Afterward, and Appendices

Afterward

This web novel was originally written as a part of the Honeyfeed 2023 writing contest. 

The prompt for that contest was: "wholesome romance"...

Dear reader, if you have gotten this far, then let me be the first to acknowledge we did not hit our intended target theme even by a little 🤣. I am sure you will possibly agree this story has romantic elements in it, but it doesn't really have romance as its driving core... It has a clockwork Dungeon Core built by an extinct race of sadists as its driving core. And those are almost definitely not the same thing. Rather than waste the judging team's time I'm going to DQ myself at this point. 

I still feel as though I hit the goal I set for myself (write a short book in less than a month) so I'm happy. More importantly, by posting this novel here I got to talk to a ton of great people, and lots of folk read this adventure who wouldn't otherwise. As an author, it's pretty hard to be better rewarded than that.

So what happens to this book now?

My immediate plan is to put this project to one side while I finish editing a few other things which have piled up. When those are done, I'll spend a little more time fleshing out certain sections in the novel which you may have felt were a little rushed on first reading.

Namely: Souma and Selina getting to Altoria in the first place; the level grinding with Reiny; more Ami sections, and; the actual dungeon dive itself! All those sections of the book were originally intended to be much longer! In order to finish before the deadline, though, I clipped them back down and used every narrative trick I could come up with just push them towards that final encounter.

I may also add more LitRPG elements, and make the leveling system less... Uhhh... Insanely hard.

This shorter version of the novel will stay on HoneyFeed, and the revised version will probably be released separately. I'll let you know when I have a plan for that.

Yes yes! But what about Souma and Selina and Ruka? What happens next to them???

Things to look forward to in their next adventure:

Thank you so much for reading! I hope to see you again next time! If you'd like to keep up on my other written stuff checkout my Twitter or website link in my profile!

See you again soon!

P.S.
Whenever I write something I pick out OP and ED themes pretty quick. In this case it was:

OP: Fly Again - Man With a Mission
ED: Wasureji no kotonoha - Dazbee

But of course you are free to choose your own. If you have your own chosen songs let me know in the comments! 😊

Appendix I: Experience table for encounters in this edition

Mud Wolf - 2xp
Goblin (Fallen) - 5xp
Imp (Fallen) - 4xp
Process Sweeper (Destroyer Class) - 0xp

* XP is divided equally to all participants in the kill (membership in the party without participation in the fight doesn't count), rounded down. In the case where less than 1XP would be awarded, 0XP is awarded.

Appendix II: Everybody's ending stats in this edition

Name: Arita Souma
Profession: Support
Sub-Profession:
Guild: Altoria
Skills: Language I, Restrain II, Mental Lock I
Titles: Summoned, Human
Bonuses:
Level: 1
Registered Exp.: 15/100

*

Name: Selina Lorelei Zellin Doombringer
Profession: Offence
Sub-Professions:
Guild: Altoria
Skills: Demon Lord I
Titles: Demon Lord
Bonuses: Demon Lord
Level: 1
Registered Exp.: 20/100

*

Name: Akaishi Ruka
Profession: Offence
Sub-Professions:
Guild: Altoria
Skills: Language I, Enthrall I
Titles: Summoned
Bonuses: Hard Boiled
Level: 1
Registered Exp.: 0/100

*

Name: Yurial Greenleaf Branchborne
Profession: Long Range Offense
Sub-Professions: Archer, Receptionist
Guild: Altoria
Skills: True Shot VII, Far Shot III, Pierce V, Debug II
Bonuses: Elven Youth, Charismatic, Pinpoint, Far Sight
Titles: Hero of Thousand Oak, Princess of the Verdant Midlands, Squirrels' Bane
Level: 46
Registered Exp.: 653965/862344

*

Norrik Stonecutter-Flamebeard
Profession: Defense
Sub-Professions: Blacksmith, Accountant
Guild; Altoria
Skills: Shield VIII, Bone Breaker III,
Bonuses: Dwarven Youth, Night Sight, Stone Skin
Titles: Skull Smasher, Nut Cracker, Norrik The Wise
Level: 47
Registered Exp.: 5481/1259022

*

Name: Reinheille Ulrich Brightsword
Profession: Offense
Sub-Professions: Swordswoman, Priestess
Guild: Altoria
Skills: Karmic Retribution VII, Slice IV, Battle Dance V, Foresight III, Parallel Thinking I, Debug IV
Bonuses: Heroic, Danger Sight, Death Defying, Lucky Last
Titles: The Chain Breaker, The Unyielding, The Duchess of Gornswitch, The Black Sheep of Gornswitch, Priestess of the True Path
Level: 47
Registered Exp.: 7651/1259022