Hello, Shinten-Shinchi here. Thank you so much for reading this book!
At long last, the manga of the series has begun, and it’s being drawn by Kazamori Inagi. They’ve done such a great job bringing the stoic Gino and the goblin version of Ana to life in the manga despite it being no easy task. I hope you check it out as well! It makes me so happy to see Ana receive Gino’s direct expressions of love in manga form.
Well, we’ve finally reached the end of the series, which you could probably tell from the events that occurred after they got married.
When I originally posted this novel on Shosetsuka ni Narou, it was in the isekai romance genre category. I cut out everything after they got married because it’d make it a different genre, but as a published book series, I don’t have to worry about adhering to a single genre, so I was able to include everything I wanted to.
In the web novel version, I wrote some side stories about what happened after Gino and Ana got married, but this third volume makes those events the main story. Unlike the side stories, they are actually a part of the overarching plot. I apologize to the web novel readers who may have expected a similar style to what they read originally.
Thanks to all of your support, I was able to write the entire series to the end. Truly, thank you all so much! Being able to take a story to its final destination is such an emotional experience, and I broke out into tears when I finished writing it.
I had so many things I wanted to include, so this volume ended up being a lot longer than I initially anticipated. Even after changing the line spacing, I couldn’t fit everything into the allotted page count, so in the end, the total number of pages was increased. So yeah, that’s kind of what happened and why this book is jam-packed as if we went back in time to Natsume Soseki’s days. I’m really sorry about that. It’s hard to read something like this in today’s world, isn’t it? But I really didn’t want to cut anything. On the flip side, thanks to how long it is, it feels like a story that keeps going on without ending, which is a big perk. To those of you who read the afterword before deciding to buy the book, please consider purchasing this volume!
Since this is the final afterword, I’d like to talk about one thing that wasn’t really touched on in the story—the drawing rooms of the Sevensworth estate. Each one has its own unique name. For example, the drawing room where Ana and Gino first called each other by nickname was in the twelfth drawing room, the Sapphire Lotus. In Sinhalese, lotus translates to “padparadscha,” and so the full name of the drawing room is “Padparadscha Sapphire,” and true to its name, the door to the room is inlaid with very lavish padparadscha sapphires. All the drawing rooms in their estate in the royal capital are like this, where the doors are inlaid with gems. This is the reason they all have different names.
On the other hand, all the drawing rooms in their estate in the original Sevensworth territory are named after flowers. For example, the sixth drawing room, where Ana showed the third prince the documents about Lady Mariott, was the Windflower. True to its name, the door had a windflower—also known as an anemone—depicted on it. All the drawing rooms in this estate have flowers painted on them corresponding with their names.
The reason they all have different names is the simple fact that they have too many rooms. Their estate in their territory easily has over a thousand. They have so many drawing rooms, they have to name them by the design on the door, or else they’ll never find the one they’re looking for.
By the way, in gem language, padparadscha sapphire means “a single love,” “a fated love,” and “I’ll be by your side forever and protect you.” In flower language, anemones symbolize “the pain of love” and “truth.” I’m sure if you read this volume, you’ll know how much the third prince suffered while in this room. Just like this, all the different rooms have some kind of meaning behind their name, design, or view from the window.
If you’re wondering why I did this, it’s for the people who will read this more than once. In my mind, it’s the greatest reward to have someone reread your story, and it makes me happier than words could say.
I was really happy when I read the comments on the web novel talking about how they reread the story, so I’ll be really glad if people reread the serialized version as well!
I put in a lot of work to make sure that even if only just one person rereads the book, they’ll find something they didn’t see before. If you’re so inclined to, I encourage you to read the books over again and see if you can make any new discoveries!
Thank you for staying with me until the end of this story! This is my first publication, so I’m sure it’s not perfect, but I will learn from this and when I write a new story, I’d be happy if you’re all there to read it!