Shinwa Densetsu no Eiyuu no Isekaitan - Volume 1 - Chapter Aft

Afterword

Thank you very much for picking up The Mythical Hero’s Otherworld Chronicles: Vol. 1.

I’d like to start off by diving right in and telling you how this book came to be.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve only had one virtue: an imagination twice as overactive as most people’s. Initially, I tried to channel it into becoming a manga artist...but as it turns out, I have zero dedication. I mean really, truly zero. Some might even say I give up at the drop of a hat... In any case, it soon became clear that I was never going to cut it in the manga business.

For years I dragged my feet fruitlessly through life, until I had a fateful encounter one day at a certain bookstore. Yes, dear reader, I came face-to-face with that brand of teen fiction called the light novel. Immediately I got excited. “All this time, there was another way!” I thought. “I can weave a world of my own with words!” But right out of the gate, I was getting ahead of myself. I had no natural way with words. Writing even a hundred characters seemed impossible for me. I searched the internet in the hopes of finding some convenient way of improving both my typing speed and my writing, and that was how I stumbled across the “Shosetsuka ni Narou” website we all know and love. Despite my amateur prose, my uploads received a humbling amount of support, which led to S-san, my now editor, reaching out to me, and eventually to my material making it to print.

Honestly, I’m a little scared by how well things have worked out. I spend every day in anticipation, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Even as I’m writing this right now, I’m still praying that there is no other shoe.

There isn’t, right? C’mon, God, throw me a bone here!

Ah yes, God. And what are gods but the stuff of myth? Our world is littered with myths of all shapes and sizes, many of which have had a great influence on this work. Indeed, it was the desire to write a myth of my own that ultimately evolved into this story. It’s the product of pure self-indulgence, all chuunibyou and no brakes, but I hope it resonates with the chuunibyou in your soul. The average age of our demographic seems to increase year by year, so I’d like to flatter myself that it did.

Before I finish, I have many people to thank. To my editor, S-sama, who has worked tirelessly to put this story in print; to Miyuki Ruria-sama, who transformed the amateur idea vomit of my descriptions and clothing concepts into such beautiful covers and insert art; to everybody who followed my work on Shousetsuka ni Narou; to you, the reader, who picked up this book; to everybody in the editorial department, the proofreaders, and the designers; to my coworkers and their tolerance for my selfish requests; to my family, who have supported me from the beginning; to my grandmother: from the bottom of my heart, thank you. Without you, this novel would never have been a reality.

I’m not taking my foot off the chuuni pedal any time soon. I hope you’ll stick around.

奉 (Tatematsuri)