Cooking with Wild Game (LN) - Volume 29 - Chapter Aft

Afterword

Thank you so much for picking up this book, the twenty-ninth volume of Cooking with Wild Game.

In this volume, Asuta celebrates the one-year anniversary of his arrival at the forest’s edge. It took three whole years to reach this part originally, and it has been over seven years since this series started being published. I wish to offer my deepest thanks to all of you readers who have followed me this long.

The next volume will be number thirty. I personally consider this story to be divided into the Conspiracy Arc—which encompassed the events involving the Suun clan and the house of Turan, and lasted from volume one to volume thirteen—and the Development arc—which stretched from volume fourteen to volume twenty-nine. Asuta’s birthday acts as something of a dividing line, so the next volume kicks off a new Upheaval Arc.

Naturally, delicious food and interactions between people will remain at the core of the series, but the story will shift greatly in other ways moving forward, and we will probe deeper into the world of the Amusehorn continent. I hope that you will continue to follow me on this journey for a long time yet.

This is a bit of an aside, but I wrote the contents of this volume around the time of the third anniversary of the web version, so I held a character popularity poll and sent out a survey to find out which characters people wanted to see as the stars of the Group Performance stories. This is the same kind of poll that was published in the afterwords of volumes thirteen and twenty-two. And I happen to have a little space to spare here, so I would like to show you the results.

-Popularity Poll

First: Ai Fa

Second: Ludo Ruu

Third: Toor Deen

Fourth: Asuta

Fifth: Raielfam Sudra

Sixth (Tied): Shumiral

Sixth (Tied): Dan Rutim

Eighth: Rimee Ruu

Ninth: Gazraan Rutim

Tenth: Sheera Ruu

-Group Performance Votes

First: Odifia

Second: Shumiral

Third (Tied): Toor Deen

Third (Tied): Raielfam Sudra

So there you have it.

Ai Fa and Ludo Ruu managed to take first and second three years in a row, but after two years in third, Dan Rutim lost that spot to Toor Deen. It’s also amusing how Asuta took fourth three years in a row.

As for the Group Performances, this volume’s “The Girl from the Castle and the Girl from the Forest’s Edge” stars Odifia, while “The Past and the Future” centers on Raielfam Sudra, and Shumiral took the lead in last volume’s “Two People on a Rainy Day.” As for stories centered on Toor Deen, I believe I shall continue to provide those here and there.

Looking at the results above, you can see that Toor Deen and Odifia grew a lot more popular in this period, as did Raielfam Sudra. The adorable little girls are one thing, but I’m quite grateful that a wrinkly guy like Raielfam Sudra was able to earn so much love.

I’m rather fond of Raielfam Sudra myself, so I very much enjoyed getting to write that Group Performance story. Among all the countless episodes I’ve written, it still leaves an especially strong impression upon me, and I hope that all of you will feel the same way.

Furthermore, despite the massive number of characters who appear throughout the story, there really aren’t many who are disliked. It makes me very happy to see your affection for both the characters who made it into the rankings and those who didn’t.

Finally, I want to thank everyone involved with the production of this book, and of course, all of you who purchased it.

See you again in the next volume!

December 2022,

EDA