[First, a notice: this book has a completion event, probably tonight or tomorrow. Everyone can keep an eye out for it.]
Mushrooms, Puji—I actually finished it!
I was still very melancholy when it ended. Over the past year and more, this book had accompanied not only you readers, Pujis, but me as well.
I really couldn't bear to let it go, but an ending had to come eventually.
By the later stages, all the patching of plot holes, reconciling settings, and the repeated Puji jokes had started affecting the quality. That was why updates had slowed down so much these past two months, though those problems had actually been buried ever since the very beginning of this book.
At the start, there was no outline for this story at all. It was completely, "Wow, this opening actually got accepted? Then I'll write this!" (Once again, I kneel in thanks to the great gold-medal editor Transparent for picking me up.)
Digging holes while expanding the worldbuilding was great fun. Filling them in was when the karmic retribution arrived.
So, although this book had many unsatisfactory aspects, this little mushroom was still fairly satisfied with ending it this way.
Of course, there would still be some patching and mending to do. There would be extras over the next few days, filling in some amusing events that took place during the Fungal Lord's disappearance and return from the perspectives of supporting characters, or certain IF routes—for example, if there had been no Kiro—
As for that final observer of the Old World, I didn't elaborate on it in the ending. Consider it a little loose thread left behind.
If the next book were to unfold with the New World as its setting, it would most likely be the protagonist.
Given Linden's personality, someone