Author's Afterword
Author's Afterword
Hello, everyone. Your trash novel... wait, that's not right, is it?
I'm Caraway, author of I Became the Youngest Son of the Northern Grand Ducal House, which has at least graduated to something like "your later novel" or "your major work"!
Thanks to everyone's unwavering support and love, Bookmakdo has finally reached its conclusion.
There are so, so many things I want to say...
Saying I'm grateful and that I love my readers never feels like enough, so I'll set that aside for now.
0. Motivation for Writing.
1. Yunes von Nordkirchen, Ryu Si-u.
2. Erengard von Nordkirchen (aka Maman) and the Incest Tag.
3. Charlotte, Margarete, Albert von Nordkirchen (aka Charl, Mar, Albert).
4. Kirschblüte von Charlottenburg (aka Kir), Chloe, Nibuer.
5. Flare, Hermine, Yuni, Emma.
6. Crown Princess (Isabella).
7. Unresolved Plot Threads?
8. Side Stories and Next Work.
9. Closing Words.
What follows, according to the table of contents, is the author's "brutally honest" rambling, which I've kept tightly under wraps until now, insisting that I would only speak through the work itself.
As you've probably guessed from the fact that I stubbornly filled it to 10,000 characters...
A magnificent storm of TMI is about to sweep through. Please just take a look at the parts you're curious about at your leisure.
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0. Motivation for Writing.
When I finished my previous work and decided I had to write the next one—the day I opened a notepad and haphazardly threw down a bunch of settings—I still vividly remember the sentence I wrote at the very top of that notepad.
"What I want to write: An older-girl/younger-boy slice-of-life story where the protagonist possesses the youngest son of a Northern Grand Ducal House and immaturely turns everything upside down wherever he goes."
...Looking back, that really was a remarkably honest sentence.
In any case, I wanted to write a fantasy older-girl/younger-boy slice-of-life story. But one where I'd take a romance-fantasy story meant for a female audience, flip the gender roles, and then drench it in comforting, affectionate scenes.
But... a story driven only by desire feels hollow, doesn't it? Even if a thematic statement is too grandiose, a story still needs one.
So, I chose "growth" as the main theme.
Unlike my previous work, which featured a protagonist who matured far too quickly, I decided to write a novel where an immature protagonist gradually grows up.
At the same time, I decided not to put this theme front and center. The goal was for it to clearly exist at the story's foundation, but for readers not to notice it.
Something I felt when rereading my previous work was that a story where the author's intent is glaringly obvious is, how should I put it... embarrassing.
Anyway. Bookmakdo's direction was thus set: "A fantasy older-girl/younger-boy slice-of-life story where an unaware, fox-like protagonist lives irresponsibly and slowly becomes an adult."
And under this goal, a child named "Yune" was born, the complete opposite in appearance from my previous work's protagonist, "Lee Harang."
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1. Yunes von Nordkirchen, Ryu Si-u.
So, in the early parts of the work, Yune was seriously immature. To the point where there were many comments early on saying, "Why is the protagonist such an idiot?"
(Basically, I wrote him by recalling my own lower elementary school days, so those comments genuinely stung a bit ;ㅅ; )
Anyway. This happened because, strictly speaking, this novel isn't a "possession story." In possession stories, a different soul takes over a perfectly fine person's body and pretends to be that person, right? I was somewhat averse to that, and I tried to find my own way around it.
The way around it that I thought of was, "Why not just have similar souls pair up from the start and merge together?"
So, after the possession, the protagonist Yune became a character who simultaneously holds the identities of "Yunes von Nordkirchen" and "Ryu Si-u." He is fundamentally in 8-year-old Yunes mode, but for things like values around sex, which Yunes hadn't yet established, he followed Ryu Si-u.
...Though due to issues with my writing ability, I couldn't properly convey to readers that this was the case ;ㅅ;
It was a somewhat difficult subject for my skill level to handle...
Anyway. Yune had been so sickly up to age 8 that he couldn't receive a proper education, and as for Ryu Si-u... as will be shown in the side stories, his orphanage was essentially a farm producing slaves. So he only received a basic education. No sex education either.
Because of this, the combined Yune became a character who was truly, horrendously immature. The emotional wounds Ryu Si-u carried and the emotional wounds Yunes carried faded as they comforted each other. But as a reaction, the "yearning for freedom" they both shared was amplified even further.
On top of that, after Hermine's attack at the Founding Festival, thanks to Maman's overprotectiveness, he grew up unable to take a single step outside the Grand Ducal House estate. So he couldn't even mature until he was 16.
To mature, you need to experience various storms and hardships. But what can you expect when he was raised like a hothouse flower amid the love of his family? In this situation, Yune's dream of "becoming an adventurer" was, along with that damned "manly man" talk, an element symbolizing Yune's immaturity.
But... after leaving the embrace of his family and going to the Academy, Yune slowly began to change. Seeing the reactions of other peers, he realized what kind of existence he was, and besides that, he saw and learned many things—to the point you could call it a socialization process.
He stopped stubbornly wearing the short sleeves and shorts that signified him being a "manly man." The kid who used to shout "Characteristics of a real man!" at every little thing came to do it at least a little less.
