Continues on from: New Line

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Afterword

Long time no see. It’s Ishibumi here. Although this is a DX volume, it began with a completely fresh draft this time. Here’s a quick summary of the main points.

Sairaorg versus Cao Cao! I’d always wanted to make this battle a reality. As the writer, I hoped to use the past struggles of their lives to establish a rivalry between the two of them. Cao Cao’s past…is also quite tragic.

The illusionist in Cao Cao’s team, Marsilio made his original debut in the limited edition story [Rias in Wonderland] in the [Fantasia Bunko 25th Anniversary Book], and in a sense, this book is considered to be the final part of the Hero arc (third chapter), so please check it out if you’re interested.

This is Perseus’ first appearance. Well, it was only natural considering the members who left. In addition, almost all of the former Hero Faction members have re-adjusted their Balance Breakers to become Abyss Side types.

Next is the battle against the Sitri team. I thought about various ways in which Ravel and Sona could have a battle revolving around tactics and strategy, but when I thought about the situation from Ravel’s point of view, I had doubts such as ‘To begin with, since she has both Ise and Bina as trump cards, would she actually face Sona fairly in a tactical contest?’. That’s why I decided to write about a strategy that only Ise’s team could implement, and have Sona and the others struggle in the match. This time, it was a battle which placed importance on the atmosphere and momentum, so there are many potential holes in it. There might be some doubts about how Ouryuu was able to prepare so many talismans to cover a field of that size, but please tolerate and forgive this.

The battle between Ise and Saji…I’ve always felt that there were some things I couldn’t write about in the fifth volume, so this time, I turned it into a raw face-to-face punching battle with the thought that ‘this is the only way that these two guys can fight’. There were many parts of Saji’s setting that I was unable to write into the fifth volume at the time, so I decided not to talk about Saji’s background until they had a rematch, and that’s why I’ve finally written about it after twenty odd volumes.

The Balance Breaker of Artificial Sacred Gears — the first appearance of [Counter Balance]. Actually, the concept for this already appeared in the special novels included with the Blu-rays of the third anime season. The [Counter Balance] forms for some of the Sitri peerage members were not introduced this time, and I hope to have the opportunity to write about them sometime in the future. In principle, all of them have attained it though.

Ah, Seekvaira appeared this time as well. The DX series is her main battlefield, and she will definitely appear again in the future.

The following are my acknowledgements. Miyama Zero-sama, Editor T-sama, thank you again for helping me. I am always indebted to you.

I have an announcement to make that has previously been published by [Fantasia Beyond] and Kakuyomu — the [The Fallen Dog God ─SLASHDØG─] story which has a shared world with [High School DxD] will be published as a paperback by Fujimi Fantasia Bunko. The illustrator will be Kikurage-san. While it is naturally a continuation of the web-novel version, I hope that as the series is released in paperback that you will continue to support it alongside DxD’s main story and DX until the end. Currently, the first volume is scheduled to be released in November. Please follow the information released in Dragon Magazine for more details. So, please continue to watch over the story of Hyoudou Issei, as well as the story of Ikuse Tobio which takes place before that.

Also, I made an account (a long time ago) with Kakuyomu.

URL: https://kakuyomu.jp/users/ishibumi_ichiei

I think it would be interesting if I posted anything there. I think that the top priority will be DxD (main story + DX) and Slash Dog, so please wait patiently and consider yourself lucky if something is posted onto that webpage.

Next, DxD Volume 24 + Slash Dog Volume 1 will be released simultaneously. At last, the qualifying round of the World Tournament comes to an end! Not only will Rias’ team take on Vali’s team, Ise’s team will also finally fight against the God-class team of Vidar and the others! Koneko and Kuroka will be the main heroines of the next volume! Which sixteen teams will make it through the preliminary round!? Please stay tuned for the next releases of the Breast Dragon Emperor and the Dog God!

(Part 1 of 1) (26/3)