Rokujouma no Shinryakusha!?

Long time no see everybody, it"s the author, Takehaya.

This time I deliver you volume 13. A story regarding Theia"s homeland of Forthorthe takes place. On top of that, the secret as to why that person is so strong is revealed.

Thanks to everyone"s support, I have been able to release 15 volumes of this series. Could this be the longest series with HJ Bunko?[1] When I imagine 15 volumes lined up on everyone"s bookshelf, I feel moved and feel the urge to live up to your expectations. I hope to continue writing volumes that won"t let down my fans.

As of late, I"ve been getting fan letters through the mail more often. There was even someone who sent me some snacks. Thank you very much everyone. In some of the letters were some questions for me, so I would like to borrow this s.p.a.ce to answer some.

First off is "Do you do something when you"re thinking about the composition of the story?". While I memo down things I come up with, I think the most important thing before writing a volume is to think about how I want the series as a whole to end. Starting writing before everything is set could cause problems later on. For example, I can"t have the main character treasure life if I have him killing a bunch of enemies. In order to do that, I need to make the main character avoid wanting to take lives, or make it seem like a difficult choice beforehand. Stuff like that can happen with anything, so I believe it"s a good thing to be careful.

Next is "Are there any tricks to naming a character?". When naming a character, I first try to make sure that names are not too similar. When publishing multiple works, it"s important that names don"t clash there either. In fact, I had trouble making sure that the names of a work I published the other day, "Kaze to Lute no Shirabe ni Nosete", didn"t clash. The other thing is to make sure that is easy to read. A complex name would distract the reader. A simple example is my pen name, Takehaya. This is a trick to make those I deal business with to remember my name, but in a work, if a reader can"t distinguish a name then that will derail the story. That"s why I believe it is wise to avoid using complex names.

Lastly is "Can you be an author while doing something else?". Apart from the rare debut work being a major success, most authors start out while having a different job. A newly debuted author can"t live on their writing alone. It"s not until they become popular that they can gradually shift to writing more and more.

That is all the s.p.a.ce I have for this afterword. I would like to give my thanks to Poco-san for drawing the cute ill.u.s.trations, to everyone in the editorial department for their hard work and too everyone who bought this book.

Then, let us meet again in the afterword for volume 14.

March, 2013 Takehaya