Afterword
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR PURCHASING THIS VOLUME. It’s me, Sou Akaike. Volume Five is here at last! I never imagined that Easygoing Territory Defense by the Optimistic Lord would live long enough to reach Volume Five. This is all thanks to you, dear reader.
It feels like just yesterday that I began writing Easygoing Territory Defense by the Optimistic Lord. The passage of time really is something else, huh? The emergency of the coronavirus has made it consistently difficult to travel over the past two years. Around the time I hit the two-year anniversary of starting Easygoing Territory Defense by the Optimistic Lord, the world finally went back to some measure of normalcy, where folks could leave their homes without too much worry.
I remember immediately going to the prefecture next door. I even looked up a bunch of delicious foods on the internet ahead of the trip. It was loads of fun.
I’ve always enjoyed traveling and wanted to travel overseas. In fact, as soon as I became a working member of society, I went to Italy and enjoyed some pizza in Rome. I scraped together the money for the trip by skipping out on more than a few meals. Despite all the fascinating foods I ate there, I still managed to lose weight.
Some welcome news is that thanks to work, family, and my writing, I’m too busy these days to just hop on a plane and fly overseas. That’s why I decided to go to Tokyo Disney instead. All on a whim, mind you, and it just so happens to be Disneyland’s fortieth anniversary. I have my doubts that I’ll ever hit a fortieth anniversary, so hey, you win this round, Disney.
I would be lying if I said I don’t feel a dash of bitterness comparing my own anniversaries to Disney’s, but this will be my first trip in a good while, so I intend to have a blast. I will defeat you, Disneyland! Don’t think I won’t eat you out of churros.
All this to say, I’m very, very excited for this trip.
Now then, it’s time to thank everyone who helped me to get here. To H, who always listens to my concerns and whips my compositions into shape. To the good folks at Overlap, who publish my books despite my gleeful self-indulgence hobby. To Oraido and their proofreading. To Kururi for all the beautiful illustrations that make these books what they are. To Maro Aoiro’s manga adaptation that breathes new life into the world of Easygoing Territory Defense by the Optimistic Lord. And last but not least, to you, the readers, for purchasing this book. Thank you so, so much. From the bottom of my heart.
—SOU AKAIKE