Ryuuou no Oshigoto! - Volume 12 - Chapter Aft

FOR THE AFTERWORD: “WHO I DIDN’T BECOME”

“I wanted to throw my phone in a ditch and go somewhere I’ve never been. The last thing I was going to do was play another match of Shogi.”

That’s a direct quote from the first ex-Sub League 3-dan I ever interviewed.

I had the opportunity to speak with several of them, and they all had one match they would never forget.

Specifically–––one where they would have promoted if they had won.

“I had the advantage. My opponent was out of time. But, suddenly, I couldn’t read beyond a certain point. I convinced myself to make a move, any move, because I was ahead. Unfortunately, that loosened my hold on the match. Only once it was done did I realize my mistake and start doubting everything …… Next thing I knew, my opponent’s King had made it to my back row, nyugyoku. I did the same, but I obviously wouldn’t have enough points in win in a stalemate. So I resigned. I went to the restroom after the match only to see my opponent burst in and dive into one of the stalls. Part of me knew at that point I could’ve won if only I’d held out just a few more turns …… It’s a downhill slope from there.”

“I could tell from the formations that there was a checkmate somewhere, but I ran out of time and surrendered. That one formation came up in my dreams after that. Then, years later, I found a 5-move checkmate. Although I’m glad it took me that long to find it, the regret would’ve killed me if I’d found it right away.”

Seeing one match clearly every night in dreams, like it happened yesterday …… I traveled all over to talk with many different people, but they all had the same thing to say.

The depth and severity of their scars taught me just how brutal the Sub League, and the 3-dan division, truly are.

While nowhere near the level that they had experienced, I went through a major setback myself.

I had aspirations of becoming a lawyer and entered law school after finishing college, but …… 12 years of studying weren’t enough to make that happen.

Suddenly I was 30.

Gearing up for my first year of life as something other than a student with no qualifications to my name, I thought I would never be needed by society. I had been around for 30 years, but wasted every single one of them. Even now, I remember the fear and anxiety I felt back then.

Former classmates from my college days were having kids and climbing the ladder in their respective careers at that point. There were times when I was scared they had passed me by forever. Simply put, I had given up on myself. I can’t thank my grandfather and mother enough for continuing to believe in me.

The light novels I started writing to help pay for my tuition were now all I had left. Unfortunately, my work always got drowned out by what was popular at the time and wasn’t good enough that I felt comfortable calling myself an author. Light novels weren’t considered to be literature by most people at the time, either. I remember one of my former classmates now working at a bank asking me, “How much are you expecting to get for these?” at a class reunion. Without any counterarguments, I had to laugh it off and accept being the butt of their jokes. It made me want to write something that would sell at the very least.

However, it takes talent to break into the mainstream. Once I realized that was talent I didn’t have, I thought to myself, “I’ll write something that I would want to read. An intense story about people in a world that I like, people who battle against the kind of setbacks that I’ve gone through.”

The resulting The Ryuo’s Work Is Never Done! got better reviews than I ever imagined, and it gave me the opportunity to experience things that I gave up on long ago.

Keika and Hiuma were born from my own failures. I’m overjoyed that people can relate to their battles and empathize with their struggles. It makes me feel like the life I thought I had wasted might be worth something to someone else.

It’s for those very people that I’ll keep writing.

Struggles await even after achieving a dream, just as there is happiness when it doesn’t come true. I would be honored if you came to see how Ginko and Hiuma’s stories play out.