AFTERWORD

Hello, everyone, it’s been a while. I’m Rifujin na Magonote.

First, I’d like to take this opportunity to extend my thanks to everyone who picked up a copy of Orc Eroica, Vol. 2.

Thank you all so much.

Now, I’d like to talk a little about what inspired the story of the second volume.

It was around halfway through the year 2018, as I recall.

At the time, there was a kind of craze going on among the underground light novel authors.

Burning down the elven forests.

Right, all the underground light novel authors were sneaking into the elf villages and setting fires. It was like some kind of competition. Then they’d hang around to smirk at the elves, who were devastated over the loss of their homes. They even posted about it on social media, bragging about what they’d done and describing how they burned down the forest. Putting up pics showing the final days of the elves they captured, like they were trophies or something. Pretty horrible, right?

Well, when I saw all this going on, I thought…

Man, I wanna burn down an elf forest, too… No, wait, I didn’t think that. I thought, Man, I wanna rescue the elves who had their forests burned down and then reap the sexy rewards!

What got me thinking that way, you ask? Well, it all came about because of a movie I saw that came out that same year.

Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms.

The race of creatures in the movies aren’t called elves by name, but they’re this long-lived race that looks super youthful, so it’s kind of the same thing. Anyway, their village gets burned down.

I don’t want to spoil the plot or anything, but anyway, it’s a good movie.

After seeing that movie, I felt really inspired. I was like, In the next volume, I’m totally going to have an elf village burned to the ground… I mean… I’m definitely going to have the elves saved by a valiant hero! Who then has his way with— You get the picture.

What I mean is: The elves are gonna be saved, right? But first, I have to get them in a situation where they’re pretty much doomed, don’t I? So the forest is gonna have to get burned. So we can save them in the end. You understand, right?

So I decided to torch the elf forest.

But then, something crazy happened!

The darn thing wouldn’t burn!

In Orc Eroica, the elves are totally prepared against fire and make sure to paint all their buildings with fire-resistant paint. Right, I totally forgot! My elves are super flame-resistant!

When I really sat down and thought about it, it made no sense for the elves to have a weakness to something like fire, not after so many years spent fighting other races in battle. Also, it would be weird if only elves used the flame-resistant paint. If they were the only ones to use it in battle.

So I had the orcs, their enemy, use the flame-resistant paint on their armor as well. So now all the races in this world are resistant to fire.

Treasons, stratagems, and spoils! That’s the fun part about writing fantasy, right?

So I had our Elf Heroine try to use fire magic against the highly flammable orc zombies, only to find that the orc zombies have taken preventive measures.

Then the Orc Hero appears to save the elf damsel in distress. Their eyes meet. Their bodies meet… Oh, no they don’t. The Orc Hero gets rejected.

Well, as you can see, Orc Eroica, Vol. 2 pretty much wrote itself after that.

I feel pretty confident that the story will satisfy readers.

Shame I couldn’t burn down the whole forest, though!

Oh dear, I’ve already taken up a few pages already. Well, now I’d like to talk for a little while about the video game Ghost of Tsushima.

Ghost of Tsushima is an action-adventure game for PlayStation 4 developed by Sucker Punch Productions.

Set during the Battle of Bun’ei, the protagonist, Jin Sakai, must fight the Mongols in Mongolian-occupied Tsushima.

Told by his lord to “Fight like a samurai, with glory,” Jin tries to be a true samurai, yet he is but one person, and the Mongols are many. With a head-on attack proving unfeasible, Jin has no choice but to use underhanded, un-samurai-like tactics. The main crux of the story involves Jin’s struggle to behave as a samurai should, while having to go to extreme lengths to save others—and, at the same time, somehow trying to make his lord proud.

The locations are stunning. The canopy of red foliage, the mountains, the fields of pampas grass, all the beauty of Japanese nature is represented.

Traveling through the scenery freely, defeating the Mongols, thinking about what it means to be a samurai, about what it means to fight for glory, all the while working hard to save Tsushima.

Anyway, there was an update released for Ghost of Tsushima in late October that added online multiplayer capability.

I thought I was going to be able to play through the main story with a bunch of other people, but to my surprise, a completely original expansion story was added, one that was distinct from the main story of the game.

“To the now-peaceful Tsushima come…Mongols of darkness! Their leader, Iyo, uses dark magic to summon the oni and tengu, steals power from the Japanese gods, and attempts to destroy Tsushima! Arise, ghosts! The hour is at hand!”

Anyway, it’s the kind of story that really breaks away from the realism-soaked Japan the game has presented until this point.

The content of the story is all fantasy, of course, but it’s pretty fascinating.

Now, as for this kind of network game, what you’ll notice is that there are very few newbie players, the kind who can hardly tell left from right. Makes sense, doesn’t it? Almost everyone playing is a seasoned ghost who has already fought with Jin to save Tsushima. Together with these talented players, I teamed up to launch powerful attacks on the enemy, eventually battling our way to Iyo. Then, after traversing several obstacles along the way, we managed to stop Iyo’s evil ambitions in their tracks.

The controls have also been improved, and now the weapons selection has been easily mapped to one of the four buttons, so it’s not the hassle it was in the main game. It’s become much more playable.

If I have one complaint, it’s about the ending. You can’t complete the game unless you have a full party of four to take on Iyo with.

It’s still really satisfying, though, so if you haven’t played Ghost of Tsushima, I encourage you to gather together in groups of four and give it a try.

Oh, this went on for longer than I realized…

To Asanagi, who drew such wonderful illustrations, to Editor K for putting up with me being distracted by Mushoku Tensei and making their job a lot harder, to everyone else who was involved in the publishing of this book, and to everyone who’s always patiently waiting for the next update on the Let’s Become a Novelist website, thank you very much this time around, too.

Rifujin na Magonote