Tantei wa Mou, Shindeiru - Volume 1 - Chapter Aft

Afterword 

It’s a pleasure to meet you. My name is nigozyu, and they’ve been kind enough to give me the Best Prize in the 15th MF Bunko J Light Novel Rookie Award. 

…Right off the bat, I’d like to start with an apology: I was terrible at adjusting the number of pages, and so, incredibly, this afterword is three whole pages long. Since it is an afterword by a humble rookie light novelist, feel free to skip the whole thing with élan, then use those extra few minutes to tweet or post your thoughts on the book you just read on social media. (Ingenious advertising.) 

All right, now that we’ve gotten the foreword of the afterword out of the way: Once again, thank you very much to all the readers who picked up The Detective Is Already Dead. 

If the title made you hope that it was going to be a genuine mystery, I probably owe you an apology, but nothing could make me happier than if you managed to enjoy it as an entertaining blend of genres. 

The spark for this novel was a single sentence that popped into my head: “Is there a detective on this plane?” 

At the time, even I had no idea the book would turn out to be such a hodgepodge of genres. However, when I was giving some fresh thought to my concept of light novels, the first thing that came to mind was “anything goes.” 

In that case, couldn’t I incorporate all the genres I thought were fun, and wouldn’t it be okay if I built the story around the parts I wanted to write most: the conversations and relationships between the protagonist and the heroines? When I sat down at my computer with that thought in mind, the result was this novel. 

Was the experiment a success or a failure? I’ll have to wait for the reader reviews to come in before I know for sure. Given that they let me release it as a book, though, I don’t think the time I spent typing away based on that resolution was a waste. 

Ordinarily, this would be the perfect place to start wrapping things up, but I have a page left to fill, so please stick with me a little longer. 

This is rather abrupt, but do any of you ever think that life might just be too hard? I do. I think it first occurred to me around the time I dropped out of kindergarten (I’d encourage you not to drop out of kindergarten), so by this point, I’ve lived with that thought for more than twenty years. 

I was the sort of kid who couldn’t do the things my friends managed to do as a matter of course, and so I ran into all sorts of hardship in all sorts of places. I’d spend my days sitting in corners, hugging my knees and shifting the blame off over the horizon: “It’s not my fault, it’s society’s fault, it’s the country’s fault…” Whenever I felt that way, light novels got me through it… Y’know I thought if I followed that train of thought, I might be able to wrap this up on a feel-good note, but actually, it doesn’t have much to do with anything. 

I first encountered light novels after I’d flunked my college entrance exams and started attending a cram school, but I couldn’t work up any enthusiasm for it and was skipping school at a bookstore. (Am I garbage?) 

After that, I continued smoothly failing to engage with the rails of a proper life, and sociability has been a foreign concept to me for a very long time. However, writing a novel and releasing it into the world has been a valuable experience. While putting it this way may get me scolded by society at large, I’ve been spending my days thinking, My life really is like the Game of Life. 

Now then, since I opened with an apology, I’d like to close with thank-yous. 

First, my supervising editor, O. 

I had a very hard time clearing the hurdles my editor set for me, and I’m currently making a nuisance of myself in the present progressive tense, for which I’m terribly ashamed. There are lots of characters and developments in this volume that wouldn’t even have been there without O, and I’m seriously grateful. Really, thank you so much. Please continue to help me out. 

Next, the illustrator, Umibouzu. 

The artist dexterously picked up elements from my clumsy concepts and prose and created truly wonderful characters, and even now, as I’m writing this afterword, I have no idea how to express my gratitude. I should probably pull together about seven hundred million yen from my pocket money, shouldn’t I? Or that’s what I thought, but the illustrator blurb only says, “I want to eat bean sprouts,” so maybe that would be better. Thank you so much for being in charge of the illustrations. 

In addition, once again, let me thank everyone who was involved in the publication of this book, the four authors who acted as judges for the Rookie Award, my family, my friends, and the readers who supported me—thank you very much. 

Finally, I have an announcement to make, so please see the next page.