I’m Miori Kayamoto—it’s nice to meet you. Thank you so much for picking up a copy of The Despicable Duke Settles His Affairs! Originally, I released this story on a website called Moonlight Novels, but thanks to the enthusiastic support of countless people, I was able to get it published! I can’t help feeling like it’s too great an honor, but I’m incredibly happy to have made it here.
Now then, my protagonist for this novel was an irredeemable villain—what did you think of him? I think that situations where it’s too late to fix things can sometimes spur people to work even harder, so I had Heinreid devote all his effort toward achieving his goal. There may be some issues with the direction he takes, but I think he did a good job pursuing it unwaveringly, at least.
I feel kind of bad about everything I put Craig through, sticking him with Heinreid—but at the same time, I absolutely love seeing men struggle and get in their own heads in the face of adversity, so I was really enjoying myself during the actual writing process *laughs*. During one of our meetings, my editor even asked me, “Miori-san, do you hate Craig?” I was just that gleeful about tormenting him. I’m so sorry for giving the wrong impression—I really do love him.
Aside from the two protagonists and their dynamic, the one thing I absolutely wanted to write when I was working on this novel was a charismatic villain with an overpowering presence—“my liege,” Eberhart. I often find fictional villains incredibly compelling, so I’d wanted to try my hand at writing a villain who’s completely undeserving of sympathy but strangely alluring all the same. With that in mind, I put a lot of emotional investment into his character, so I hope he was able to get his claws into all of you a little bit too. I really want to see more and more villain-lovers out there—please?
Finally, I’d like to give my thanks once again to everyone involved with this novel. Thank you to my editor, who reached out to me and supported me all the way through the publication process. Thank you to Karatsuyu-sama, who took my vague, fuzzy character bios and turned them into absolutely gorgeous, dazzling illustrations. And thank you to everyone who read this novel of mine. I can’t repeat it enough—thank you all so much!
I hope we can meet again someday, somewhere. I’ll look forward to seeing you then.