How do you do? It's been a long while, this is Kawahara. Thank you for reading. Starting off is a customary, beginning from the apology corner...
I am sorry that the earlier published Accel World 3 and similarly this Sword Art Online 3 too became continuous volumes!
Furthermore, I am sorry for another new heroine appearing, I am truly sorry. I believe that everyone too is gradually sensing the unpleasant trend...perhaps from now on the same kind of development... No, however, after thinking about it, Accel" is like that too. It's not that I was particularly aiming to write like that. Without the ability to write a sculptured group of multi-viewpoints, the number of female character increased and inevitably, without exception, they form a connection with the main character.
...I am sorry, perhaps, it's because around 40% simply likes that stuff...
This SAO3 became my last book with privilege for me to release in 2009. Just as I was writing this afterword, I received a report of the winning work decided for the Dengeki Light Novel Award's grand prize; "Somehow a year has already pass!" I thought and for a while I looked dumbfounded.
Thinking about it, during the 15th award ceremony, my senior novelists were clad in a novelist aura that was overwhelming enough that it was not possible to even greet them.
There were no signs of me reaching that point of emitting that aura, nevertheless the fact that I could somehow continue publishing books is also solely owing to everyone who gave their support. About the next year and onwards, which I fainted thinking about, while it is still the steady typing of the keyboard, I have the intention of ascending this endless distant Dengeki slope.
The new characters (mostly female), who again had a grand-size entry, were delicately and fascinatingly drawn out by the illustrator, abec-san, who I am grateful to for this volume as well. And then, because the preparation of the event, it has been relentlessly busy, and because of my closing forgetting skill (Auto active type), I have greatly troubled my in-charge, Miki-san, and I truly apologize for that.
And now, I too give you, who have read this far, this year's last thanks. Let's do well too in 2010!
October 1, 2009, Kawahara Reki