The Trancer Read online

  I want to hear the rest of what you started to say before.

  So I promise we’ll meet again.

  The End

  AFTERWORD

  Minoru is finally starting to seem like a real light-novel protagonist…!

  Hello, this is Reki Kawahara, and I’m guessing that’s what all of you, my dear readers, are thinking. Thank you very much for reading the third volume of The Isolator!

  It’s been a whole year since the previous volume came out! In this volume, it appears our protagonist, Minoru, has started getting used to his work as a member of the SFD, so there aren’t as many scenes of him shutting himself away in a metaphorical protective shell (not a literal one). But I don’t want it to seem like he’s lost his original intention (?), so I think he’ll probably still end up hiding in the corner, clutching his knees and such, from time to time. So I hope you’ll continue to support Minoru and his friends—including the new member, Suu!

  So.

  I know I’m changing the subject, but ever since March 11, 2011, I think many novelists and manga artists have been hesitating over a common issue: When writing a story set in modern times, should we include the Tohoku earthquake and the resulting nuclear accidents in the timeline? Of course, I’m no exception to this, and I still haven’t come up with a clear answer. Within a year or two after the Tohoku earthquake, aside from works that focused on it as their subject matter, I don’t remember any books that touched upon earthquakes or nuclear accidents as plot devices. But now that it’s been almost five years, it seems like books without such an incident in their timeline are currently in the minority.

  The Isolator has thus far taken place in December 2019, so it’s set in the very near future. If the earthquake occurred in 2011, then it’s likely the nuclear accidents would still be a major problem. If people with abilities like Minoru’s were to appear, and important members of the government were to know about them, don’t you think the government might try to use them…? I thought about this question for quite a while. The details of these nuclear incidents are constantly changing, and furthermore, I was concerned they might be a sensitive topic for fiction.

  I spoke to my editor, and in the end, we decided to set The Isolator in a “parallel” timeline where a major nuclear accident had occurred in the fictional institution of Tokyo Bay. There’s even an observation base on the moon in this 2019 setting, so even without the “Third Eye” incident, it’d probably still be a parallel universe, but… At any rate, the “Retriever” interlude is a realization of my thoughts on the matter. It features a suspicious new organization and a nonhuman new character (?), so I hope that even readers of the web version of this story will enjoy it. I did my best to write accurate depictions of nuclear power plants, radioactive material, and so on, but I’m sure there are still mistakes here and there…which I hope you can forgive me for. Also, if there are any descriptions that bring back memories of actual nuclear accidents or make someone uncomfortable, I would like to use this space to apologize.

  If possible, next time I’d like to write an interlude where Minoru gets sent out to another unexpected new location. If any of you have requests as to where that place might be, please let me know online through Twitter or something! I was thinking maybe the inside of a volcano, but I’m not sure how he would get out of there…

  Finally, I’d like to thank my illustrator, Shimeji, for drawing an extremely cute and cool cover image of Suu and her Copen to follow up the first two covers with Yumiko and her Agusta! By the way, Shimeji’s main job is as an animator, and he did the character design and animation direction for a commercial for a mobile game that’s currently on the air. You can see the video on the website of Studio Colorido, the company that created the game, so please check it out!

  I would also like to thank my editor, Miki, who manages to help me create books every year without fail, despite the fact that each year is busier than the last. And to all of you who have read this far, I hope we’ll have a great year together in 2016!

  A certain day in January 2016

  Reki Kawahara

  Thank you for buying this ebook, published by Yen On.

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