Sorcery Hacker:Volume2 Afterword
Afterword[edit]
This is Kamachi Kazuma.
That was Volume 2 of Sorcery Hacker. For this one, I focused on Teleria’s secret and set the story at the Mermaid island she calls home. I hope that gave it a different feel than the urban sky city.
Are swimsuits allowed in a fantasy world?
I think that is a gray zone, much like plumbing and modern word usage, but since I chose to make the heroine an ocean-based Mermaid instead of an Echidna, I knew I had to make it a world where swimsuits existed, be they made of shells or cloth! I also had the Academy Towers students wear blue blazer uniforms, so I decided it would be weird to allow that but not allow swimsuits. If I was going to take one step in that direction, I might as well go full throttle, right? In Volume 2, I think I managed to figure out Teleria, Mamilis, and Henrietta’s respective roles.
When introducing a new setting, I want to use it as much as possible, so I used the prologue’s ocean railroad for the final trick. …Although I did end up never using the mountain where Fleurelisia normally rests. Maybe a queen’s bedroom is an off-limits sanctuary. Or should I have used the vacation theme to have them fly a paraglider from the mountain to reconnoiter Oceavita?
The Academy Towers were mentioned in Volume 1, but I gave them much more of a presence this time. In Index under another label, the conspiracies are generally run by bad adults, but I placed the spotlight on the Student Council here. Introducing a Student Council is an attractive idea for a number of reasons, but their power is hard to use in a place like Academy City since it’s a collection of multiple schools. The Academy Towers is one giant school, so I knew this was my chance to place a Student Council at the top.
I also shined some light on the Combined Royal Family weapons like Micha Angelos. I hope you enjoyed how I wrote Jennifer as a power inflation boss character. After having Demon Lord Nirvelphany show off in Volume 1 by announcing she is equivalent to Level 9999, I knew I had to leave an impact this time by instead ending the fight by bringing Jennifer down to Level 0.
Micha said she would dismember Ayato if he touched her, but what is her stance there regarding the Minotaur? Perhaps I should have included that as a comparison.
Now, I know what you might think after what I did regarding Fleurelicia’s true(?) form, but that does not mean all of the Four Lords have a humanoid form like that. For example, Fire Lord Blasthogg from Volume 1 really is only a giant dragon.
When you introduce a mother character, you’ve got to have a scene of her protecting her child, right? I tried to emphasize that in the battle against the warship.
It was also important that Ayato went alone to settle things with Jennifer after that.
He left the girls with a tear-jerking and heartwarming conclusion and then went to deal with the secret final boss on his own. I was hoping to draw out the charm of the current passionate Ayato and the colder version of himself that he becomes when the Academy Towers are involved.
Anyway, I had some trouble with my tendency to give fantasy girls names that end with “ia”. Is that a common trait of Western names or something? Sophia, Maria, Cinthia, Alicia, Elina, Jessica, Anastasia, Olivia, Claudia, Ekaterina – the list goes on. Maybe I need to be more careful when naming characters from now on. There are plenty of non “ia” names, like Alice, Jane, and Isabelle.
I give my thanks to my illustrator HIMA-san and to my editors Miki-san, Nakajima-san, Yamamoto-san, and Mitera-san. Mentioning unusual tropical vegetation is simple enough in text, but it must be a lot of work in the illustrations. Thank you so much!
And I give my thanks to the readers. How did you like Volume 2, which gave more hints about the characters’ pasts than in Volume 1? That only works because I could write another volume, which is thanks to all of your support. I am truly grateful.
And I will end this here.
I think having Micha dress up in the local attire is going to be a thing from now on.
-Kamachi Kazuma
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