The website of late author Noboru Yamaguchi's alternate-world fantasy light novel series Zero no Tsukaima ( The Familiar of Zero ) announced on Wednesday that MF Bunko J will publish the series' 21st of 22 planned volumes on February 25, 2016. It will be the first novel in the series in five years since the 20th volume's release in February 2011.

The announcement did not reveal the name of the author writing the new volume, but it did state that the volume will also be published outside Japan simultaneously (although not necessarily in English). The website also revealed the new volume's cover art of the heroine Louise, illustrated by returning artist Eiji Usatsuka:

Sou Yurugi, editor-in-chief of Kadokawa's (Media Factory) MF Bunko J imprint announced in June that the light novel series will continue. Yamaguchi had planned to finish the series before he passed away in 2013. According to MF Bunko J , he dictated the remaining plot of the series, including its ending, from his sickbed and entrusted it to the editors.

The editors acknowledged that the publisher has received a steady stream of requests to continue the series from fans, and added that the late novelist's family also expressed their desire that the series be completed.

Media Factory published the 20th of 22 planned volumes in February of 2011. Zero no Tsukaima F , the fourth and final television anime series adaptation of the novels, premiered in 2012. North American publisher Seven Seas Entertainment had licensed the light novel series but eventually published its manga spinoffs instead. Seven Seas describes the beginning of the story:

In a world where sorcery reigns supreme, bumbling witch-in-training Louise Francoise le Blanc is known by her classmates at the Tristain Academy of Magic as "Louise the Zero." During an important coming-of-age ritual, when each student must summon a lifelong familiar, Louise proves herself inept when she mistakenly conjures a teenage boy from earth. Now, whether she likes it or not, Louise "the Zero" and Saito, the ever-whining earth boy from Japan, are bound by the laws of magic as master and servant forever!

Source: The Mainichi Shimbun's Mantan Web via Hachima Kikō