Afterword

Thank you for purchasing this book! Due to your support, this third volume of Hell Mode is now out on shelves. I cannot fully express how grateful I am—thank you so much.

I pretty much did the same in volume 2, but I have once again gone all the way to Earth Star Novel’s upper limit for how long a volume can be. I really do regret it.

It was my editor who suggested that we fit each arc of the web novel into one published volume. That way, it would be easier to read and thus be more immersive. That was our intention. Yes, it was intended...

Look forward to seeing whether the fourth volume will contain the entirety of the fourth arc.

I realized I haven’t really talked about myself—Hamuo—in my afterwords. So I guess I’ll rectify that now. But just a little bit, so I don’t run out of material for volume 4 onward.

I’m a man, and while I usually live in another world, in this world I’m a part-time author living in Fukuoka. Yep, good o’ Fukuoka. (I rarely use the Hakata-ben accent, though.) I write when I get home from my corporate job and on my days off. Whenever one of my books gets published, I like to go see how well it’s selling at the bookstore closest to me. Please don’t target me when I have my guard down.

My favorite food is mint chocolate. When it comes to ice cream, flavors other than mint chocolate don’t exist in my mind.

My dream is to become a best-selling author one day and then use my earnings to rent a room at a countryside inn with an amazing view and work on my manuscript there. I want to stay cooped up there for a few years. The proprietress would ask, “Hamuo-sensei, how goes the manuscript?” Then I would look out onto a garden painted silver with snow and, in a voice with the gravitas of a literary master, I’d reply, “Mm, gazing at the scenery outside is doing wonders for visualizing my story.” You have no idea how big my dream is getting!

In actuality, however, my bathtub is where I get most of my ideas. That’s right. Hell Mode is given life while I boil myself in my own bath. That’s where I’m most able to ponder my story. I sit there in the water, furiously thinking up ideas as my notebook gets wrinkled from the humidity and my bath water grows cold.

In order to develop my aura as a literary master, I’ve tried visiting a coffee shop, but I end up being distracted by what’s going around me; it’s not working out great.

My day job has me sitting at a desk all day. Since I’m also hunched over a keyboard when I get home, my waist and shoulders get a bit stiff. I do frequent a Thai massage parlor, though. There, even when they’re pulling my arms backward and making my back arc like a shrimp, I’m still thinking up plot ideas. There’ve been a few times now when I’ve gotten a good idea for a short story in the middle of a session and I’ve had to fight to keep it in my mind so that I wouldn’t forget it. Unfortunately, there’ve been even more instances where I’ve lost ideas to the inky void of sleep due to how great the massage felt.

In short, the story of Hell Mode is one born of long hours of simmering in the bath, of stiff shoulders, and of pitched battle with sleep. And of course, I go through all of this entirely for the sake of you, my dear reader.

Since this is an afterword, I also want to talk about something that I really put a lot of effort into: the political structures of the countries. Volume 2 went into detail with the Kingdom of Ratash, the country where Allen was born. Despite his reluctance to do so, Allen became rather involved in the various power struggles between the aristocrats, royal envoys, and even the king.

Here in volume 3, the term “Five Continent Alliance” started coming up every once in a while. I created it as I thought it made sense for the countries to form such an international body after having been under attack by the Demon Lord for decades.

Near the end of this volume, Sophie and Meruru joined the party, introducing the elven and dwarven races to this story. The countries in this world each have unique races, worldviews, gods, and histories—some of them aren’t even fighting the Demon Lord Army. Not a single one of them are identical. So I’m left with the task of bringing all these vastly different elements together into one cohesive story, and it can be hard sometimes.

Allen was born into this world more than fifty years after the Demon Lord had begun attacking the world in an effort to obliterate it. This volume ends with him deciding to leave the Academy to help Rohzenheim stand against an escalated assault by the Demon Lord Army. I hope you look forward to seeing how Allen will interact with the various countries that will show up in the future.

This series, Hell Mode, also has a manga serialization. Have you guys added the Comic Earth Star page to your browser bookmarks yet? They’re releasing one chapter each month, so please go check it out. The first volume, which covers Allen’s life as a serf, has relatively fewer lines, but I’ve heard from the manga editor that there’ll be a lot more in the second volume, which gets into Allen’s time working for House Granvelle. I sincerely hope that you enjoy this version of the story too. I’m sure Allen’s evil grin will show up some time.

Let us meet again for volume 4. I’d be very grateful if you’d continue giving me your support. Well, until then!