I’m sitting here in my bedroom on a rainy Thursday morning. I’m trying to figure out how we got to this point. I still remember thinking of writing about this fantasy world as a way to pass the time while I figured out my other stories that had priority at the time. It’s been five years and five volumes since then and for some reason there are still no signs of slowing down on this story.
Hello, welcome to the afterword of The Hesitant Hero volume 5, I hope you enjoyed this volume. Instead of spending time with Cobal and Mana we instead took a detour to the sleepy village of Redsan with its kind villagers. We did so through the eyes of Mirgia, the elven guard from Milinia who seems to be a lot more stoic than some of his human companions. Still, much of that is purely the result of a long time alive and more ability to regulate your emotions, but that doesn’t mean those emotions aren’t there. Mirgia experiences friendship, fear and grief quite actively throughout this volume and he comes out a different man. But he’s made some friends along the way at least.
What did you think of the important new characters I introduced in this volume? Besides learning more about Sorda’Thun, whose name has only been mentioned throughout the early volumes but never really showed up, we also met Ankh/Cosodo. Ankh was a completely new addition to this story if I’m honest and even as I was writing the chapter he was introduced in I was still planning to make that Sorda’Thun himself. But I felt like it wouldn’t fit the character I had in mind all this time to be fumbling around a place like this and I was right. Ankh being an extension of Sorda’s role in the story turned out to be a much better way to write this part. I have big plans for Sorda’s character in the future. I hope you like him. I wanted to write your classic “mysterious magic man” into the story, but I also wanted to give him a clear drive and personality with the limited time spent with him. In my mind, Sorda is a very conflicted man. He’s good at heart, but his fear of dying has driven him to grow more and more detached from his heart. I don’t know where he’ll end up by the end of it all, but I’m confident it will be interesting.
Speaking of interesting, what do you think of Teddy and Rolin? I named Rolin after a buddy of mine from years ago, whose name always stood out to me. Initially the character was going to be named Thomas, but I changed my mind last second. Although he doesn’t know it, Rolin is a big part of the reason I ended up becoming a teacher. Back when I was still studying business economics in college, we would sit next to each other and sometimes I would take a break from my Hearthstone addiction to help him with his English work. It was during this that the teacher I had at the time reprimanded me for helping in case “I explained it wrong”. Remember this, fellow teachers, one negative comment can stick with your students for years. Either way, the name popped up in my mind and I figured it wouldn’t hurt. So Rolin if you’re reading this. How you doing?
Now on the topic of spending time with different characters. I’ve gotten rather attached to both Cobal and Mana and although we’ve spent the first four volumes strictly from Cobal’s perspective – this to create some mystery around Mana’s behavior at first – I consider the duo to be the protagonists of this story and volume 5 and 6 (announcement on that shortly) more as detours from the main story. I am somewhat excited to come back to Cobal and Mana’s story next year and see how they will come face to face with these shards of Kanarth and perhaps even encounter more of the Jasmine Order during all of this chaos.
As the rain outside seems to be clearing up and I can go get my groceries that is a great sign for me to hurry it up. We still have over 2 months before the year ends so there is plenty of time for me to ramble about this story another time. For now, let me leave you with an announcement about the schedule for The Hesitant Hero for next year. As my method of writing this series has changed over the years – I no longer participate in NaNoWriMo because it doesn’t feel like a challenge anymore with my current output – I want to change how I publish the story too. I love weekly manga and webtoons and although I don’t read any webnovels myself, I do find the concept very alluring. So instead of taking a 2-3 month break at the end of each volume, we’ll be going fully weekly. Well, there will still be breaks every so often if I’m behind on schedule, but that’s already been happening. My aim is to write at least 45 chapters a year. We will be starting things off with Volume 6, which will not quite yet go back to Cobal and Mana but instead focus on Eliana and Des – a new character – as they figure out where Bartew fled to with Fred’s body and what the hell is going on in the city of Sil’Dorith (a new location). Des and Eliana will split the focus in this story as they each tackle the same situation from different angles. Then when this story is over – I expect it to be a bit shorter than your average volume but no promises – we’ll take a week off before diving straight into the seventh volume which will see the return of Cobal and Mana and maybe also a little bit of Mirgia. Just not as a main character.
There we go. A quick afterword. Thank you so much for sticking with me all these years – or even if you only got here last week. I love writing this story and I have no intention of slowing down anytime soon. 2027 is going to be a good year, I can feel it in my gooch. That’s normal right? Right?
