Afterword
Hello, this is Nariata.
I began serializing on September 22, 2023, and somehow only now, on July 21, 2026, have I finally written the word “complete.”
When I first started this work, I told myself, “This one has to wrap up in 350 chapters! Finish it before 2025!” But plans, as they always do, have a way of falling apart.
Yes—as every reader who has come this far already knows.
Not 350 chapters but 515, and not a 2024 ending but the summer of 2026… here I am writing the afterword. Haha;
There were so many ups and downs while writing this story. The actual serialization period was only about two years, yet various issues and long hiatuses stretched it to nearly three. When I wrote the first chapter I was still in my early twenties; now I’m past the middle and looking toward the late ones.
Really, a great deal has happened.
I was diagnosed with cancer and went through chemotherapy. Just when I thought I could finally resume after finishing treatment… this time my parents fell ill with cancer, and I got to feel, “Ah, so this is what my parents must have felt when I was the one who was sick.”
It feels as though every experience I never wanted in life decided to arrive all at once.
Thankfully everything has been resolved now, but I learned the hard, bone-deep lesson that health comes first. Everyone—get your checkups. You absolutely must get regular health screenings. Really!
Beyond that, it was a period in which I learned a great deal.
As a writer, and as a human being, I learned so much.
The serialization ran long, after all.
Despite every hardship, the fact that I successfully brought it to completion makes I Pulled Out Excalibur a work of deep personal meaning to me. Now that it is finished, let me share a few miscellaneous thoughts about the series.
1. How I Came to Write “I Pulled Out Excalibur”
It was autumn of 2023.
I was mulling over my next project. The ideas I had planned while writing the previous work felt, once I actually tried them, like “Hmm, this isn’t it,” so I scrapped everything and began searching for entirely new material… Well, “searching for material” is a generous way of putting it; I was mostly just playing games.
Anyway! One day while I was supposedly brainstorming.
I was playing The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and pulled the Master Sword. The Master Sword is the legendary blade that symbolizes the entire Zelda series, and the scene of drawing it was simply wonderful.
I jotted that moment down in my idea notebook for a while.
Then I opened YouTube, and what should appear but an anniversary video—probably the tenth anniversary of Fate/Grand Order. I don’t play FGO myself, but as a young man who has always loved the Fate series… I ended up watching it.
And there it was: the scene of gripping Excalibur.
Master Sword, then Excalibur.
Legendary swords have always been the sort of material that makes a man’s heart race. Right then I decided. Ah, I’ll just write a story about pulling Excalibur. That is how I Pulled Out Excalibur began.
Anyone who read the afterword of my previous work will already know… some of the ideas I mentioned there found their way into this series. Haha;
2. The Long Hiatus in the Middle (March–November 2024)
In February 2024 I was diagnosed with lymphoma and had to go on hiatus for chemotherapy. I keep bringing up heavy subjects, which feels a little awkward, but this part is actually a bright story!
Right after the diagnosis I honestly thought, “Can’t I keep serializing while doing chemo?” One session later I knew immediately.
Ah. There is no way I can write a single word until this is over.
Those eight months were truly brutal.
The physical toll was hard, but what hurt more was losing the ability to do things that had always been second nature. The words simply would not come. Concentration was gone, so even forming sentences felt impossible.
Writing had been everything to me. Being unable to write left me devastated.
Am I going to lose the ability forever? After chemo ends, will I have lost my touch and never serialize again? Will any readers wait eight whole months? Will I be forgotten? When I return, will I still be able to write well? Can I even go back to the way things were?
I thought about all of it, constantly.
During those hospital stays, while receiving treatment, I would reread my own novel. I read the comments, and the encouraging messages left under the hiatus notice. They became a tremendous comfort.
Yes. Recover and go back.
Live up to those expectations.
With that resolve, even while undergoing chemo, I forced myself to sit at the computer and plot. I sent storyboards to Author Otalja; we designed characters together.
Treatment every two weeks.
When my body felt a little better, I plotted.
Then back for another round of treatment…
Through those relentlessly long eight months, I endured by imagining the day I would show these episodes to the readers and the explosive reactions they would give me.
The arcs I planned then were probably the Helmet Knight, Lapis and Anton, Quixote, and the Revelry Emperor…
Looking back at how impressive those episodes turned out—“How on earth did I write this?”—it seems a writer really does need a little suffering.
Just kidding.
In any case, there were plenty of hard days during serialization.
But I still love writing.
Being forcibly prevented from serializing taught me something. I complain every day that it’s hard, hard, hard—yet the hardest thing of all is not being able to write.
3. Reflections
I Pulled Out Excalibur.
In many ways, this series was a challenge for me.
My previous work, I Quit the Hero Party, was essentially my first novel… I poured everything into it and reached a satisfying ending, yet because it was the first, a doubt crept in while I prepared the next project.
“Did I really succeed because I wrote well?”
The early days of Novelpia, the peculiarities of the genre, a dozen other factors—maybe it was just lucky coincidence. That thought made me even more stubborn.
No, I wanted to say to myself—not to anyone else.
And so I Pulled Out Excalibur was born.
I remember deliberately writing in ways I had never tried before, and while writing, pushing myself to attempt as many different things as possible. Heroines I had never written, a wide range of materials, plot developments I threw myself into with abandon.
Some of them succeeded brilliantly.
Some of them failed.
Even so, borrowing the words of the protagonist Najin, I believe it was good that I challenged myself.
I am not ranking the previous work against this one, asking which was written better or which is superior. Both are so meaningful to me that I cannot place one above the other.
Simply because I achieved results by a different path,
now that I have completed I Pulled Out Excalibur, I feel I can finally say this with confidence:
“Nariata? You write well. Just keep doing this.”
Just kidding.
I will work even harder. In the next work I will show you an even more improved version of myself.
4. In Closing
Perhaps because I had so much I wanted to say,
this has grown rather long.
In any case, many things happened, yet here I am placing the final period on the story of I Pulled Out Excalibur. There are still after-stories remaining, though. To speak briefly about them…
The after-stories will focus on the heroines of the work.
Yuel, Dieta, Merlin.
I am currently planning individual episodes for each. Right now I am busy preparing to move house, so I will probably only be able to show them around August… but I will prepare them carefully and return!
And taking this opportunity,
to Author Otalja, who walked with me from the previous work all the way through this one—my infinite gratitude. Even while I was fighting the illness, the illustrations you completed gave me strength. Truly, thank you.
To the senior authors who helped me when things were hard—thank you as well. I freeloaded so many meals that now it is probably my turn to treat. I will buy the next round!
To my parents who cheered me on, and who are almost certainly reading this afterword too—thank you. I will take care of my health.
Finally,
to every reader who has read these words—thank you.
Thank you for reading such a long piece.
Have a happy day. :D