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The theme this time was technology that goes beyond a certain
scientific line, and the book was basically powered suits and a cyborg
rampaging around. The world in the series is divided between the
science side and the magic side, but Academy City went beyond the
line of the definition of the human body for two reasons. First, the
problem they had was now on too large a scale. Second, after winning
the war, they had destroyed the balance of the world.
Now about the Five Over. I feel that it is something that goes against
the theory of a battle story.
But, as described in the novel, science and technology continue to
advance, so what was cutting-edge yesterday may not be so today. I
decided to put it in to demonstrate that.
Currently, the Five Over has a more powerful gun than #3, but, if the
two were to fight, #3 would win due to application.
But that isn’t an absolute, because science and technology will
continue to advance.
On the other hand, #3 has a wall called the Parameter List.
I suppose I could say that this is becoming a world of the
functionality of machines vs. the ingenuity of humans. Which is
stronger, and how long will one side’s superiority last? …Now, I
wonder how long #3 can continue reigning.
The cyborg may have been a bit different from what you, the
readers, were imagining, but she got that way by this design process: I
freely design the physical body -> I freely add in bird wings, fish gills,
or whatever I want -> I decide what characteristics I most want to
bring into Academy City.
Her battle strategy is basically asking the question “Which is
stronger: one Level 5 or a thousand Level 4s?”
But the source of her power is still just one person, so it exhausts her
quite a bit.
By the way, I think the first appearance of a clear cyborg instead of
just a fake hand or a cane in this world was the short story by Narita
Ryougo-san that was in a special volume of A Certain Scientific
Railgun.
When writing the main story, I had wanted to bring in a cyborg, but
I was worried that having cyborgs walking around Academy City
would mess up the power balance, but thanks to him, I made my
decision. I decided that it was okay for incidents like this to occur in a
city that had Nayuta-chan in it, so I had a cyborg that had been altered
for the war against the intentions of the creator of the cyborgs.
Thank you very much, Narita Ryougo-san.
One of them was a cyborg that altered her outer silhouette and the
area her power could be used from while rearranging the inside of her
body, and the other was a powered suit that altered the outside of his
body and optimized the inside of his mind. As was stated in the novel
itself, it’s rather hard to draw a clear line between the two. Which do
you, the readers, feel would be harder to accept?
-Kamachi Kazuma
Notes
[←1]
The above is from HEAVY OBJECT, another series written by the author of this series.
[←2]
A traditional Vietnamese dress, now the country’s national costume.
[←3]
Fukuwarai is a game played around New Year’s. Players are presented with a blank face and
have to put parts of the face (such as eyes, eyebrows, etc.) on the face.