First of all, thank you to those who have been keeping up with the story so far. It’s been a long journey. I mean this is the end of volume 10! Ten books. That’s a lot in my mind. With that out of the way, I am going to admit something. I dragged the story a bit in this volume because there were several factors I had a really hard time making final decisions of.
The first aspect was who would survive from Duman’s group. Not everyone was going to make it out alive. I knew from the very beginning that Amanda wouldn’t make it. I have no clear reason as to why she was chosen from the getgo that she’d die. Anyway, that left Duman, Meizei, Ayaan, and Roseline. Out of those four, only one or two were going to survive, and I had a real hard time deciding who. In the end, Duman and Roseline survived. The original plan was that Faro would see Amanda getting sliced in half and would go berserk, but we all know that it didn’t happen. Ayaan was sliced in half instead. It’s just weird that my story doesn’t always go the way I planned. Amanda’s death was going to help Faro to grow up. Instead, it was Roseline who was impacted by her death the most. Oh, well.
The second aspect was Faro’s survival. Do I kill him off or let him live? That had been a lingering question in my head for the majority of volume 10. My original plan was to have him witness Amanda’s death and him going berserk, resulting in his likely demise due to attacking the dragon recklessly. What actually happened was far from what I envisioned originally. In the end, he lost his left arm but got his knee back. Not sure whether that was a good trade off but he won’t be limping anymore, plus the hero status. More importantly, Kamil will have a valid reason to give him money and support him. (Nepotism, I know.)
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The final aspect was what Kamil was going to lose during the battle with the dragon of the North. I knew that he had to lose something because he was going to steamroll the dragon. The reason I refused to let him have water and earth magic until the end of the volume was due to the dragon’s primary elementals being fire and wind. I wanted Kamil to completely shut down the dragon which resulted in it using death magic, thus taking something away from him.
Okay, I lied; there are two more things to mention. One, volume 11 will likely be the final volume. Two, there will be a dedicated side story after volume 11 with Duman as the main character. After becoming very disheartened with the death of comrades, he will set off as an explorer with the fat lady, and you will watch how the world changes and recovers through his eyes. The main cast for this side story will be Duman, Roseline, and possibly Faro (plus his girlfriend - not sure yet). It will be fairly short, two volumes max. I haven’t decided on the title, but it will be something like “Lawful Misdeeds - After Story“
The release speed of chapters will be slower for volume 11 as I try to plug plot holes and wrap up the story. Finally (for real), the cover for volume 11 is up.
Thank you.