Afterword

Well, Paying to Win in a VRMMO: The Origin is now on sale!

Hello, everyone! It’s me, Blitz Kiva! We’ve finally reached volume four.

I doubt anyone’s started with this volume, so I won’t bother introducing myself! If you happened to find this at a store or a friend’s house or a library and read it, buy the first volume! It will make you very happy!

Well, it’s volume four. Yes, volume four. Such a touching moment... It’s barely been a year since the first volume was published, and we’re already to volume four.

A wise man once said that when you reach year three, or volume five, you ascend to creator level two. That means I’m finally there, I guess. And I owe it all to you!

Oh, no! I’ve run out of things to say! Let’s talk about what happened in volume four!

Volume four is mainly a remix of the “Guild Sponsor Arc” from the web novel. Iris and Nem (in the web version, she had no handle name and was just Fuyo)’s fashion battle is at the center of it all, but by fiddling with the time frame, I got to add a lot of original content.

Iris started out closely resembling a template tsundere character, but here she gradually starts to stray from that, taking on unique characteristics (later, people start calling her “Evil God”). That also made it hard to preserve the emotions of the climax, but I worked hard to maintain the excitement of the web version.

As for Iris herself, what do you think of her?

I think a lot of people out there like the song “Sainojin Oenka” (“Song of Encouragement For the Talented”) by Japan’s famous rock band, Bump of Chicken. I think there are a lot of people who go beyond liking it, taking it as a creed. I’m one of them. The talent you want isn’t always the one you get.

Iris is portrayed as a character who has no talent whatsoever. She occasionally shows extraordinary talent in certain fields, but that’s all static compared to the field she wants to be part of. You could say it’s a First World problem, but it’s hard not having talent in the one field where you want it most of all.

You could call her the exact opposite of the young heir, Ichiro Tsuwabuki, who is talented in everything. Her sense of money is very plebian, too. This is why the young heir (acting like a demon lord watching a hero) sees her as so intriguing, but as her creator, I also want her to continue to work herself nearly to death.

Next, Felicia.

I feel like she’s starting to pick up some individuality of her own. She’s even able to throw fireball pitches...

What is this, Gaiking?

I feel like when your protagonist is rich, your love interests need to have some degree of independence. In that regard, Felicia has a lot of ground to make up for compared to Iris and Sakurako-san. But she’s a love interest you couldn’t see in the web version, and thinking about where her growth is going makes her the character, as a creator, I’m most looking forward to. Those of you who have only read the web version, I really hope you’ll look forward to it!

Next episode will be the arc that was popular in the web version, the “Fake Young Heir Arc.” You might have seen it already in the epilogue, but it touches on the most dangerous thing that can happen to you in an online game: the account hack. Look forward to it!

Now for the acknowledgments.

This one’s on the short side. Um, due to the time when this was going to come out, things got pretty hairy around the end of the year. I caused a lot of trouble for my editor and proofreader. Thanks to you, I’ve published five volumes.

I also put Mr. Kirishima through hell for this and The Origin volume one. Iris is very cute in that. I’m looking forward to the illustrations as she slowly evolves into her Evil God form, too!

To the printers, the distributors, and the booksellers, and the people reading the web version, and everyone reading this version... thank you all!

Well, everyone, talk to you later!