6.

Chapter 2: A Thief and His Mother

A decisive battle against a son in his rebellious phase, and his doting mother. The maternal character was the main focus of this story, so the whole story turned out to have a soft and fluffy ending. I thought it might be nice to have at least one story that was happy from beginning to end, since Volume 6 also has some brutal chapters.

Chapter 3: An Honest Politician

This happened a long time ago, so I only remember it vaguely, but when I was still young, there was a special program broadcast on TV that insisted on the following theory.

It proposed that John F. Kennedy was in fact a very timid man, and it was actually his wife Jacqueline who got him elected president and who ran the country behind the scenes…

Apparently, it was his wife’s idea that he would only wear black suits so that he’d look good on the black-and-white television of the era. That was only one of the many ideas that led to his presidency, and they were all worked out by his wife.

Now that I’m an adult, something about that intrigues me, so I looked into it. But unfortunately, I couldn’t come up with any definitive proof. Still, I always wanted to write a story based on the relationship between Jacqueline and John Kennedy that existed in my imagination, so I finally made that come true. But the number one thing I wanted to convey with this story was the idea that being unknown is no different than not existing. Bearing that in mind always, I sincerely hope I can write stories that live on in people’s hearts.

Chapter 4: The Story of a Disease, a Witch, and a Broom

We all get weak when we catch a cold, right? I understand. But when I reread my finished manuscript, I thought, “Who is this girl…?” Personally, I’m really pleased with the scenes where the broom picks the locks on the doors. I was trying to avoid using any existing characters in Volume 6, but the broom is Elaina’s constant travel companion, so by that fuzzy logic, I included the broom in Volume 6 after all. I think she’ll continue to appear regularly from now on, as well.

Chapter 5: The Cursed Servant

I’ve heard about a rather dangerous gem called the Hope Diamond, which, when I looked into it further, seems to have somehow brought about the deaths of each of its owners, and, as a result, is a legendary cursed gem that has moved around from place to place. That’s all superstition, of course, and I don’t really believe that any of it is true, but I found the idea of a cursed object that brought about its owner’s death to be incredibly interesting, and started thinking about how it would go if the object was personified. The result was this story, in which the “object” is cursed to be passed from one owner to the next and ultimately realizes that she is poisonous to the touch. Also, as I was finishing writing the manuscript for this story, a certain drama about a deadly kiss was airing and making a big splash.

Chapter 6: Elaina as a Child Witch

The actual idea to turn Elaina into a child is something I had been idly considering for quite some time. But before I could write it down, Wandering Witch went on hiatus, and I’ve Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level, published by the same label, used the same conceit, so I thought, “Uh-oh, this one’s just gonna get rejected, isn’t it?!” and shelved the idea for a long time. But as I was writing out the draft for Volume 6, I received a revelation. “Jougi…right now I am transmitting my words directly into your brain…you must write the child transformation story…” So I ended up writing it after all.

The character design for little Elaina is so adorable. I personally believe that it is cute enough to eliminate war from this world.

Chapter 7: To Know a Woman’s Heart

A succubus is a standard sex demon from the fantasy genre, but I wondered if a male demon would have a hard time with a similar way of life and turned the idea over in my head. By the way, I’ve always wondered: A sex demon’s main job is to bring people erotic dreams. But that doesn’t require them to have a particularly erotic appearance, now does it?

Chapter 8: Seven Days of Ariadne

When I struck on the idea to write this chapter, the first thing that gave me trouble was the question of how to handle chronological order. It seemed like if I told the story in order from the beginning, it would put me in the awkward situation of having to write an awful lot before the girls even started going to school. After being lost for a very long time, I decided to get rid of the problem by breaking chronological order a little bit and shifting around the beginning and end. I have always wanted to write a story in which Elaina goes to school, but I had yet to be blessed with the opportunity, so ultimately I decided to make it the last chapter of Volume 6.

I digress, but when I received the three rough sketches of Elaina in her student uniform, they were all too cute, and I cried to myself, thinking, “How can they tell me to choose just one from these?! I can’t choose!” Ah, the life I lead…

That’s it for my comments on each chapter.

Volume 5 had a lot of cheerful stories—actually, it was mostly cheerful stories—so this time around I wanted to write a book that had plenty of variety. I personally like stories with a girl’s love component, but I also like hard-boiled stories, and of course comedy stories, and deeply moving plots as well. I’m very attached to Journey of Elaina, a series for which I can write all those kinds of stories, and I want to keep writing these books for a long time. I’m so glad that I could put out another volume…

This time there were very few appearances by established characters, but from the next volume on, I think I’d like to have them each appear again as guest characters in the longer sections.

The series has also grown quite lengthy, and before I knew it, we had reached Volume 6. Next is Volume 7. I’ll do my best so that it can keep going even longer.

This is a pretty rough segue, but around the end of 2017, I exercised a little for the first time in a while, and that was enough to injure my back and nearly kill me, so I want to make 2018 the year when I do a moderate amount of exercise. Seriously, though… Since I’m usually doing a job that doesn’t require a lot of moving, my physical strength is, well…it’s decreased, you know… Also, I purchased a Suica IC card quite a while ago, but thanks to buying a smartphone, I no longer have to tap the card at the train gate. I just touch my phone to the sensor and can pass right through the gate easily! The advancement of technology is amaaazing! It turned my Suica card into an ordinary piece of plastic! Though from the very start, the closest station to me has never been compatible with Suica, so it was just an ordinary piece of plastic all along! Ha-ha-ha-ha!

Well then, as always, I’d like to give some acknowledgments.

To Azure:

Thank you yet again for your adorable illustrations. My sincere apologies for leaving the design of so many characters up to you time after time… But they are the absolute cutest, so I hope I can rely on you for many years to come. Also, Elaina in her school uniform is too cute. Utterly sublime. Little Elaina is also cute. And Ariadne, the guest character for this volume, is cute and I love her. I always just go on about how cute the drawings are, huh…?

To the editor, M:

Thank you, as always. I felt so warm and fuzzy when you sent me the fan drawing of Elaina that your child put so much work into. I was really happy. Actually, I only just upgraded to a smartphone, and I didn’t transfer my address book, so I had a major panic while I was working, like, “Wh-who is this?! M-m-m-my personal information has leaked out! Oh no!” But the happiness I felt was real. My panic was also real.

To everyone else involved:

Everyone in operations at SB Creative, everyone in the editorial department, all the bookstore employees, and everyone in the printing office. Everyone who was involved with this publication at all. Truly, thank you very much. Three years have passed quickly since my debut, but honestly, as the volumes pile up, I realize that light novels as a medium are able to come to publication because they are supported by many people… I thank you for your continuing support.

To all my readers:

Please continue to read Journey of Elaina!

A drama CD is coming out, to be packaged with Volume 8 when it goes on sale in November (Japanese pub date), so definitely check that out!

This afterword ended up getting long, but I’ll wrap it up here, for I want to get back to my manuscripts. Let’s meet again in Volume 7. See ya!