Final Afterword
This afterword contains heavy spoilers for the main novel.
If you haven't finished the story yet, please hit the back button!
To every reader who stuck with me all the way through the final chapter of the side stories—
Thank you so, so much!
I'd originally planned the side stories to run about thirty chapters—fifteen if I kept them short—and somehow they closed out at forty.
In more ways than one, it was a side story full of twists and turns.
I honestly never imagined so many of you would have such a strong aversion to TS content itself. T_T
Since I'm writing the side-story afterword anyway, let me offer a little defense on that point.
I did not write the TS arc out of some personal fetish. T_T
I hadn't even planned on including TS at all…
The pure reason the TS episode made it in was to bring Night Rat back.
Originally, I was going to let Night Rat ascend and leave at the end of the main story. But so many of you wanted her to join the heroines—and unlike Nina, who had already truly moved on, I felt like there was a way to bring Night Rat in while still keeping the internal logic intact.
And so the TS episode was born.
Besides, because of Levin's gender-transformation setup, Ares already carried this lingering question of whether he might someday turn into a woman at the academy. Dropping in a TS episode felt like a clean way to address that plot thread as well.
And as a bonus, Night Rat got to join the heroines.
Of course, some of you might be thinking, "Couldn't you have just made Night Rat into someone who likes guys too?" But that would have opened the door to suspicions like "Wait, so Night Rat isn't a virgin??"—so I steered clear of that route.
Making her a character who likes women felt like the safer, cleaner call.
Anyway—that's enough excuses!
Back to the afterword for the side-story finale.
I did write an afterword when the main story wrapped, but this one actually feels like a real afterword—because this time, the work is truly, completely finished. T_T
Which is why, once again—
I want to thank every single reader who gave this story so much love!!
I never in my wildest dreams imagined so many of you would mark this as your life novel. T_T
And after the main story ended, we even broke six million!!
I am genuinely overjoyed that I got to write a work that received this much love as a web novelist!!
All I can hope is that the readers who made it through the side stories as well walked away satisfied. T_T
So, since this is the final afterword, let's take some time to clear up the stories that never quite got resolved inside the work itself!
A. I'm sorry. T_T The side stories wrap up here, so nothing related to the IF will be coming out.
The IF story was always meant as a little extra service, and since it's a bad-ending scenario that never happens in the main story, I never planned to continue it.
A. I won't spell everything out in detail!
Personally, I think leaving a little room for the imagination makes a novel more fun than explaining every single setting down to the last grain.
Still, if I sketch out the rough stories of how they got here:
One person spread themselves too thin, earned a grudge, and died.
One person dragged the people around them into a stock market mess, earned a grudge, and died.
One person caused trouble, locked themselves in their room, and kept being a nuisance to everyone until they died.
One person was framed, lived under that injustice, and took their own life.
One person launched a big business, failed, earned a grudge, and died.
The reason all of them drifted into Wonder Academy is that coincidence, lingering attachments, grudges, and more tangled together into something like a miracle—and washed them into Wonder Academy.
A. Mia only got chomped by Lana, for the record.
And after she died, she appeared in Ares's department-store dream to help him, then properly ascended!
The reason she ended up at the academy in the first place was the lingering regret of never being able to repay her debt to Ares—so dying at the academy doesn't mean she got some miserable future.
She simply went where a departed soul is meant to go!
A. Most of you already guessed correctly!
A. Some things would change, and some things would stay the same, I think!
Wonder Academy's overall fantasy aesthetic would remain as-is, and you might even see anomalies like spaceship aliens show up!
That said, while Wonder Academy does tangle in vengeful spirits connected to whoever gets caught up in it, completely unrelated anomalies and urban legends get tangled in as well—so even if someone from an SF world got pulled in, ordinary ghost-story anomalies would still show up all the time!
A. Ares, Ellie, Lana, Claire, Nina, Mia, and so on—everyone who got dragged in because of Ares lived in the same era as him.
The anomalies that got tangled in without any connection, on the other hand, include people from completely different eras who died and became ghosts!
A. Those people are already in hell!
Wonder Academy wasn't created with that purpose in mind, but it is structured in a way that can also resolve the lingering attachments of gallery users who committed sins—so I think ending up in Wonder Academy would be far too light a punishment for them!
A. I expect I'll start the next work pretty soon after this one fully wraps!
A. Some are aware, and some aren't.
When the grudge is extremely strong (e.g. Lana), they can recognize their past and their current state.
When the grudge isn't that strong (e.g. Ellie, Claire), they may not recognize their past or their current state.
A. Tightness ranking… I'm sorry… I'm going to say they're all equally snug and fair!
Ares has done the inserting with the women, but his experience on the receiving end is a solid zero.
Going forward, Ares will sleep with other female students and female anomalies as well—but that will generally happen with his wives' permission!
And just to be clear: sleeping with them is fine, but nobody else joins the family after that!
A. Ares couldn't manage it—but Professor Lapori absolutely could!
A. This one didn't come with a separate question attached, but I remember seeing it asked before, so I'm writing it down.
The reason those two got pulled into that legend is suicide!
In Ares's case, he failed to take his own life—but in the end, giving up on living and letting the curtain fall on his life was what caused him to get tangled in that particular legend!
A. I haven't locked this down in detail, but they're bound by a powerful fate at the academy now—so even if they reincarnate, they will absolutely meet again!
A. I'm sorry. T_T The work is completely finished with this!
I truly hope the things you were curious about got answered properly.
And after that—
Back when I was still serializing, there were so many things I wanted to put in the afterword. But now that I'm actually writing it and bringing the work to a close, strangely enough, nothing's coming to mind. T_T
I'm just overwhelmingly happy and grateful.
As always, the feeling is a little different from the readers who love the work—to the author, the stories you've poured yourself into feel a bit like your own children, so finishing one leaves me with this bittersweet, empty-and-relieved feeling. T_T
Even so, I'm genuinely glad I was able to bring it to a clean, safe conclusion.
In so many ways, I worked hard laying down foreshadowing, worked hard paying it off, worked hard writing the highlight moments—this was a work where I did the absolute best I could in my own way.
Especially the turning-point episode and the final stretch of Ares's past—those were the parts I kept turning over in my head, wanting so badly to write them well!
Knowing you all read those parts with real feeling made me so happy too. T_T
For the record, one small regret:
The foreshadowing that Levin = For Glory—during the amusement park arc, Levin was captured while unconscious, so For Glory never appeared in the gallery at all—and nobody noticed. I was genuinely bummed about that. T_T
Even after For Glory's identity was revealed, nobody picked up on it, so I'm writing it down here…
Anyway, I'll wrap up the afterword here and bring the work to a complete close!
To every reader who loved Academy Survival Gallery all this time—thank you all so, so much!
I'll be back with an even more fun story next time!!
Ah!! One last thing!!!!
I'll take my leave with the Night Rat illustration so many of you asked for!!