This is an author’s note, not a chapter, so it isn’t locked.
As always, it’s ‘Chapter CD’ as in Roman Numeral Four Hundred. The real Chapter 400 will post immediately after this item. Whether or not there is likely to be a ‘Chapter D’ (Five Hundred), is not clear to me yet, but I suspect not.
Difficulties with life really get in the way. That’s what I’ve learned in the last hundred chapters. There have been a lot of bumps and bruises this time, largely due to IRL issues. And I really don’t have a lot of energy to talk about them here, since it’s better to just put them behind me.
As I said, this may be my last ‘century mark’ in Substitute Hero, with the exception of a possible sequel (set a few decades later, with Tiana as a character, but not the central focus.) I also have a secondary story set in this universe (different main character, but someone you have technically met already, although there is no way anyone thought it was a main character, since her name wasn’t even mentioned at that time!) The latter item is a parallel story rather than a sequel, meaning it occurs simultaneously with SH.
I haven’t decided which to do first. They will probably only come out at a rate of a few chapters per month, but they will be shorter (possibly less than 100K words), so they won’t take decades to come out or something. I may alternate chapters on them and publish in parallel.
This is because my main focus will be an unrelated story, with a completely different setting. I need to break out of the SH universe and write something else.
I said I would launch that story at the same time as the final volume of Substitute Hero. Right now I’m laboring too hard to write chapters, and have no confidence I could maintain a schedule on simultaneous novels, so I’m canceling that plan. I will only post regular chapters after I finish the final volume of SH, although I might post the initial chapters before the final chapter, as a preview. I think it should appeal to the same readers, so there will be links posted in my SH chapters when it debuts.
Speaking of volumes, I’m going to go through and put volume markers on the most recent volumes (these are currently missing) when I declare an end to this volume. We’re getting close to that volume ending now, so I will do it when that happens.
Chapter 300 posts immediately following this, so, thanks for reading, and now, please read onward!
