Wow, we've officially made it past the halfway mark of the story! I think... Well, you never know, I might think of some more plot lines, but for now I think half way would be a good way to phrase it.
This Volume was the first one in which Nelly was the protagonist, our fourth one to be exact. She's come a really long way, from a coughing baby in a burning building to a shining pupil who's well on her way to surpass the greats! Honestly, the first draft of the Volume wasn't at all this dramatic. Well, it was supposed to be, but not in this way. Basically, the first draft was supposed to be a sort of slice of life where Nelly just meets all of Meil's friends post timeskip, but she would steadily realize that something about Meil was just off. He would constantly spend absurd amounts of money, refuse to trust people, and above all he would be secretive and scary. The climax of this story was supposed to be Nelly realizing that Meil had killed Aguilar's group after she had found the room where the System was. After that got resolved somehow, she would then find the book and find out he's the Sun God. I didn't really know how that would fit into the whole story though, so I scrapped the part about Aguilar. The pacing was just way off, so I made their entire thing remain a mystery to her, which only served to amplify Meil's trauma of one day being found out.
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Apart from that, the original draft was supposed to focus a lot on the whole love affairs of the friend group. Stuff like whether Kevin x Kiria would ever come to be, whether Lemmy would choose to pursue a relationship with Kiria or Nelly, or even if Meil would ever recognize Nelly's feelings for him. All of these questions were supposed to be answered in this Volume, but I had no idea how I could possibly fit them all in without rushing the shit out of it, so I kept things brief for now. Who knows, maybe a future side story will properly answer all of these questions? I'd really like to write more anecdotes about the friend group, since I feel like they'd have a lot to talk about. The dynamics are there, and so is the setting, it's enough to warrant an entire 5 or so Volumes in and of itself, really. So yeah, I'm really looking forward to writing that one day. The Vast World is really living up to its name, finally.
As a closing word, I'd like to just take the time to thank everyone from the bottom of my heart for reading this story. We're growing by the day, and I'm sure the day we reach 200 followers is nearby, so I'm just feeling a bit dumbstruck at the thought that there are this many people interested in my passion project. Thank you, I'm truly blessed to have fans like you.
This is Mikan Akai signing out. Damn, now I gotta make the cover for Volume 15, not to mention draft the story for it... T-T