Washiro flew into a passion.
He left his body to the impulse birthed within his diseased head: “Like, man, I really want a shota protagonist...” and resolved himself to write all manner of scenes concerning our dashing lad surrounded by caring big sister heroines.
But Washiro knew not the first thing about writing a romantic comedy. He spent his waking hours writing fantasy, essentially. Therefore, he went to a rom-com author he knew and clung to him in tears like dear NXbXtX from a certain country’s national anime. “Hey, I’m beggin’ ya here! Teach me how to write a rom-com, would ya?” he did plead. Yet, when the time came for pen to hit paper, he found himself in despair at the impossibility of the task.
“What now?” you might ask, but he was not one to be beaten. Washiro’s sensibilities toward onee-shota material are a cut above the rest.
“I know! I’ll just write a battle fantasy where the shota protagonist gets tormented a lot!”
Evidently, his inclinations took a turn for the worse.
Alright, jokes over. This is Washiro Fujiki. That was (probably) the story behind the work you’re currently reading, The Underdog of the Eight Greater Tribes.
Being real here, those people who can write a whole volume of rom-com are seriously incredible. A short story is one thing, but a long, continuous book? That’s crazy. I’ll never be able to do it, short of being reborn, or having a new brain shoved in my skull.
If that wasn’t bad enough, when I tried playing around with my literary structure for practice, I started making grammar mistakes. No matter how many revisions I did, it would always come out sounding strange, and my editor would give me an earful.
Really, sorry about that.
This work is heavily focused on battle. While the works I’ve written before have included battle scenes, this is the first time battle has been a central theme. It’s terribly stressful, I’m losing hair over this.
When the next volume comes out, I’m pretty sure I’ll be screaming, “Let’s make the heroines cuter and write some flirty-fun scenarios!” as I pen some daily-life parts.
That out of the way, it’s about time for me to show my gratitude.
To my editor. I know I said it already, but really sorry about everything. Sure, I’m sorry, but I think I’ll still have mistakes next time around.
To my illustrator, Kodama Yu. I can’t raise my head to you anymore, you perfectly fulfilled such a difficult order. Thank you so much for the wonderful illustrations!
And my greatest thanks to everyone who took part in this publication, and to you, my dear reader!
Washiro Fujiki