Afterword
Afterword
THANKS FOR READING volume four of Reborn as a Space Mercenary! It’s me, Ryuto!
Volume Two of the manga is on sale, and Mimi and Elma are just adorable! Go buy it! (This is what they call “direct marketing.”)
Let’s get the stuff about me out of the way. Life has been peaceful. No major illnesses. I’ve limited myself to one energy drink a day. No overdoses for me! Also, I’ve been going to Co*t*o lately, where I’ve gotten very into their dried dates (the fruit, that is). They’re delicious, like dried persimmons. Cheaper, too. Mmm… generic dried persimmons.
At the time of writing, it’s the start of autumn. Since it’s getting chilly around here, my dog has monopolized my lap, whether I’m working or not. Get down, you.
Now, let’s get to talking about the novel. It’s part two of the nobility nonsense! This one comes with plenty of bonus text, including more parts with Serena and more fighting. Also, I’ve written an extra-long EX chapter this time. Also also, I hear there are people who read the afterword first. Spoilers incoming! Go read the rest of the volume!
Now, as is tradition, let’s get to a bit of world-building that we couldn’t find time for in the story itself. This time, let’s talk about the spread of food cartridges and the automatic cookers that prepare them.
In this universe, synthesized food made from cartridges can be found almost anywhere you go. Normal food, made from cooking real ingredients, is seen as a high-class good that only a select few rich people enjoy. Most people never get to eat it, even once.
There are a lot of reasons that led to this, but the main one is that hyperdrive was awfully slow in its early years. Sometimes, people could spend an entire year in the ship, so they had to test out different ways of carrying lots of food without it being too heavy. As a result of said testing, they created food cartridges—a blend of animal plankton, algae, herbs, and the like—along with the automatic cookers to make food from them.
Food cartridges and cookers were so convenient that they became used not just by people in spaceships, but also the colonies and other planets that they colonized. Eventually, normal food was phased out in favor of cartridges.
The resources required to make the cartridges, such as the plankton and algae, were comparatively easy to produce even in colonies. On new residential planets, they developed technology to turn the inedible flora and fauna into food cartridges. As such, the spread of cartridges and cookers accelerated further.
The automatic cooker market became a fierce battlefield where cutting-edge tech vied for market share. Intelligence on other corporations became so vital that spies were in great demand. Sometimes, they even fought with lasers. Scary!
Anyway, I think it’s about time for me to go.
Thank you to my manager, K; our illustrator, Tetsuhiro Nabeshima; and everyone involved in the publication of this book. Most of all, a huge thank you to everyone who bought and read this book.
Let’s meet again in Volume 5. I hope to see you there! Bye-bye!
—RYUTO
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ryuto
A brown bear living in Hokkaido.
My hobby is gaming. I have a wide range of tastes, but survival action and strategy games are my absolute favorites.