Grimgal of Ashes and Illusion - Volume 1 - Chapter Aft

Afterword

Dragon Quest, Wizardry, Final Fantasy, Megami Tensei, Metal Max, Romancing Saga, Breath of Fire, Live A Live, Chrono Trigger, Arc The Lad, Tactics Ogre, Suikoden, Tales of Phantasia, Wild Arms, Final Fantasy Tactics, Star Ocean, Atelier Marie, Saga Frontier, Xenogears, and many more console RPGs, or games that included RPG elements, saved me.

Even I, who couldn’t get into shooters, sports games, fighting games, and other action games because I was bad at them, could focus on RPGs and immerse myself in their worlds.

That I was able to enjoy them on my own, at my own pace, was important to me. Throughout my life, I haven’t been the kind of person with many friends. It might be fair to say I had very few.

Of course, it’s not that I had absolutely no friends, but I’m incapable of enjoying playing as a group or having a good time talking about something. Honestly, I want to do those things, but I can’t seem to do them well.

When I was a child, when the new Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy went on sale, everyone would start playing it. They would talk about how far they had gotten and what level they were now every day at school. I couldn’t get involved in those conversations.

All I could do was cut into my sleeping hours to play the game, get farther than everyone, then when I heard someone boasting, “I got this far!” I could quietly think, “Oh, only to there? That’s nothing special. I’m further than you,” and smile to myself.

Basically, I was a gloomy kid. But even I could become the protagonist, go on incredible adventures, become stronger, and save the world. It was always RPGs that saved me.

Then, something brought about a change for that gloomy, solitary gamer. Diablo... Ultima Online... EverQuest... Dark Age of Camelot... These are all American games, but domestically there were games like Dark Eyes and Lifestorm, too.

It was online RPGs.

Using the internet, you could play an RPG with someone else. If we’re talking about playing RPGs with other people, there are tabletop RPGs, as well. However, for someone not so good at dealing with other people, like I am, that was too high a hurdle to get over. In online RPGs, I didn’t have to be face-to-face with anyone.

If I knew some small amount of English, I could play with people overseas. I went crazy for it. This was an era when the internet wasn’t as widely deployed as it is now. I connected to the internet not over fiber or ADSL, but over the phone lines, so the telephone was unavailable while I was playing games.

Using a service called Tele-hodai, which charged a fixed monthly rate for unlimited calls to select numbers late at night and early in the morning, I used every single one of those minutes for playing games. There were times I accidentally went outside that time period, well outside it, causing my phone bill to cost an incredible amount.

At that time, for me, online RPGs were reality, and everything else was just time to sleep, eat, lay about, or think about games. Every night, I dove into the thrilling world of online RPGs, and when morning came, I returned to the mundane world. I lived in games. Games kept me alive.

Occasionally people ask what led me to start writing. As you would expect, games were a major influence. If I hadn’t encountered RPGs, I’m sure I never would have written novels.

In particular, had I not spent that time immersed in online RPGs, my debut novel Bara no Maria (Kadokawa Sneaker Bunko) would never have been born, nor would this book either.

Furthermore, had I not read books based on RPGs, such as Ryo Mizuno’s Lodoss-tou Senki (Record of Lodoss War) or Benny Matsuyama’s Tonariawase no Hai to Seishun, even if I had become a novelist, I don’t believe I would have written this sort of book. Even the Japanese title of this book, Hai to Gensou no Grimgar, was inspired by Tonariawase no Hai to Seishun, and the title for the novel that eventually became Bara no Maria was Bara no Maria Senki.

Online RPGs, and RPGs in general, stirred up my creativity, or perhaps my delusions, and led me to novels deeply involved with RPGs. That’s how I got here. Because I played so many RPGs for such a long period of time, I can no longer play games with the same feeling I did during “that time.”

Even so, I fervently hope for games that will bring “that time” back to life for me. While ruminating on my feelings from “that time,” I wrote this novel. I believe, beyond doing that, a world I have yet to see surely awaits. If I have further opportunities, I think I will write more “that time” novels.

At this time, I offer my heartfelt appreciation and all of my love to: my editor, K, who gave me this opportunity; to Eiri Shirai, the illustrator who drew such transparent, atmospheric, modern, cute, cool and lovely illustrations; to the designer and others who compiled this novel into such a fine book; to everyone involved in production and sales of this book; and finally, to all of you people now holding this book. Now, as I hope we will meet again, I lay down my pen for today.

Ao Jyumonji