Nobiru Kusunoki here. Nice to meet you—unless you’ve read one of my pieces online before, in which case... Welcome back! Thank you very much for picking up a copy of The Reincarnated Prince and the Kingdom in Woe. Not that I expect many readers to begin with the postscript, but I won’t be spoiling anything that happens in the story here. So put your mind at ease as you waste your time reading my rant disguised as a legitimate postscript.
I have heard somewhere that anyone can write at least one hit in their life. Whether it’s a hit or not, this was the very first novel that I ever finished, despite my short attention span. I’d come across Let’s Be Novelists [note: a popular website in Japan where anyone can post their work. Many light novels, including this one, got their start on this website] and read through one user-posted novel after another. I felt fulfilled, despite losing sleep over my voracious reading habit. But humans are greedy by nature, aren’t we? Eventually, I found myself looking for trope-filled novels that I could sink my teeth into but couldn’t find any new ones. That’s when it hit me: I can just write one myself. I’m a nerd, after all. So, I set out to be self-sufficient.
I’m sure that I initially set out to write clichéd genre fiction. How did I end up with a female protagonist reborn as a prince with no actual protagonist qualities? In the end, I grew to love this premise.
Very fortunate for me, the piece was picked up by Futabasha. Now that my very first completed novel has been published, I feel like I used up all of my luck for the rest of my life... So I hope a lot of people can enjoy The Reincarnated Prince. I would hate for my entire life’s worth of luck to go to waste.
Finally, I would like to thank everyone who read the book, everyone who has followed me since back when I was posting it online, editor-in-chief M who took notice of the story, my editor M who always kept up with me and even let me write this postscript, Arico the very talented artist who drew all of my characters looking their absolute best, everyone who helped me in the publishing process, my family who always understood and supported my deep dives into the world of my hobbies... Thanks to all of you, the Reincarnated Prince came to life as a book. I can’t thank you enough!
If possible, I would love to see you again at the end of the next volume. Signing off (rant over),
Nobiru Kusunoki