Afterword
Taka: “It looks like volume 3 is easily going to go over 300 pages. Can you extend the deadline?”
Editor: “Let’s stick with our normal three-month deadline for now.”
Several Weeks Later
Taka: “I’m totally not going to finish it on time! Extend the deadline, pleeeaaaase!”
Editor: “Good luck, and do your best.”
A Few More Weeks Later
Taka: “I can’t do this, I can’t I can’t I can’t! This is totally impossible, believe me. I’m very sorry, please, you really have to extend my deadline. I’m begging youuuuuu!”
Editor: “I’m eagerly looking forward to reading it.”
If this book has managed to hit publication right on schedule according to the standard three-month pace, it is only thanks to the (devil) editor who ignored the author’s crying and begging with a smile.
On that note, hello and good to see you all again. This is Seiichi Takayama. (Just now, when I tried to type my name “Seiichi,” it autocorrected to the kanji characters for “sex” and “position” by mistake. What the hell is with this PC?)
Together with my previous series, Ore to Kanojo no Zettai Ryouiki (Pandora Box), this marks a milestone worth commemorating, my tenth volume released. What’s more, I heard it’s also Hobby Japan’s 500th volume released on the HJ Bunko label.
What’s more, volumes 1 and 2 of The Master of Ragnarok, along with this volume, are going to get a massively expanded additional print run! So that makes the release of volume 3 a real cause for celebration.
This is all wholly due to the readers who have given me their encouragement and support. Thank you very much.
While volume 3 is truly a memorable achievement, it was also just as rough as the description above.
I just worked out the average page count of my nine previously published volumes, and it was 263.5 pages. Since I’m still writing this afterword, I don’t know the precise number for this volume yet, but I’ve heard it’s going to wind up being somewhere around 350 pages, give or take.
That’s right, that’s over 30% more than my usual. I’m always finishing right at the very last minute of my usual three-month deadline period, so I think normally the logical thing to do here would be to go with four months.
Seriously, I still remember how only just a few days before the deadline (thinking, Well, I’m really up against the wall now), I had just passed 240 pages, and normally that’s around when the end was in sight, but instead it was like, “Huh? I don’t get the sense that I’m getting close to the end at all?!” I was at my wit’s end. I’m just glad I somehow made it just in the nick of time.
...Well, it seems like I also ended up forcing both my editor and my illustrator, the great Yukisan-sensei, into a horrifically fierce crunch time, though. (Sweating.) No, seriously... if volume 3 does manage to release on time, it is entirely thanks to those two.
Now then, to briefly discuss the plot of this volume without any spoilers.
For starters, it’s a flashback arc.
The rough plot for this volume was something that had already been worked out during the early planning stages for the series... but, stories are living things. Quite often, the details in my head and what actually comes out in the manuscript end up being different from each other.
Plans are just that: plans.
Plans and schedules are made to be disrupted (deep meaning)! I think I heard a voice filled with resentment cry out just now, but I’m just not gonna worry about it.
So on that note, there were various changes I made, including major changes I was forced to make with the plot, but now that I’ve managed to finish it and get it published, I’m sighing with relief.
The main character of this series, Yuuto Suoh, is one of those so-called overpowered main characters, but at the same time, I gave him the aspects of the type of main character who goes through growth.
Volumes 1 and 2 show him after he’s already gone through some amount of growth, but this story is about an ordinary middle school boy, and the important episode that served as the biggest catalyst for his rapid growth and the budding of the qualities of a ruler within him.
I hope you also enjoy this story featuring Yuuto-kun when he was still young and inexperienced. Although, that said, at the end of volume 2 he’s still only a 16-year-old youngster. (lol) Please look forward to Yuuto’s further adventures from here on as well, as he continues to grow and mature.
With that, it’s time for the usual thanks and acknowledgements.
To my editor.
It’s because of you that I was somehow able to finish this by the deadline. Thank you very much. But thanks to that, I also gained 3 kilograms! How are you gonna make this up to me?!
To the great Yukisan-sensei, thank you very much for the many cool and cute illustrations you provided this time as well. I couldn’t stop trembling when I saw the illustration for the climactic scene! My gratitude goes out to the people in sales, proofreading, printing, distribution, and at the bookstores, and everyone else involved in the production of this volume.
And, to the readers holding this book in their hands right now, thank you from the bottom of my heart.
With that, I wish to see you all again in volume 4.
Seiichi Takayama
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