I’m Back in the Other World? - Chapter Aft

Afterword – Something Like an Afterword, maybe?

Hello, my name is Noshibukuro.

First of all, thank you for reading this poor work until the end.

The story did not have any foreplaning, I just wrote it as the ideas came to mind, but I’m glad I was able to continue until the conclusion.

I got a lot of encouragement from the readers, and thanks to everyone that gave me feedback, rates or favorited the novel, it’s thanks to all of you that I could write until the end.

By the way, this is titled afterword, but I think I might write more to this story after this.

So if you’re okay with it, please stay with me until the end.

When I started writing, I kept on calling people all the time, asking “How about this concept for a hero?”

As I read more and more works from others, my ideas grew more and more, until I finally could no longer contain them and started writing online.

You’ll notice if you look at the chapter dates, but I started with a huge writing streak in the first two days.

At first this momentum was guiding me and I could only talk about my own writing. But even in the later parts of the story I was still led by the flow, thinking things like “I want to write this kind of story” was what made me write, there were no plans or a deep plot in the whole work, some readers even commented that it felt like the story had no unity or that it was hard to know what the work was about.

I never studied anything about writing methods and it was my first time making this kind of story. It’s a beginner’s work. When I started it, I got a rating I’d never imagine, I couldn’t believe I even got first place in the daily rankings.

Of course there were some great pains along the way, but I’m glad there were always people reading… However, some of the early comments I got were quite severe, a few were even considered vandalism by Syosetu rules. This was quite shocking, I felt like I was floating at first, and then thrown on the ground all at once, I almost quit at that time.1
The first 16 chapters were released in 2012/01/30, followed by 8 chapters in 01/31. Then there were 3 chapters in 02/01 and 3 more on 02/02. A single chapter came in 02/06 and 3 more chapters at 02/11, 02/13, 02/15, 02/16 and 02/17. 7 more chapters came at 02/21.

Another 7 chapters came at 03/04, 2 more at 03/11, 3 more at 03/15, 2 at 03/16, 4 at 03/22 and 2 at 03/31.

Starting on 04/06 (chapter 74)  the author started releasing one chapter per day and kept at this pace until chapter 95, chapters 96 and 97 were released in the next day, 98, 99 and 100 in the following, and 101, 102, 103 and this afterword in the one right after.

I assume the vandalism comments thing started getting to him as soon as 02/02, but it’s hard to know.

There were some really warm comments as well though, I was able to slowly continue mainly because of their encouragement. And as I continued, those comments started becoming more and more frequent, “No matter what you write, you’ll never be able to please everyone, so just write it for the people that love what you do” this kind of thought was what kept me moving forward. By the way, I’m still scared of reading comments, it was quite the traumatic experience.

Somehow though, I was able to write a conclusion without throwing the towel.

I’d like to give my thanks to everyone that rated, put the story in your favorites, commented, and those that read the story. Thank you.

Now, I’d like to talk a bit on how the characters changed throughout the story.

First, the heroine, she diverged a lot from the original concept. In a good way though.

Originally, the story was about a heroine that went on various adventures by using the knowledge of her previous life, but once you look at it, almost all stories are about food! I did intend to write about food, but the main focus was supposed to be adventures… As I wrote though, the ratio between them was completely reversed. I have a feeling the proportion between them became 9:1 in the food’s side.

The relationship with the prince was a lot drier at first too, but before I noticed it had already become a romantic comedy. Of course I had decided they would become a couple from the start, but how this happened was completely different than my plans.

Even Graham-san was supposed to be a rough and temperamental craftsman originally, but he was completely swayed by the heroine.

… Eru is scary.2 She did become popular in the latter half of the story, but I never planned her existence. I was just watching cat videos on TV and decided that she should be in the story.

However, it became really fun to move her around without the heroine’s permission, my memories with her are very fun.

There were also plenty of changes with the others, even the Demon King was supposed to not be a klutz, but a more devilish person… He was still supposed to be stomped by the heroine though.

I was still worried on how to end though, I had two different ideas in mind, one was the “Good for nothing prince”, which was the one you saw.

The other… It was a bit hard to write. But the idea was to show Sakura’s Point of View when the Prince visited, I tried writing how it would go like here.

Huh? A visitor at this hour? “I’m coming!” I stopped cooking and ran to the entrance. I wonder who is it.

When I opened the door, 4 people entered my view. “Everyone? How come you’re all here?” I didn’t tell anyone I was back, so why are they here?

Of course I wanted to know how they were doing, so I was going to visit tomorrow.

“Sakura, it’s been a while…” Prince Sedrim started.

“Sakura-chan!” “Sakura-sama!” Before being pushed aside by the two girls.

“Fu... What am I? An extra!?” Edwil commented.

“Brother, be quiet.” “Onii-sama, please be quiet.” Both Aria and prince Sedrim retorted.

“I-I’m the next king…” He tried to say, but was ignored by everyone.

“The guard at the gate mentioned someone like you entered the capital.” Sedrim said.

“And so, we came to check it out.” Aria confirmed.

… Is this something the guards would report? Well, the people in the village did say they were searching for a ‘hero’ for a whole year…

“You’re awful! Why didn’t you contact me right after coming back!? We searched for you for two years!” Aria exclaimed… But even if she says that, I arrived at 2pm and only got home at 4pm. I was tired after walking for that long.

Well, that was just the convenient thing to do. I can understand she’d want me to come right away after disappearing for two years. “I’m sorry, I was thinking of visiting tomorrow…”

“I understand, Sakura-sama just got back after all…” Chiffon intervened.

“Chiffon said she wouldn’t get married until Sakura-chan came back by the way, her fiancé is also waiting.” Aria stopped her though.

“… Eh?” Not getting married until I came back… “But what if I hadn’t come back? Were you really not going to ever marry?”

“No, I mean… Sakura-sama disappeared, but I didn’t want to give up, so we decided to wait at least 3 years… My fiancé was fine with it too.” I’m surprised at Chiffon’s statement… To think she stayed single because of me. Should I take responsibility then?

“So, where was Sakura those past two years? We searched the entire country, but found nothing.” Prince Sedrim asked.

“We were so worried about you!” Aria complemented.

… How to say it though? “Well, it’ll take too long if I go into details, but in essence, I was back in my original world.”

“The original world…? How?” Sedrim asked.

“I don’t know, I was there when I realized…” I can’t explain what I don’t understand myself... The four of them had difficult expressions though.

“Then why did Sakura come back here? It feels like too much of a coincidence…” Sedrim said.

What do I give as an answer though? Should I talk about God? No, I better not touch that subject, I doubt they’d believe me… “Well, you see… Putting it simply…”

“What is it?” All four asked.

“I’m Back In The Other World?”

And that’s how it would go. I wonder if the “Back in the other world” part was appropriate or not since she is from Japan originally, but her soul is from this world, but… Isn’t it nice to do this kind of Title Drop?

Even if it was catchy though, this simply lacked content, so I went with the “Good For Nothing Prince” end instead.

While I wrote a lot, the way I wrote was… In a word, “Haphazard”. There were many stories that I wrote, but didn’t know how they were going to end. Or rather, I have fewer stories that I did know the end than ones I did not.

Well, that’s the kind of story this is, how was it? I hope you enjoyed it, even if just a little.

This work will be “complete” for the time being, but I won’t tag it as completed yet because I might decide to write some extras later.

I don’t know what will happen though, for now I’m taking a break.

If there are any situations you want to read, please do request them. I can’t promise anything, but I might try some of them out.

And with this, I bid you farewell.

I have just started it, but I have another series in the works. I hope I can see you there once it’s live.

And finally, once again.

Thank you for reading.