Afterword
Long time no see, everyone. It’s the author, Takehaya. I have much more space for the afterword than last time and can therefore take a slower start.
Only three months have passed since the last volume, which is a comparatively fast publication, and I’m sure you can understand the reason why based on the contents. That’s right, the invaders don’t appear in this volume. Because this is more of a side story, the publishing department and I agreed that we should get things out as soon as possible.
This volume covers what Koutarou and Clan were doing when they disappeared in the previous volume. However, I couldn’t fit it all into a single volume, so this side story will get a sequel. What follows will be revealed in volume 8.5.
With some more room in the afterword this time around, I wanted to talk about some of the hardships I had while writing this volume.
The first problem was the timing. I can only write about this now, but I’ve been wondering when I should release the contents of this volume since the very first volume. If a story without most of the established characters was released before you could get used to the story and characters, it would cause a lot of confusion. That said, there was no guarantee that the series would make it this far. In the end I decided to go with what felt natural to the story, and here we are. Fortunately, thanks to the support of all you readers, the series is sailing smoothly and this risky volume was able to be safely published. So while relieved, I am also grateful for all of the support. I will continue working hard, so please continue to support me in the future.
The second problem was how to treat the time slip to the past. Is there only one true history, or does it branch off like a tournament board? If it branches off, what are the conditions for that? It was necessary to figure these things out for the sake of the story.
There is actually something that I’ve been wondering about for a while myself, and that is if it’s possible to return to the same time and place you came from once you time slip into the past. The reason I wonder is that if a person was sent back in time in a time slip, the moment that person appeared in the past, the mass of the universe would increase by a single person. The change in gravity from that would slightly alter the universe. Returning from that would then mean returning to a slightly different future. Of course, the change might be so minute that the time traveler wouldn’t ever notice it. But the point is that no matter how minute, a change is a change, and while everything might look the same, all of their friends and family would actually be different people. And if parallel universes existed, things would get even more complicated since the time traveler would still be absent from the world they came from originally. These questions can make story composition a little tricky.
So after a long amount of deliberation, I decided that parallel universes do exist, but that they can rejoin. That way as long as the change made is minor enough, history would return to normal right away. As a result, the history of the universe doesn’t look like a tournament board, but rather like knitting. In that structure, if a time traveler changed history, they could return to their own world if they tried hard enough. They would be able to see their friends and family again.
I reached this conclusion just before my head was about to explode. Thanks to that, I was able to sort this story out, but I believe I’ll come across similar philosophical problems in future works. I’m both scared and excited for that. I keep thinking about it, but story writing really is hard.
I’ve run out of room now. I felt like I had more space, but I immediately used it all up, so it’s time to bid farewell again. I’d like to thank everyone at the editorial department for their hard work; Poco-san, my illustrator; my friends that give me their advice on my ideas; and all the readers who bought this book.
Finally, I pray for all the people affected by the recent earthquake and tsunami.
March, 2011
Takehaya
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