Volume 1 - CH Afterword

When I first submitted the proposal for this series, the title was 「うつろなるレガリア」 instead of 「虚ろなるレガリア」(both read as Utsuronaru Regalia). That’s because I thought that 虚ろ was a bit difficult to read and the shortened form “虚レガ” (UtsuRega) would be hard to speak. However, after receiving criticism like “Hiragana is no good” or “Simply put, it’s lame,” the title was disapproved, resulting in its becoming what it is today. But when even I began to think that the shortened form “うつレガ” looked a bit stupid and that writing it in kanji was the right choice, an acquaintance of mine looked at the announcement of the new book and asked, “What does Kyoronaru mean?” and that’s why I’m writing this afterword feeling really perplexed.

And so, the first volume of The Hollow Regalia has arrived.

It has been a long time since I’ve released a new series after 「Strike the Blood」. If there were people looking forward to my new work, I’m sorry to have kept you waiting for so long.

Adjusting to the new world and new characters gave me quite a hard time. I had to prepare a lot of data and make an unprecedented amount of significant rewrites…… But I think the hardships were worthwhile since I’m quite pleased with how Yahiro, Iroha, and all the other characters turned out. It was a miscalculation that the main characters, who were supposed to be more stylish, turned out to be more stupid……or rather, more shameless than expected, but I think they had to be that way in order to survive in that savage world, or something.

The theme of this series is dragons and dragon slayers. Yup, now that’s fantasy. I feel like my debut work, which was published by Dengeki Bunko, was also based on dragons and dragon slayers. It’s as if I haven’t grown at all. No, that’s not it. This is, you know, what’s called returning to one’s roots.

In fact, dragons were and still are one of my favorite motifs in a fantasy story. I get excited whenever I see strong and cool dragons in novels, movies, and anime. I like both Western dragons and Eastern dragons equally. It makes me sad when I see dragons treated like weaklings in recent games, but that is not so bad. Good to fight, good to ride, and delicious to eat. That’s what dragons are. However, if I were to have dragons appear in my work, I would write them as dangerously strong and fascinating. And that’s how 「The Hollow Regalia」 was born.

Come to think of it, Japan was in a really awful state right from the beginning of this series, but naturally, that doesn’t mean I, as the author, bear any grudge towards Japan. Just think of this as the same as those ‘The earth has been destroyed’ or ‘The world has come to an end’ stuff that happens a lot in fiction. I had quite a fun going to actual places, looking at the map, and imagining battles with monsters occurring there.

To the illustrator in charge Miyuu-sama, thank you very much for the character design and illustrations that far exceeded what I had in mind. When I first saw the rough character sketches I received, I was so impressed that I let out a squeal while shaking with surprise. I look forward to working with you in the future.

I give my heartful thanks to everyone related to the production and distribution of this book.

And, of course, I give my unreserved thanks to all of you who have read this book.

I’ve already begun working on the second volume and will do my best so that it is delivered as soon as possible. And with that, I hope to see you again next volume.