Heavy Object

Volume 8, Afterword

If you’ve been buying one volume at a time, welcome back. If you bought them all at once, welcome.

This is Kamachi Kazuma.

The theme this time was the Island Nation. As this is a work of fiction, I added in a bunch of crazy things to make it all seem more uncanny. The small Island Nation has few resources and little food yet takes on the world with great technological ability. I created this story while wondering if there was a large trick to overturn those established facts.

The idea of a meteorological weapon has shown up in this series before, but this novel increased the scale to include a global weather control weapon. I read some material on ocean temperature for this novel and it’s quite frightening. The term may sound peaceful enough, but everything I read about it brought nothing but fear. All scientific materials bring a mixture of curiosity and fear, but it’s not often the scales are tipped so heavily toward one side. It was to the point that I added it to a personal list of things not to search. I absolutely do not recommend it. ...However, you can’t do anything about it if you don’t face it first.

To bring out the unique feeling of the Island Nation, I put some thought into the names of the Objects and other things. I thought about giving them warship-like names, but the Capitalist Corporations framework has a rule about giving Objects female names. I also had the Object use the tatami shield, gave the final boss multiple forms, had body doubles, put in a steam-filled bath scene, and plenty of other things. Adding in those things made me wonder what exactly the unique feeling of the Island Nation is.

Also, this novel had all the battles take place on the ocean. I personally think the most beautiful ocean scenery is the ocean dyed orange, so I set the final battle at dawn. What did all of you think?

I had thought about a diving Object pretty early on. Despite being a submarine, it isn’t hiding at all and it can shoot down nuclear torpedoes or whatever else with its lasers. It would quietly rule over all life while manipulating the weather of every continent from the dark ocean bottom. I feel like I gave it some symbolic elements of a giant monster. I would be delighted if you loved it enough to come up with some other ways of defeating it.

By the way, I could have made a more sentimental story by mixing in memories of the old woman and the mastermind when they were younger, but I decided not to. I thought it would build up the worldview better to leave how the Island Nation turned out that way as a sort of black box. I hope you understand.

I give my thanks to my illustrator, Nagi Ryou-san, and my editors, Miki-san, Onodera-san, and Anan-san. I apologize for all the unreasonable requests I made this time. From the small details to the gigantic weapons, it was all a lot of trouble, so I thank them for sticking with me.

I also give my thanks to the readers. This story used an entire novel for the defeat of a single Object. This was simply the story of slaying a giant foe. I hope you enjoyed it.

And I will end this here.

I hope this book will remain in your heart in some way.

Maybe I should have made it a volcanic island so it could have been a real hot spring.

-Kamachi Kazuma