In preparation of the audiobook adaptation, I went ahead and re-edited the first volume of The Simulacrum. To say that it was a time-sink was putting it mildly, and on top of that, I had an absolutely terrible time at my job for the past two weeks due to the hospitals opening during the summer covid lull, and it's increasing my workload quite a bit.
Anyhow, I'm done with the first volume, and while I mostly focused on unifying the terminology, hunting down typos, and some stylistic tweaks here and there, there are two relatively major changes I would like to point out. ɴᴇᴡ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀʀᴇ ᴘᴜʙʟɪsʜᴇᴅ ᴏɴ noⅴelfire.net
First off, I reworked Leo's attitude towards the girls a little bit. I inserted a few lines earlier on to indicate that he was aware of their affections, but didn't want to act on them because of his own reservations about the world and free will and so on. More importantly, I've toned down his relationship-phobia a little, and instead made it clearer that he was aiming for the OT3 relationship with the girls from as early as his failed attempt to turn Elly down on the rooftop, and I've restructured a few scenes to show that he was laying some groundwork so that his proposal at the beginning of volume 2 wouldn't be so unexpected.
The other major change is in regards of the finale. In short, I made sure that Leo used his teleportation ability a bit more liberally, and emphasized that doing so was mentally exhausting him. I also made a few minor changes to tone down his outside-context-knowledge, as it wasn't very important to establish it at this point, but on the other hand it made it look like he was pulling solutions out of thin air. Hopefully things now flow a little better and make more internal sense.
Also, I gave up and added the harem tag, even though I personally do not consider The Simulacrum a harem story. Still, if it avoids one more person complaining about it, it's worth it.
By the time you read this, the re-edited chapters should be online. As for the next proper chapter, I'll try to get back to writing new stuff the moment the publisher confirms that they are satisfied with the first volume and they would start working on it.
Either way, stay safe, and hopefully we'll see each other soon-ish.