Youjo Senki - Volume 2 - Chapter Aft

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Afterword

Before I greet you, I, Carlo Zen, declare:

The publisher known as Enterbrain actually has only one screw that’s tight. On top of the title, The Saga of Tanya the Evil, this revised manuscript with no concern for political correctness… When they were working on my revised manuscript for Volume 1, they didn’t say a word. I seriously wondered what level hero they are.

Now then, they’re a bit belated, but greetings.

To those of you who bought books one and two at the same time: Nice to meet you. I appreciate you buying these two thick books. I have the feeling it’s probably already too late, but…you might want to read the afterword from Volume 1 first and then come back here.

Next, to the readers of book one who picked up this book: My apologies for keeping you waiting. I personally regret it very much. I wrote in the back of the first book that the next one would be out “next spring,” but I totally meant spring in the southern hemisphere (huge lie). To speak in extremes, I guess we could say the problem was Clausewitz’s internal friction. And I was busy with moving and whatnot. I won’t mention the name of the company, but a certain major communications infrastructure something or other had me nearly crying at the standard of their east side service. That’s what they call “external friction.”

In other words, Clausewitz wrote about why my book was late in On War. Ahh, the fog of war is scary. In conclusion, it wasn’t Carlo Zen’s fault.

…Uhh, I’m going to make the next volume more compact and get it to you sooner. This one is so thick I’m getting scolded to make the afterword short.

Okay, I’ve fulfilled my duty of accountability (I’ve decided), so on to a few gripes. To be blunt, it seems that you all like Grantz, or Weiss, or the middle-aged Ze-Ru duo better than Degu-san.

Please take another look at the cover. This is a light novel called The Saga of Tanya the Evil. It’s popular among authors I know, as well as children—a light novel with a favorable reception. In other words, it’s a story you can enjoy as a family.

Strangely, my editor is like, “I like when the older guys get a turn. I feel closer to them than Degu-san, so I can relax, lol,” explicitly telling me to boost their presence. But I won’t yield to this pressure.

So as not to turn my title, The Saga of Tanya the Evil, into a scam and earn society’s harsh criticism, I will do my duty, even if I must resist pressure from my editor and some readers telling me, “Give us more of the cool old dudes.”

Rest easy as you wait for Volume 3.

P.S. Last time I forgot to put this in. I’m peaceably extolling the virtues of peace, love, and democracy on Twitter: @sonzaix

May 2014 Carlo Zen

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References:

1 sealed orders Securely sealed orders. May only be opened in a certain place at a certain time or in a certain war situation. Delivered by an officer.

2 doctrine In a military sense, pertains to beliefs about combat. In other words, the thinking behind employing each army’s fighting force and the strategy, operations, and tactics involved. Of these levels, the concept of operations has been nearly forgotten, so be aware of the terrible tendency to discuss war as strategy and tactics. Also, even if you know the difference between strategy, operations, and tactics; the different hierarchy terms; and hierarchy-like terms, it’s still so easy to mix them up.

3 paradigm shift When phenomena unexplainable by the current paradigm, the current way of understanding things, pile up and we switch to a new way of understanding. Example: geocentric theory ? heliocentric theory

4 Molotov A Soviet diplomat. Stalin’s minister of foreign affairs. He once proclaimed that even in wartime, noncombatants should be protected and that they had the right to be free of starvation. In retaliation for dropping “bread” from heavy bombers on Finns in war against Finland, Soviet soldiers got to taste special Molotov “cocktails.” Now that is a friendly, well-mannered relationship between two civilized nations.

5 Animals are not your food! From an NPO’s sign.

6 1800 hours Six PM in military time.

7 CP Command Post. It’s one step down the hierarchy from HQ.

8 harassing attacks In a nutshell, attacks with the intent to cause disturbance and confusion—e.g., the Doolittle Raid or saying hello to Berlin with Mosquitoes on January 31, 1943, during Göering’s speech celebrating the tenth anniversary of the Nazis gaining power.

9 phony war The France-Germany border during the beginning of World War II was the very picture of peace. This phrase describes a strange state of conflict in which parties are at war but not fighting.

10 Koskenkorva An alcoholic drink.

11 aal Pet name for German torpedoes. In German, aal means “eel.”

12 pretty hands for a sophisticated game of cricket A typical English thing to do. When a British pilot taken prisoner by the Germans was missing a prosthetic leg and asked to be sent one, I guess the British dropped one with a parachute in addition to some bombs or something. When the Germans said it was bad manners, the British were like, “This isn’t a game of cricket!”

13 RTB Return to base.

14 VT fuse A proximity, aka “magic,” fuse. A revolutionary gadget that makes shells explode when they are near the enemy.

15 two British ladies Ships are female, and British women are ladies. You all need to play Paradox Interactive’s game Victoria (aka Vic)! Or maybe take a look at Britannia (the goddess).

16 mole A spy, or a double agent. Usually the kind who infiltrates a nation’s domestic organizations.

17 flight leader The one in front who guides the others. They mark bombing objectives, guide aviation units, and so on, so it’s a job for veterans. Leaders are important.

18 produce silence with a shovel To shut someone up by hitting them. Doesn’t really distinguish between knocking someone down, knocking them out, and killing them.

19 QED “It has been proven.”

20 WTO Warsaw Treaty Organization

21 Rudel A great pioneer of enlightenment who turned a certain lying encyclopedia honest. Or the king of destroying tanks.

22 Mr. Yamashita Thought to be the precedent for International Criminal Court Statute, Article 8, also known as the “Yamashita Standard.” In a nutshell, that’s what we call General Tomoyuki Yamashita, who was tried in the pickiest way in an American military tribunal for bad things his subordinates did—command responsibility.