End-of-Volume Note and Leave Request

"In short, it's a story in this style."

This is the first sentence I want to offer to readers who have finished reading the first volume.

Although the plot will constantly twist and turn, the overall tone of this book remains the same. Finding hope in despair and light in darkness, magical girls bring miracles to the world – this is the central theme of the book.

Thank you for reading the first volume of <Off-Duty Magic>. I am the author of this book, Hu Yan. Two months later, we meet again in the summary of the main text.

Oh, you asked what "Off-Duty Magic" means? This is the abbreviation I came up with for this book, since the title <A[LI]CE: After Work, Then Become a Magical Girl> is just too long.

In my previous launch message, I briefly introduced myself. So this time, I won't talk about myself, but rather focus on the book itself.

First, let's summarize the first volume: <The Blue Larkspur Beneath the Cage>.

Let me first talk about the parts of the book that I was most satisfied with.

When I first planned this book, I didn't have a complete plot in mind. Instead, I had some scenes that made me think, "Wow, this feels so magical girl!" So I worked backward from these scenes to figure out the story that the book should have, and eventually I developed the outline of the book.

Two of these scenes were placed in the first volume.

One of them is a middle-aged man running through the night to save his daughter, and before the battle, he shouts "Henshin!" in an incredibly cold and world-weary tone, transforming into a magical girl.

I thought this would be a scene with a strong Kamen Rider vibe, but it was used in a magical girl theme, which creates a kind of surreal beauty, so I used it without hesitation.

The second scene is in a hall in the dark of night, where the magical girl and her rebellious former teammates engage in a verbal battle, before she tearfully kills her old teammate.

This scene is probably very familiar to everyone—it was inspired by a classic scene from Puella Magi Madoka Magica, and in this article, it is the final part of the story involving Larkspur and Hong Siyu. However, I did not reproduce the original idea here.

Initially, when I created the character Hong Siyu, I actually intended for her to be a pure traitor who would be dealt with by the protagonist. In fact, in the initial setting, the culprit behind these events in Fangting City was actually this "fallen old teammate," and there was no character named Moss at all.

However, as the plot outline was finalized, I gradually realized a problem—what does this have to do with the three little ones? They can't just be sleeping at home and the matter is solved by Larkspur, can they? Besides, I was also a bit soft-hearted: I felt that Hong Siyu and this character didn't need to die like that, so I changed the plot.

After the changes were completed, it became what it is now. It wasn't that the old teammates betrayed him, but that the old teammates were manipulated. The mastermind behind the scenes should have been a pure villain and a punching bag, and was beaten up by the protagonist to vent the anger in the hearts of the readers and me.

Of course, these are all stories from before the book was published.

Recreating a perfectly envisioned scene into a book is actually a very difficult task. Only after I started working on it did I realize that there were still many flaws in the outline. I could only continue to improve it as I went along.

My initial plan for the first volume wasn't as complicated as it is now. In my imagination, it was just a short process: the protagonist's return - daily life - discovering the mastermind - defeating the boss. However, the word "daily life" in the outline was a real killer. After I spent a lot of effort perfecting this part, the length of the first volume inexplicably became what it is now.

In the original design, I came up with a seemingly cool pacing for the first volume. "The main plot is about daily life with kids, while the subplot is about catching a culprit and solving a mystery." It sounded very idealistic—and it was indeed true. After I officially started writing the book, I quickly discovered that I simply couldn't keep up with the mystery plot.

Because the plot progression of the mystery storyline is inherently more informative than that of the slice-of-life storyline, if I run both storylines concurrently, readers focused on the main plot will find the slice-of-life scenes rather cumbersome; readers focused on the lighthearted slice-of-life scenes will find the mystery storyline disrupting the lighthearted atmosphere. Regardless of their preferences, the reading experience will not be very good.

This contradiction is evident in the early part of the story, around chapter 30. Before that, I had been practicing the principle of parallel storylines, but after chapter 30, when the Larkspur first encountered the Aberrant Beast of the Pupa Stage, I realized: I can't write it this way.

So I decided to make changes: cut all the mystery and subplots and replace them with phased major events that drive the plot forward.

This is why, starting with the Sparrow Battle arc, the main storyline in this book is always so lengthy—I have a lot of cut information piled up in the main storyline that I would have covered in the mystery arc.

Since writing is just a side job, I didn't have much time to revise the outline, which was the direct reason why I felt a bit lost for a while after the book was published, and ultimately led to a decline in quality for a period of time. Fortunately, the scenes that served as my source of inspiration—the confrontation with my old teammates—did not go wrong, and they eventually presented a quality that I was relatively satisfied with.

Incidentally, because of the tone of the first volume, I actually thought about silly questions like "What kind of theme song would this be if it were a seasonal anime?" while writing this part of the plot. Even sillier, I actually found it, and the song I chose was <Shadowgraph>, which is also the opening theme of the TV anime <Boogiepop and Others>. Readers who have the time can look up this song and listen to it while combining it with the scene of Larkspur moving forward in the dark hall of the Anomaly Countermeasures Bureau. That's probably all my imagination about this question.

