Saijaku Muhai no Bahamut - Volume 20 - Chapter Aft

Afterword 

Although the number of commercial works throughout the world is as many as the number of stars, how many of them are a tale that was written from start to end in a way that one can consent with? 

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Akatsuki was thinking about such thing while the end of this series was approaching. 

Thank you very much for accompanying this long series that had spanned seven years until the very end. 

It’s an obvious fact for the one writing but, the thing called light novel isn’t something that can be made alone. 

No matter which work, since the beginning of the series it is something that is created by the group work of a lot of people to a greater or lesser extent. 

This series fortunately continued for long. When luck was on its side, the longer it went on, the number and range of people involved with it increased and widened. 

The editor, the illustrator, the proofreader, the designer, the seller, the people of the printing office, the people of the bookstores, the mangakas of the manga, the anime director, the scriptwriter, the sound director, the voice actors, the game company, the people of the publisher who took care of me for the signing event in Taiwan??and there are still a lot more people that I don’t have enough space here to mention. 

I who was simply writing this work laboriously in my home alone at first ended up making a lot of people worked for the sake of this series. 

But, even that work had come to its end before I realized it. 

The time for change, for parting has come due to various circumstances. 

When I pondered how should I conclude the series’ last volume with the afterword, I suddenly thought. 

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A total of seven years. The one who was involved with this work from start to finish, is none other than I myself and the laptop that I bought when I first debuted and used for ten years until now isn’t it? 

Are there really just two creators who are involved fully with this series that remained in the end? 

It made me felt uncharacteristically lonesome. 

But I immediately noticed that it was a mistake. 

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I haven’t finished with that part but, let’s take a break for a moment from that and continued with my miscellaneous impressions about the characters from before. 

The remaining characters are Lisha, Krulcifer, and the Triad. 

First from Krulcifer! 

Perhaps she is the most popular character including at the anime too. No accurate statistic has been taken, but she is a character that makes you feel like that. 

Actually she isn’t a character I created with too much calculation. I have liked cool character from the start, but I wanted to see that kind of girl expressing her emotion and love, so it became like that at the second volume. It was my favorite scene when it got adapted in the media mix too. 

Lisha-sama! 

In a story where a lot of heroines are showing up, I think that the main heroine is the most difficult position. Even though she is a princess, how did she end up with the mechanic attribute? 

To be frank, it was because there were too many heroines making appearance at the planning stage. 

Let me rephrase it because it’s not explaining enough. In a story a heroine doesn’t only need personality and position in the story, they also need to be assigned with ?performance role?. 

This series has the concept of multiple heroines from the beginning. There was no childhood friend and little sister character at the planning stage and the editor at that time told me to add them, so it made me didn’t want to purposefully create character with the position of ?mechanic? which is essential for mecha battle. 

It’s obvious from the example of Airi who has the explainer role, but if someone isn’t given such role, they will lack depth. The depiction of each character will be weak and the story will collapse. 

And so, as a last resort, I thought that perhaps it will be fine for Lisha to have that role from my personal thinking and also for having a role to closely support Lux until the end. 

And then the Triad. These three are characters who were created due to pressing need. 

If all the characters are only using Divine Drag-Ride, it won’t be clear what are their differences from normal Drag-Rides, and it would also feel strange if all the mob students are nameless, so the Triad are needed as ?the symbol of the normal students?. 

But, their individuality thickened as the story progressed and I gradually grew to like them. 

As I thought, I totally like all the heroines. I love them all. 

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For the last, to the editor and illustrator Murakami Yuichi-sama who has taken part in this long last job. 

And then to all the readers who has shared this long seven years with me and my laptop, I express my heartfelt gratitude to everyone. 

I pray that we can meet again someday somewhere. 

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A certain day at April 2020   Akatsuki Senri