Hey everyone, Allen here.

I'm going to keep this here specifically for this site. My readers on ao3 won't see it, as it'll still be some time before the story is caught up there, but hey, I'm back.

I haven't quite gotten my Bachelor's Degree, unfortunately, mostly because I underestimated my remaining classes. I will be retaking an Econometrics class this Fall, and then probably one more 5000-level course in the Spring if Fall Semester doesn't add one more class I need to the schedule. After that though, I should be done with college for good. And because it's only one class a semester, that gives me plenty of free time.

My part-time job is also going well. I love it and my coworkers, though they sometimes piss me off with their antics. I also had a girlfriend at one point, but we broke up recently. Oh well, that's life for ya. At least I can say that I've been trying dating-wise.

Writing-wise, I haven't been inactive. I finished my Teen Titans fics "Justice League Vs. The Beast" and "I Am A Teen Titan". After that, I returned to Shield Hero and finally finished "Shield Kid's Bizarre Adventure". And now, it's time for me to take this fic back off of its hiatus. Honestly, I'm not too certain how to feel about it. I feel excited, but also scared. Excited because I've wanted to work on this for so long, but scared because of what happened before. I love the connections I've made with people in this fandom, but I don't want said connections to blow up in my face again and give me another life crisis at the age of 25.

Oh well. Who am I kidding? I've barely had a day where thoughts on this story didn't cross my mind. And I doubt I'll know rest again until I manage to finish it once and for all. So, I'm just going to have to take a page out of my story and practice more stubbornness and diligence in my life.

Also, I realize how soppy this has probably read for you, so allow me to put a dose of realism into here. I am not inspired to write this story out of a desire to make it better than the canon story. To be quite frank, I love the canon story as it is. I could care less about your guys' opinions on its plot points or its characters or the ways that my story is better or whatever. I love it. I love Shield Hero. I just do. While it is a source of pain in my life, it is also a story of hope and of rising up against all odds, including the ones we inadvertently make for ourselves. And while it has its faults, I love it as it is. And I'm pretty sure I will continue to love it for a long time yet.

I will always thank you readers for the love and support. But whatever your thoughts about this are, at the end of this when I'm done, however long it'll take, my story here will be, in my eyes, a love letter to the light novels written by Aneko. It will be my encouragement to all of you to actually read their story for yourselves, from cover to cover (if you're capable of reading my fic all the way to this point, you will be more than capable of reading 22 LN's of the current source material, whether through legit means or by sailing the seas of Discord to find those with the right connections. Please, Aneko, get 23 and the rest published so I can see if my plot and character relationship theories are validated or not and please reveal Naofumi's Fourth Method or I swear to-), and if you are inspired to write for this fandom, don't do it out of hatred or spite for the source material or the rules of the setting or whatever. Do it because you love the story, or the setting, or the characters themselves; or just because you love to write!

Going forward, I'm going to finish this fic because I love writing it. I'm going to stick to a two week, Monday upload schedule for however long it takes to finish it. If I can speed up to one week uploads or have to slow down to three week uploads, I'll do it. And if I'm only at the halfway point right now in finishing this whole thing, then so be it.

I am seeing this through, even if I have to travel through hellfire and brimstone to do it.

To all the Shield Hero readers out there... thank you.

I hope what comes next will not disappoint you in the slightest.