Mitou Shoukan://Blood-Sign-Volume 2, Afterword

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Afterword

(Postscript Open ??/?? ??:??)

And here is Volume 2.

This is Kamachi Kazuma.

The conflict of Volume 1 was centered on formless things such as faith and loyalty, so I made this volume much simpler by basing the conflict directly on people’s lives.

And in Volume 1, the main enemy was Azalea who (supposedly) belonged to Government, so Illegal was a little overlooked. That is why I focused more on them here. That meant there was no Repliglass in this one, but I think that difference in technology helps show the distinction between the three main powers. And the criminal families’ bonds of blood were different again from Azalea’s noble blood. I am praying that dividing things up between Government and Illegal like that was effective. 𝐟r𝒆ℯ𝘄𝑒𝒃𝚗𝒐𝘃e𝗹.c𝘰𝐦

So does that mean the next enemy will be from Freedom?

Ghost stories. You probably already know this if you’ve read a few of my books, but I like them. Still, there’s one odd thing about them. Well, it isn’t surprising that a ghost story is unreasonable, but why do those stories tend to turn the victim into a monster and not the murderer? I’ve always found that weird, so while following a ghost story here, I also tried to make it a story about not simply treating a ghost like a monster.

It of course depends on the genre, but no matter what happens along the way, I want to write a protagonist that ultimately decides they want to save the ghost rather than fearing it.

And was this the first clear school life part of this series?

I had fun writing that while thinking how a summoner would live his school life when people forget about him the second they take their eyes off of him.

Classmate, homeroom teacher, librarian, and student council president. …School characters tend to directly take their overall image from their “role”, don’t they? You need to put some distance between them and the role before fleshing them out.

But “I don’t want this to end as just a normal school story!!”, so I had them utterly destroy their school in just the one volume. That was a pretty big adventure as the one writing the story. I’ve written a few different series now, but I think this was my first time having the protagonist turn their school (a symbol of peace) into a pile of rubble.

Shiroyama Kyousuke smashed windows at his school at night while using cheap methods to save a girl who could not be saved. I think I’ve had him acting with more reckless abandon than in Volume 1, but what did you think?

For the Summoning Ceremony, I used the rose symbol and sigil from a certain magic cabal, but for the actual actions, I was using the extremely intuitive image that it would be fun to compete at bouncing a whole bunch of balls around a school or hospital. The Incense Grenade was added in for the intuitive image of wanting to walk on the walls or ceiling and wanting to fly through the sky. …Of course, it’s really just the work I put in so I could avoid just having the summoners stand there doing nothing throughout the fight.

I went a step further this time and had the summoners themselves thrown like projectiles to further emphasize that intuitive sort of action. Did it seem more like a two-on-two fight?

I just hope you thought it sounded like a fun amusement park attraction even if you didn’t quite understand it.

This was Volume 2 of Shiroyama Kyousuke going on a rampage, but I personally think the most frightening part of him is the ending when he said, “I would do whatever it took to take responsibility for every last thing my decision had changed.”

I think that one line created a definite difference from my other series’ protagonists who more optimistically say they just need a 1% chance of success if there’s a girl they can save.

At first glance, Kyousuke seems to stand on the “guardian” side, but if the system won’t save the person suffering before his eyes, he won’t hesitate to destroy that system even if it’s supporting seven billion people. He holds the “danger” of possibly reaching for that.

And he plans to make it all work whether he succeeds or fails, so he shows hints of being a monster himself as he faces the White Queen. …There’s room for discussing which one is dragging the other around. 𝘧𝑟𝘦𝒆w𝚎𝙗nov𝘦𝗹.𝐜o𝓶

The special summoning this time used the “End of the World” theme from Urashima Tarou or Kaguya-hime. Unlike Kaguya-hime who came “here”, it might be wrong to think of Urashima Tarou as a “summoning” since he went “there”, but as the White Queen said in the novel, who gets to decide which side is “here” and which side is “there”? From that perspective, I think it is a form a summoning.

Due to the idea of moving freely between this world and the other world, that type of summoning commonly involves resurrection, immortality, and invincibility. (There are also stories of one’s death or lifespan returning after breaking the rules.) If you have the time, it might be fun to look into all that.

And while Volume 1 included a ton of top-rank Divine and Unexplored-class Materials, I had all the fights this time stick to the Regulation-class except for the Leviathan at the beginning. That was due to the enemy using obstruction tactics, but while the previous volume was about worshiping the strongest, I was focusing more on the basics of summoners this time. That is, they were choosing the best Materials for their objective and even the gods are just a rite of passage needed to reach even greater heights. Guard of Honor and an assassin use the paranormal in very different ways.

…Also, I felt the power creep would quickly get out of hand if I didn’t do this.

I give my thanks to my illustrator Ikawa Waki-san and my editors Miki-san, Onodera-san, and Anan-san. I think the Rainy Girl had to be the hardest part this time. She had to actually be her secret true identity and yet it couldn’t be too obvious at first glance, so she couldn’t have been easy to design. I am truly grateful.

It took place at school, he fought alongside a classmate, and a human life was on the line. I wanted to return to the starting point while also adding in some twisted elements I hadn’t used before, but what did you think? But setting aside the trickier parts, I hope you at least felt your blood pumping at the “This has to be what everyone really wanted to do!!” part.

And I will end this here.

It’s important to maintain that line where the White Queen is dere yet isn’t kind.

-Kamachi Kazuma