For those who are picking up this series for the first time, thank you so much, and nice to meet you! I’m Gyokuto. For those who picked this volume up after reading the first one, thank you so much, and nice to meet you again! If you recall, in the last afterword, I wrote, “while hoping we meet again in the next volume,” and I’m extremely glad we were able to!
Now then, with the greetings over, I want to talk a little about the work itself. But before we get into that, I have an announcement to make: This work was entered into Earth Star’s first-ever web novel contest, and while volume one was published in advance of the results getting announced, on October 15 of this year, those results were posted! And unbelievably, this work of mine won the grand prize! This, too, was only possible thanks to all of you readers, so I’m eternally grateful! The rewards for the grand prize winner include a manga adaptation and audio drama, among other exciting things that will probably be announced by the time you read this afterword, so please look forward to it all. To be honest, my own anticipation is so sky-high that I probably look suspicious even while doing daily tasks. For instance, I’ll be on a train or in the middle of shopping, then find I’ve been grinning to myself. So if you see someone like that, please forgive them.
Still, I also mentioned this in my response to winning the grand prize, but to me, this victory is not the goal—it’s more like I’ve made it to the starting line at last. So I don’t want to get too complacent and will put out many more creative works from here on.
Now we can talk about the story. First off, the web version of this volume didn’t give the duke’s daughters or the Falcon Blades’ warrior priest many chances to shine, so I added a few scenes focused on giving them the spotlight. Of course, because of their respective relationships to the protagonist, some might have received a more favorable spotlight than others. In particular, I feel like I ought to apologize to the warrior priest for what I put her through.
Including these changes, there were even more revisions to the web novel in this volume than the previous one. While the main story is largely unchanged, the depictions of some characters have changed considerably and will likely diverge from the web novel even more in the future. Readers might find it interesting to compare and contrast the differences, offering an even greater degree of enjoyment to engaging with this humble work.
Now it’s time to acknowledge and thank the staff who made this book a reality. Yunagi, once again, thank you so much for your wonderful illustrations. Even when I struggle to provide a concrete image in my head of what I want my characters to look like and wear, you always provide designs that go above and beyond my expectations. Editor Furusato, I apologize for always being such a nuisance. I’ll try to approach my work with a little more composure next time. And to all the readers who picked up this book, as well as the readers of the web novel version, this series would not have made it out into the world without you. I’ll continue to work on both the published version and the web version from now on, so please continue to support them both in the future as well.
Lastly, a special thanks to all those who are holding a physical copy of the book in your hands at this moment. Now that the cast from Onigashima have shown up in the published version as well, the end of the first act is drawing near. While hoping I can announce the end of Act 1 to you all in the afterword for volume 3, I lay my pen down for now. Thank you again.