I’d like to greet all of my first-time readers, as well as reintroduce myself to familiar ones. I’m Riku Nanano. I debuted at the tail end of 2018 with Private Tutor to the Duke’s Daughter, but I still can’t stop thinking of myself as a new author. I’m a writer with a clover mark. (My sprout mark got taken away from me.) It’s very nice to meet you.
Let’s talk about the contents of the book. My hobbies are reading and writing. In other words, I’m like the classic image of someone with no hobbies. The story for this book is a plot that I’ve thought of for a while now, but never talked about in public. To tell the truth I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous about whether or not the idea works as a story.
The reason I was worried about it is because there are so many stories being published every month, but none of them are a pure Chinese-style fantasy story about swords. Granted, some do exist, but they’re modeled after Records of the Three Kingdoms...
Well, all that worry was for nothing.
Once I started writing, Sekiei turned out to be a cool hero and Hakurei turned out to be a cute-heroine-slash-dependable-partner. I’m also really enjoying the antagonists. Sword and sorcery fantasy stories are good, but how did you like this kind of fantasy?
Now, it’s time for some advertising. Volume 13 of Private Tutor to the Duke’s Daughter comes out on the same day, so to readers who picked up Heavenly Swords, I hope you’ll also give that a try. Cura is the illustrator for that series as well.
I’d like to thank everyone who helped me on this journey. To my editor: I did it! I’ll do my best with the second volume as well. To Cura, I’d like to thank you for taking on the illustrations for this series on top of Duke’s Daughter. I really liked seeing your art of Sekiei, Hakurei, and Meirin!
I’d like to thank Yu Shizumi, Tarou Hitsuji, and Myojin Katou for taking time out of your busy schedules to write recommendation letters for me; it was my first time ever having someone write a recommendation letter for me. So even at this point in time, when I’m writing the afterword, I’m really nervous. There are still so many things in life I have yet to experience.
I’d like to thank all the readers for making it this far. I look forward to seeing you all again. Until next volume, Punishment to the Traitors.
Riku Nanano