In conclusion, after this experience, I truly understand the consequences of being overconfident and lacking practical skills. The so-called "dual-track approach" was a reckless attempt based on an underestimation of my own abilities, and I probably won't dare to do it again anytime soon.

I can only say thank you all for your unwavering support. Many readers encouraged me during my low points, which helped me persevere. Thank you so much.

Now, let's look ahead and talk about our plans for the future.

This book is planned to be around four volumes, with the first volume being relatively shorter, at least shorter than the second volume. So you can understand that the second volume will have more content.

After all, in the first volume, in order to conceal Moss's conspiracy, I was actually quite constrained in explaining many of the settings and was unable to fully develop them; so in the second volume, the core part of this book - the Magic Kingdom- will be truly presented to you.

If the first volume of the story still contained some non-fantasy elements, then starting from the second volume, as the plot shifts significantly towards the Magic Kingdom, the concentration of fantasy elements in this book will increase dramatically.

The parts I revealed in the epilogue already gave some clues, but that's not all. New teammates, new acquaintances, new Gem Scepter, new Claw Mark —a whole host of new characters will make their appearance.

There's another new character I really like, who wasn't mentioned at all before. This character will be quite important in the later plot and is closely related to the protagonist's choice of the codename "Larkspur." I hope you all like her.

Also, after entering the second volume, because the number of supporting characters will increase significantly, I may solicit suggestions from readers in the book review section for supporting characters: that is, the code names and abilities of magical girls, whether they are heroes or villains. I will select the more interesting character designs and add them to the text. I hope interested readers will participate.

We won't spoil any more details, so we'll leave it at that and stay tuned.

Enough with the small talk; I've said most of what I needed to say. Although I have so much to share about this book, I'll hold back and present it all in the main text. I hope you'll join me in witnessing this story and stepping into the second volume of this book: <The Cornflower at the Tower's Peak>.

Finally, some bad news: I will be taking four days off next week, until the end of the week, and will resume updating next Monday.

The purpose of taking leave is to adjust my schedule and improve the outline—after finishing this volume, I'm so exhausted from my Explosion schedule that I really need some time to regroup.

I apologize to all readers, but please understand. I also hope to present you with better quality writing.

Let's meet again in the summary at the end of Volume Two.

[PS1: During the interval between the end of Volume 1 and the start of Volume 2, the book club will hold a fanfiction submission event to celebrate the completion of Volume 1 and Lin Xiaolu's birthday. Both fan fiction and fan art are welcome. The prize will be a wall hanging of Larkspur. Please stay tuned to the book club for details.]

[PS2: Acknowledgments]

[Because I was writing in seclusion for a period of time and completely ignored comments and book news, I not only didn't interact with book reviews, but I also didn't thank the readers who supported the book and gave me tips. Previously, due to my ostrich-like mentality, I felt a little embarrassed to forget to make up for it, but now that the volume is finished, it seems I should properly express my gratitude to the readers.]

[First, thank you to all the readers who have tipped me: your extra money beyond subscriptions to express your appreciation touches me deeply; second, thank you to those readers who have actively participated in the book reviews and even created fan fiction, you have enlivened the discussion environment, and your posts have become an indispensable part of the reading experience; finally, thank you to all the administrators who have organized activities in the book review section and managed inappropriate comments, thank you for your hard work.]

[And to those readers who switched from unofficial channels to legitimate subscriptions, I'm very grateful to you for choosing to pay for my content.]

[Finally, here's a list of thank yous for your generous donations, including all the patrons who have donated to this book so far and all the readers who donated this month. As for the readers who donated last month and even the month before, I'm too lazy to go through the old lists one by one. Anyway, please forgive me, thank you all, I love you all.]

[Thanks to the following for their support: Platinum Tower, Billy the Corn-Eating Cat, Hakurei Donation Box, Walking Stone, Moonlit Dream, Ruthless Yuying, sinmem, Sheogorath, evilvirtuous, Ichijo Ayami, Mo Lingyin, Feiqiu, ICP, Dragon-Class Floatling, Book Friend 20190816065554496, Love Warrior Wilde, Hasegawa Riko, Peerless Konjac Hasegawa Riko, Count Nishizawa, Abdomsisn, and Vanilla (who was just passing by).]

[Thanks to Caixiyuan, Luohe G, Protein's Sorrow, Bored Day, Little Gunslinger of the Wilds, Book Friend 150222174457308, Whale Coffin Priest, Yuexin, This Damn Romance, Slow Lazy Fish, Magnetic-Field Madman, Desolate Wolf, Cynabal, Starlight Companion, Belief is Your Magic, 3zh_bth, lrsks, Book Friend 20190522234944231, Peak of Space-Time 23333333 [Book Friend 20220116044921725, Book Friend 20230321222442970, Book Friend 160514164911252, Great Style, Coffeein, Book Friend 20221230200310688, Book Friend 20221206024313067, Book Friend 20220824204355094, Book Friend 20220910220236188, Book Friend 20220505064914405, The Silly Guy Eating Salted Fish, Idle Reader, Book Friend 20220321211457804, Dead, Si Heqing, Book Friend 20190313160324533, Hakurei Donation Box's Tip.]