Afterword

Afterword

IT’S VERY NICE to meet you. My name is Tenichi.

I’d like to thank you for purchasing The Most Heretical Last Boss Queen: From Villainess to Savior.

To my great honor, I managed to win Ichijinsha’s very first Iris NEO fantasy award and was able to have my work published as a book. It still feels like a dream to me, even now. The fact that I made it this far is all thanks to the support I received from those who read the online version of my story.

I’m aware that the title is far too long, but the online version’s title, The Most Heretical Last Boss Queen Who Will Become the Source of Tragedy Will Devote Herself for the Sake of the People ~With the Princess’s Powers and My Last Boss Cheats, I’ll Save Whoever I Can~, was even longer. Just as the name reveals, it’s a story about a horrible, sinister queen who uses her many powers for the good of others. Not all otome games are like this one, but personally, I sure like the ones where most of the characters have tragic pasts. I wanted everyone to know that this story was about a final boss who saves the main characters in a darker otome game, so I ended up with a title that’s way too long. Please feel free to call it “Last Boss Queen” or any other abbreviation you like.

I’d already decided how I wanted to end the story in the final chapters by the time I started uploading those first sections, but for this book version, the story only continues up to the point where Pride is thirteen years old, although she’s eighteen in the new bonus chapter I wrote. I wanted people who were already familiar with the online version to be satisfied if they purchased this book too, so I put a ton of effort into writing new content, organizing the text, and filling in as much as I could. Of course, this book would have been great just with Suzunosuke-sama’s illustrations alone.

I’d like to thank Suzunosuke-sensei for the truly, truly wonderful illustrations she made for this book. Her works of art are beautiful, adorable, and sublime. She brought the characters to life exactly how I imagined them, which made me so very happy. I looked them over many times, starting from the rough sketches, and they always filled me with joy. Thank you for granting this author hope with your godlike art skills.

Finally, I’d like to thank many people from the bottom of my heart—anyone who purchased this book, all of the web version readers who’ve stayed around for all this time, everyone at Ichijinsha, everyone who worked on the publication and novelization of this book, my editor, who treated me with so much care, Suzunosuke-sensei, and my family and friends, who always support me. I hope you can all experience even the tiniest amount of my gratitude for you.

And to my kindhearted readers, I hope to have the opportunity to see you all again someday.