Greetings, distinguished readers. My name is Washiro Fujiki.
As I write this afterword, I am suffering from a runny nose and sore throat due to a certain infectious disease, while licking some honey and muttering, “Mm, honey,” like a certain yellow bear. But for this volume, I’ve been allocated an unusually long space for my afterword, so I’d rather talk about the series than myself.
The Hero and the Sage, Reincarnated and Engaged had actually been planned to end on the fourth volume. However, it got much more traction thanks to the manga adaptation by Riku Nishi, and so I was given the green light to write a bit more—leading to the fifth volume, and now the sixth. And I’m sure, if you’ve read this volume in its entirety, that you can tell that we will keep going for just a little longer.
This story continues to this day all thanks to the readers—whether from the light novel or the manga—and not to mention my editor and the editorial department for sticking by me, Heiro the illustrator, Riku Nishi and the manga editing team, and so many others. I would like to take this chance to express my heartfelt gratitude once more. Thank you all so very much.
Now that I’ve finished sharing my sincere feelings, allow me to further share another honest thought I have at the moment:
I have absolutely nothing to write for this afterword!!!
I’m serious. I never go out save for groceries or walks, and I spend my days playing with my cat—what is there to even write about?
Well, I suppose I do have a few things. For example, I recently started playing a famous fighting game for the first time and have been giddily practicing all sorts of combos. I’m also looking forward to the annual Pacific League of this one FPS game. I’ve been watching some very entertaining streamers and enjoying mahjong for the first time in a while... I do have a bunch of things to write about if I really had to.
But at the same time, I hold my head and think, “This isn’t the sort of thing you write about in an afterword, is it...?” You’d probably tell me, “Go yap about that on your social media account!” and I’d actually nod and agree with you. That being said, I’m not very active on social media, so I wouldn’t post about this stuff anyway.
Sometimes I consider tweeting something, but then I think, “Does anybody care about some random author’s daily life?” When I tried thinking from a reader’s perspective, my answer was no. Hence, my account now serves no purpose besides retweeting posts related to my series. My DMs are open, though—please feel free to send me your comments and thoughts. I would love to open my inbox for reasons besides deleting spam.
Anyway, I digress.
One idea that came to me was that I should write about my series. As a matter of fact, whenever I release a new series, I write about my inspirations and whatnot for the story. But when it comes to the more detailed character settings, I can’t help but think, “Would this be better off explained in the story?” Besides, if the author lays everything out in so much detail, then the readers won’t be able to enjoy coming up with theories and headcanons. Ah, what a conundrum.
You may be thinking, “Then share some inside stories about the writing process!” and I assure you I’ve thought of that too. But my writing process for this series is pretty straightforward, so there’s really not much to share.
If I had to say, I’d actually never planned for Fareg to be part of the main crew. I really just threw him out as your typical bratty rich kid, but he was just so fun to tease that I ended up dragging him into the gang. To think that he’s grown and achieved so much since then...
I might as well take this chance to mention that Millis is such a useful character. Plopping her into a scene is enough to flip the mood, so you could say that she’s one of the most important characters in this series.
Anyway, I digress again. For the aforementioned reasons, I’m really no good at writing afterwords. I’m left with no choice but to ramble on aimlessly and sometimes expose my personal preferences, consequently transforming my afterwords into rather questionable pieces of writing.
But my expression of gratitude earlier came from my heart. Allow me to say it again: Thank you all so very much.
Now that I’ve managed to pad up these pages, allow me to touch on the contents of this volume. Relatively not much has happened this time. This is probably the most leisurely I’ve ever written a volume before. Some parts of the plot have moved while others haven’t. If you’re curious about how things may or may not move from here, then I would appreciate your continued support for the next volume as well.
I said I would touch on the contents of the volume, but there wasn’t actually much to say... In any case, allow me to move on to my words of thanks:
To my editor, thank you so much for bearing with me every time. This might not be my place to say, but let’s both look after our health. You should try some honey—it’s really good.
To Heiro the illustrator, thank you once again for the wonderful illustrations. I’ll do my best with my work so as not to trouble you any more than I already am.
To Riku Nishi the manga artist, every time I receive the storyboard, I see how adept you’re becoming at handling Millis. As the original author, I couldn’t be more proud. My favorite part is the one where she bursts into tears.
And to everyone who was involved in the process, as well as all the readers who gave this volume a read, I give you the greatest thanks of all.
Washiro Fujiki