The Greatest Demon Lord Is Reborn as a Typical Nobody - Volume 1 - Chapter Aft

AFTERWORD

To readers of my previous work, it’s nice to see you again.

As for new readers, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Myojin Katou.

This work was originally serialized online on Shousetsuka ni Narou. This version has been edited from head to toe and become an actual book.

Well then, everyone, I’m going to change the topic. It’s that time of year again.

Yep. It’s Monster Hunter season.

I don’t mean to go on and on about me, but I’ve been playing since the very first game. I’ve been too busy to keep up with most games, but that doesn’t stop me from being a hardcore Hunter who’s always up for some Monster Hunter. I’m that big of a fan.

(Time to sell myself.) Please bless me with work, Capcom.

That’s why I’ve already logged 150 hours on the newest game, Monster Hunter: World, which went on sale on January 26. I know there was some discourse around changing the console for this game, but I’d been hoping it would come out on the PS4, so this was good news to me. Of course, the graphics are seriously amazing. And the middle-aged male character I customized looked really cool, supercool, awesomely cool. Absolutely amazing.

…Huh? Female characters? What’s that?

If I started talking about all the other great things about it, I could easily fill up a hundred pages—no joke. I’ll cut it short this time.

On to a different subject.

The life of a novelist is a stressful one.

You confront your poor writing skills, or panic when you’ve hit writer’s block, or get sick of hearing kids screaming in your neighborhood, or become depressed by projecting the sound of their innocent laughter onto your own childhood, or start to get pissed off when you overhear them living their day-to-day lives… Yeah, that sort of stress follows novelists around all the time.

I’ve lived the novelist life for only a year. It might be presumptuous of me to say this, but I sincerely believe that it’s impossible to write when dealing with these major stressors.

And I think novelists should take it into their own hands to reduce them.

But I had a tough time implementing this myself and suffered as a consequence.

When I was writing this book, I was super stressed by the neighborhood kids. Just as I wondered what to do, I saw a beacon of hope.

On that fateful day, I was mindlessly watching television when that commercial came on. You know the one. Yep, it was for Monster Hunter: World, featuring the man who came closest to ruling Suzuran High, Takayuki Yamada.

Wow. It made an impact on me to see a grown man play make-believe, earnestly and passionately pretending to be in the Monster Hunter world. It was endearing and enviable.

And I guess that led me to pretend to be in Monster Hunter, too.

There I was, a grown man in his early thirties, sprinting around his room yelling “Diabloooooos!” and jumping up and down, screeching “Plesiooooooth!”

I screamed from the soul. I was looking like some backward abnormality, as my name might suggest in Japanese.

I’m sure the neighborhood kids heard it and that the senseless screams of a crazy old man scared the crap out of them. Serves ’em right.

Anyway. Pretending to be in Monster Hunter healed my heart. It relieved my stress to play the part of a monster and act all eccentric.

I’m gonna keep doing this from now on, I thought to myself.

But it all ended with my Dos Jagie impression.

“…What’re you doing?”

My parents walked in. How cliché. It had to be my parents. What a trope.

I used to watch live streams on Nico Live where parents barged in on streamers, and I’d laugh my head off. Maybe this was karma.

My parents were frozen in place. I didn’t move an inch… I will never pretend to be in Monster Hunter again, I promised to myself.

—Not.

It was all, in fact, a lie. I couldn’t think of anything for the afterword, so I made stuff up. There’s no way a grown man would scream “Diablooooooos,” right?

Ah-ha-ha-ha.

…Well, that leaves me with some words of gratitude.

First, I would like to acknowledge my editor. I caused you a lot of trouble. Please forgive me for being a slow learner.

To Sao Mizuno, who provided the illustrations, thank you very much. Ireena looks seriously adorable.

And to those who supported me on the Internet. It’s thanks to you that a physical book was even possible. Thank you. Please look forward to my future work.

Finally, all the readers holding this book in your hands: You have my deepest gratitude.

Well then, I pray we’ll meet again in Volume 2. I’ll sign off here.

Myojin Katou