Afterword

Hello everyone, Hyougetsu here.

It’s been three years since the first volume of Der Werwolf was published. The series covered a pretty big chunk of Veight’s life, but we’ve finally reached the “happily ever after” conclusion. I know this is a sudden change of topic, but if you look through history’s list of great figures, you’ll notice most of them failed to raise good successors. No matter how good someone is at war or politics, there’s no guarantee they’ll also be a good parent. (That’s hardly surprising, since parenting is a totally different skill set.) However, the titular hero Veight doesn’t need to worry about that. He’ll be a wonderful father, and he knows how to teach people other than his own kids, too. I hope, anyway. The people he teaches will go on to lead Meraldia to even greater peace and prosperity. I hope, anyway.

In the web novel, everything up to volume 11 is the “main story” and everything after is extra content. I plan to write up until around 15 years past the end of the main story, at which point Meraldia and the surrounding nations will be stable enough that Veight won’t need to do anything at all. Of course, these extra stories will still feature Veight running around from place to place, but the tone is going to be pretty different. They’re also going to have a pretty heavy focus on his daughter, Friede.

As a result, I decided to take my editor up on his offer, and swap up the artists for the extra volumes. My new illustrator is going to be Teshima-sensei. He’s just as skilled as Nishi(E)da-sensei, but his art has a much more lighthearted vibe to it. I feel as though a style like this is more fitting now that Meraldia is at peace.

While this will be the end of my collaboration with Nishi(E)da-sensei, I’m honestly grateful for all that he’s done these past three years. His art really brought the story of this humble vice-commander to life. Thank you so very much! Only you could have drawn such an imposing version of werewolf Veight and Demon Lord Friedensrichter, while also giving us such beautiful images of triumph against adversity. I honestly don’t think I could have made it this far without you. I can’t thank you enough for sticking with me this long.

Of course, I’ll be relying just as much on Teshima-sensei for drawing alluring but more lighthearted images from now on. Friede’s going to be growing up quite a bit throughout the extra volumes, so I’m looking forward to seeing her go from young girl to teenager. I’ll be counting on you, Teshima-sensei.

Incidentally, my second son was born last year. My experiences with him were a good reference for writing the chapter of Friede’s birth, and I’ll probably be using my oldest daughter as a reference for Friede in her childhood years. She was only a year old when I first started writing, but she’s five now. There’ll be plenty of scenes with five-year-old Friede, so I’m recording a lot of what she does in case I need it later. Naturally, I also plan to write about ten-year-old and fifteen-year-old Friede as well, so it’d be nice if my daughter grows up faster than usual. That probably won’t happen, though, so I’ll have to rely on the memories of my time as a cram school teacher. (I used to teach middle school Japanese and science before I became a writer.)

The extra stories up on the web novel version are pretty short and rather truncated, so I’m hoping to expand on them a bit for the published volumes.

May we meet again in volume 12 in the chronicles of the Black Werewolf King.