Chapter 96

Afterword

THANK you for picking up volume two of The Former Assassin Who Got Reincarnated as a Noble Girl. I’m glad we get to meet again.

Former Assassin was originally published as a webnovel that underwent a lot of reworking before becoming a print novel, which was why I was so surprised when the publisher came to me with talks of a second volume.

I didn’t know what sort of story to make this volume. I kept writing and deleting, writing and deleting, until I finally came to this as the final work. It didn’t take as long as I expected, which made me feel a bit more at ease.

What did you think about the second volume? I thought it was entertaining, and I hope you did, too.

In this installment, Scarlanette makes another appearance, this time in the role of Selena’s friend. I’d originally planned for her to be a background character who didn’t show up again after the Festival of Hunting in the first volume.

But I started thinking about how Selena has absolutely no friends, which could be because of her personality, but also because she used to be an assassin (and is again, actually), which gives her a certain aura. I decided it would be nice if she had at least one friend, and Scarlanette was selected as tribute.

This is off-topic, but there’s a saying for that in Japanese, “A white-fletched arrow stands for them,” which they say comes from a story of how kami would put a white-fletched arrow on the roof of a girl’s house to mark her as their chosen sacrifice. Scary, right?

Getting back on track, I depicted Scarlanette as an idiot in the second volume because I thought she wouldn’t decide to become Selena’s friend if she wasn’t. A smart person would keep their distance from her because she has so many secrets and is so dangerous.

But Scarlanette being the way she is also gives her the ability to see some things clearly, allowing her to support Selena in a way that Tiegel, Evan, and Rick can’t. I even thought about how Scarlanette might be guiding Selena.

The cover illustration for this volume has a Japanese flair to it, which doesn’t exactly have much to do with the story’s contents, but it ended up that way because there were items like the kanzashi hairpin and metal folding fan. Selena catches our eye this time with an allure quite different from the first volume.

Lastly, it’s thanks to a lot of people that the serialized manga version of Former Assassin is going so well in Japan. I hope you all enjoy it, including the differences from the original work. Thank you so much.