Ch.BONUSAfterword

First, I would like to express my gratitude to all readers and apologize for my shortcomings throughout this journey.

Despite everything, I am deeply honored that so many of you stayed with me until the end.

As I mentioned at the beginning, “Ajjineok” was intended to be a classic hunter genre story.

And that meant embracing both the strengths and weaknesses of the genre.

Because of this, I had planned to conclude the process and ending in a straightforward manner, following the standard hunter genre formula.

A simple storyline: losing power, regaining it while becoming stronger, and ultimately defeating a transcendent being.

However, executing this cleanly is the essence of the classic hunter genre, and I feel I fell considerably short in this regard.

Actually, what I initially aimed for was a consistently cathartic TS hunter story, but surprisingly, readers enjoyed the conceptual elements of the protagonist Baek Eunha (like her chicken bone cleaning habit), so I tried to develop those aspects. This created some conflict between power progression and her character as a loner/outcast. I think many of you probably felt disappointed with how this was handled in the latter half of the story.

Like many authors, this was my first attempt at writing a hunter story, and honestly, my shortcomings became increasingly apparent from the middle onward. Around that time, I started experiencing both self-doubt about my writing and fluctuations in my condition.

I’ve always been aware of my limitations, so this wasn’t particularly surprising, but since I aimed for a lighter tone in this work, these issues felt more pronounced.

It was a limitation of my abilities, and no amount of worrying would improve things. Once I started overthinking, I began seeing only the flaws in my writing.

Overall, this experience made me acutely aware of how far I still have to go.

Of course, there’s no excuse for the excessive number of hiatuses I took.

While there were some unfortunate coincidences, honestly, most were simply due to my inability to write.

Throughout my writing career, I haven’t taken many announced breaks, but with “Ajjineok,” I missed several scheduled updates. Frankly, even I was shocked and disappointed by my behavior, so there’s nothing more I can say.

For this, I can only offer my sincerest apologies.

Returning to the story itself, after concluding the Gildeon episode, I found myself in quite a dilemma.

When I was just planning, I didn’t realize it, but after developing that episode, I had a strong intuition that continuing further would only stretch the story and reduce its quality.

And I actually felt this way many times during serialization.

Having fully regained her power, the only remaining plot point was the final confrontation with the transcendent being, but since this wasn’t strongly connected to the Gildeon episode, reaching that point would require significant additional content. Creating engaging material for that process was beyond my current capabilities.

Honestly, if I had planned better from the beginning, I could have executed a cleaner progression, but again, this reveals my lack of skill.

I had originally planned about 50-60 more chapters after the Gildeon episode, but after much consideration, it seemed better to trim the minor details and accelerate toward the conclusion. Because of this, some plot points and settings quietly disappeared, and I imagine many of you noticed this.

Regarding the pacing and plausibility of the ending, I can clearly see the shortcomings, and I’m sorry I couldn’t deliver a better development.

Since it all stems from my lack of ability, I can only take these disappointments as lessons for future growth.

As I write this, I seem to keep mentioning my deficiencies, but nevertheless, I know many readers loved this story.

This is truly an honor I don’t deserve.

So I promise that when I greet you again with my next work, I will return as a somewhat improved version of myself.

I do plan to serialize my next work on Novelpia, but it will only happen after sufficient rest and time to develop proper planning and content. I cannot continue to take hiatuses and disappoint you in my next work, so I’ll return only when I’m fully prepared.

My sincere desire has always been to provide readers with more enjoyable and entertaining stories, and I will always strive toward that goal.

Thank you so very much for reading until now!