Chapter 40

AFTERWORD Long time no see, everyone. Rifujin na Magonote here. First of all, I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to everyone who has picked up the fifth volume of Orc Eroica. Everyone, thank you very much. This time as well, I would like to write a sprightly update on my current situation. What, you want me to write about my work? I mean, I too would like to write about the fifth volume. But even if I say so myself, Orc Eroica is super-engaging, right? I feel like if I write about the hardships I had with Volume 5, it would only dilute the impact of the story. What, you don’t agree? Oh well, then I suppose I could write a little bit about it. This time, Bash and his friends went to the land of the succubi. The idea for this country came about at a very early stage. The succubus nation is a world of only women, where there are few men, and the women are highly predatory. Kind of a reverse world. Bash is highly respected by the succubi. When Bash visits the succubus nation, he experiences excitement on a level he never thought possible before. The succubi live in a strict military society under the rule of a queen, but their way of speaking is very succubus-like and quite mesmerizing… These individual ideas struck me as very interesting when I dreamed them up, but the more those ideas accumulated, the more difficult it became to come up with a story. Yes, these individual aspects, no matter how interesting, have no relation to the overall story at all. If I focused only on those elements, then Bash would simply arrive at the land of the succubi, lose his virginity in a flash, and there the story would end. So I had to come up with reasons why Bash couldn’t bed a succubus lady, and I had to come up with a reason for Bash to go there in the first place, even with that being the case. That’s when I came up with the idea of the water spirits and the sibling pair of Ludo and Luca. In addition, there are a few elements of the Geddigs revival strategy that started in the fourth volume. This is the completion of the succubus country arc. I regret that there were a few too many elements involved, and that Ludo and Luca were a bit underutilized, but I couldn’t think of anything else, so it can’t be helped. In any case, if you reread these five volumes with the overall story in mind, it might be interesting to see a glimpse of my creative method. Well, I have some extra space this time, so I thought I’d write a status report. Last time, various things happened, and I turned into a zombie, and I spent an eternity attacking all living things, but the other day, I was able to recover from being a zombie! Wow, that was a long time. Has it really been about one million years in real time? I don’t feel like much time has passed, since my brain was rotten. It feels like it’s only been about a year. By the way, during that space of a million years, humanity seems to have gone extinct about three times. Humanity arose on one planet, then perished, then humankind arose on another planet and perished, then humankind arose on another planet and perished, and so on. This means that in over a million years, there may be organisms that have evolved in exactly the same way on different planets. If the given environment and conditions are the same, the results will be the same. So, strictly speaking, I am a being from a super-ancient civilization, and I am therefore totally different from modern humans. However, as you all know, I’m a novelist and not particularly intelligent, so even though I’m a person from an ancient civilization, I don’t have any special powers. However, the people who brought me back from being a zombie are pushing me to fight. Apparently, they are a so-called evil organization that plans to revive people from ancient civilizations like me, use them as battle monsters, and take over the world. How foolish. Just because someone is from a super-ancient civilization doesn’t mean they’re good at fighting. Having said that, I also have a thing for world domination. After all, I’m a former zombie. I was one of the beings who destroyed humanity. And as a space zombie, I’ve already destroyed the human race once. So I decided to give it a try. And it seems like there’s going to be a tournament to rank all the monsters. I’d rather not participate in that, but this is probably my inevitable fate after joining the organization. So I’m going to give it all I’ve got. Well, that got a bit long-winded, but anyway… To Asanagi, who once again drew some wonderful illustrations, and to Editor K, whom I have inconvenienced by focusing too much on Mushoku Tensei…and to all the others who were involved in the creation of this book, not to mention all the readers who’ve been waiting for updates on the “Shousetsuka ni Narou” website… Thank you very much, once again. If I survive this hellish tournament, I’ll see you again in Volume 6. Rifujin na Magonote