Welcome to the Volume Three Checkpoint! This is Stella Procella! ☆

I'd like to start by thanking you for making it all the way here. If you've been following the story as it updated periodically, I fully acknowledge it was really difficult to keep up with this volume properly.

For one, it took a little over two years for the volume to be complete, and on the other hand, this volume introduces a really high amount of new concepts and elements, so I can see how it could be a challenge to keep that fresh in your mind as you progress. That's why I'm really thankful that you kept your interest in the story despite those gaps, enough to make it all the way here.

And if you got here by reading everything in one go, I hope you had fun!

While volume one was more of an introductory volume to help set up the setting and characters, volume two was the first Wish focused volume, and this one was the first Faith focused one!

In many ways, this volume had a very different tone from the previous one. While Wish is usually surrounded by people who end up getting involved with an incident by accident and come together to survive, it may feel like a lot of characters surrounding Faith tend to have ulterior motives. Between Claudia, Caroline, X, May, and of course, Viktor, it creates a tense environment where it becomes difficult to tell who you should trust.

Even though this was Faith's volume, as expected, Mirage also took some of the spotlight. I think when you have such a pure-hearted, protagonist-like character, that is bound to happen. That said, I wanted to make sure Caroline would stand out as well. Up till now she's been around as Faith's assistant, but I wanted to delve deeper into who she is as a person, as well as how important she actually is for the overall story.

At first, I was planning on keeping her situation about the multiple loops she has lived through a secret for a little longer, but I felt like bringing it to light was necessary in order to further add weight to her feelings and where she stood when faced against Celeste and the Error Spot. While unexpected twists can always be fun, I like to think that stronger character development can be more valuable than saving something for shock value for no reason.

When it comes to Caroline, I feel like you can write an entirely different kind of story simply by changing the point of view to hers. While I'm aware I could have focused on that, the reason all of her loops didn't happen on-screen is because while it's an important foundation to the story, it's not the story's main core. Maybe one day I could write a few side-story volumes focusing on her though, I think there's a lot of potential there!

Of course, there are still a lot of mysteries surrounding Caroline. This volume itself also left some extra hints here and there that may reveal more than what you see at face value. I am aware it might not be for everyone, but I personally enjoy series where you can analyze a lot of little things, and discover more secrets by putting the dots together. I guess I've always enjoyed incorporating those kinds of techniques into my writing, and while things like that were present from the start, this volume was probably a little heavier on that aspect. If you ever decide to re-read it, or the story as a whole, and if you enjoy this kind of writing, I hope you have fun putting clues together, and figuring out more secrets that haven't been explicitly shown otherwise.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Without a doubt, you could say that Celeste was the core of this volume. I was worried that I was overdoing it a little with the flashbacks, but I believe this was an important element to both understand who Celeste is as a person better, as well as to help introduce the Artificial Heaven, even though in the end, all her conflicting memories were real, and there was no heaven for her. I wonder what happened to Alice after that.

Now, about the Error Spot and about what happened to Mirage. Unlike the events in the previous volume, I wanted to make it explicitly clear just how dangerous it is for an Error Spot to materialize. Above all, I wanted to drive home the fact that if one of these were to appear, getting rid of it doesn't come without consequences. In the end, Mirage lost her ability to love, which is only fitting with the theme of love being so prevalent in this volume. Then again, it's not the first time someone has lost part of themselves like this, in fact, something similar has already been shown several times before, and well, I guess that's enough hints to connect more dots!

When it came to Faith's final confrontation with Celeste, even though the world was falling apart and some of the worst supernatural phenomena was taking place, none of that was important. It all came down to the broken heart of a lonely girl. This story likes to delve a lot into the foundation of the world, and the truth of reality, but despite all that, one's feelings and thoughts may be what matter the most in the end. In a way, that's also what this story is all about.

I hope you enjoyed getting to know more about Celeste, and I hope you look forward to seeing what path her life may take in the future. The epilogue was a little more relaxed, and a lot of characters that don't usually interact got to interact. Velvet Objects, Artificial Heaven, the truth of the Organization of Hope, all these concepts will be widely unique to Faith's storyline. The more Wish and Faith's stories split apart into their own adventures, the less some of these characters may be able to interact this way, so I hope you look forward to when more moments like these can happen.

That said, the next volume may be a little closer to what the epilogue was, and a little less action packed, but I feel like taking some time to breathe and further explore the City of Light is also important. After all, once we step into the next stage, it may not be possible to slow down anymore.

Once again, thank you for reading my work! I'd also like to thank Esttea for the illustrations you saw throughout the story. We will keep doing our best to bring more scenes to life, and we will also be working on upgrading everyone's character designs, so I hope you look forward to it! If you had any favorite moment this volume, or if there is any character that stands out to you, or that you may like, please let me know!

See you in the next volume!

- Stella Procella