And in the end, he awakened to the emotion called love, and for the sake of the people he loves, he was able to give up on that immature dream of "becoming an adventurer." He had finally matured, and from being a "manly man," he became the "youngest son of the Northern Grand Ducal House."
...Truly admirable.
Anyway. After establishing the character of Yune, I began setting up the surrounding characters. The first one I touched upon was... since the title includes "Northern Grand Ducal House," obviously it was the Northern Grand Duchess. Erengard.
———And thus began the author's grand afterword rambling.
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2. Erengard von Nordkirchen (aka Maman) and the Incest Tag.
Erengard was a character created by taking the romance-fantasy cliché of the "Northern Grand Duke" and simply flipping the gender roles. Outwardly blunt and cold-seeming, but holding a burning love inside. Infinitely warm to her own children. A responsible head of the family. An overpowered powerhouse.
I thought it would be really fun if a character like that, who carries her own pain, fell for Yune and became a complete fool for her son. ...At this point, I hadn't thought about incest even in the slightest.
She's his biological mother, right? How can a biological mother be a heroine? How can she be the main wife?????????
But maybe because her very setup was overwhelmingly powerful, and because she occupied most of the early chapters, as the serialization continued, more and more people in the comments began declaring themselves part of the Maman faction.
...Why? Why??? She's his biological mother, so why is she the main wife???????
During the early serialization, that was all I could think. It might also have been because among the romance-fantasy comforting stories I'd seen, there were none where the protagonist ended up with a daughter-obsessed father. The author doesn't even read incest works "at all," you see.
But I couldn't ignore the readers' persistent and passionate comments. I kept agonizing. Why is Maman so overwhelmingly popular? Even if the popularity itself is one thing, why is she being called the main wife?
...I realized the answer around chapter 30. Taking off the tinted glasses that insisted Maman wasn't a heroine, that incest was impossible, and evaluating Erengard purely as a heroine... A heroine who offers devoted love only to me? Who is capable, wealthy, strong in combat, and holds power?
"Ah, I'm screwed."
The moment I realized her overwhelming main-wife power, that thought came to me unbidden. I gave this much early screen time to such a strong character, thinking she would absolutely never become a heroine? How were you planning to handle the aftermath, Caraway?
After realizing this, I worked hard on the writing. I thought I could still salvage it. It was still early, and as characters like Kir and the others appeared, Maman's presence would gradually dilute. ...I failed miserably.
Maman was a character who could only have an "overwhelming" influence on Yune before he entered the Academy, and it was impossible to gradually reduce her presence. Until I finished the Founding Festival debutante episode, I couldn't escape Maman's shadow.
At this point, I thought, "Fine, let's just subtly push the Maman route." I disliked incest, but things had reached a point where ending things with Maman without anything happening would be a disaster. So I decided to compromise by deliberately giving it a certain vibe and then writing an incest side story.
......I failed miserably yet again. During the serialization, my inner, murkier tendencies kept leaking out, and every time they did, Maman generously dished out fan-service scenes. I had only meant to give off a subtle vibe, but looking back on it myself, it was just a full-on incest push. Unintentionally, I had diligently followed the entire build-up for an incest story.
It was around this time that I realized avoiding a side story was utterly impossible. Around chapter 100? Realizing the incest tag was inevitable shook my mental state. No matter how much the narrative and build-up led that way, adding a tag that wasn't there before is... a drift, isn't it? Aside from it being something an author shouldn't do, I hated it because it felt like I was irresponsibly deciding, "Incest is popular, so I'll just slap the tag on."
I knew many readers were trusting the lack of an incest tag and reading the story. How could I pull a drift on them? But if I didn't, that in itself would be a drift. It was obvious I'd get cursed at, called a quitter or worse. ...I was doomed.
After racking my brain every single day, I eventually resolved on a two-stage drift. Entering Part 2, I would first pair him with the three non-incestuous heroines I'd internally confirmed, conclude Yune's growth journal, and achieve a first conclusion. Then, pair him with his family members for the final conclusion. It was a desperate struggle not to betray either the incest faction or the non-incest faction.
Since it's such an uncommon ending in web novel history, I put a lot of hints into the work itself. I mobilized all my abilities as an author. Internally, that meant... from around chapter 200 onward, when Yune became aware of love, depicting Yune and his family members clearly feeling romantic affection for each other, in a way anyone could see. Emphasizing the number 7 as the number of main heroines. And finally, unfolding things so he kissed all seven at the end of the kidnapping play.
If you look again, you'll see it was all intentional, even having the kisses in order of the 19+ chapters. It was the build-up desperately called out by an author who could only speak through the novel.
I tried hard to naturally let readers know that this kind of ending was coming, without spoilers, purely through the writing... ...I failed.
Because I failed to get the build-up across to readers, it reached a point where angry comments asking why there was no incest came in daily. Knowing this might happen, I'd put so much effort into the build-up to reassure everyone, but I guess I have no talent for it... At this time, I just felt sorry I couldn't write better. Even more so because all I could say was "please read until the (first) conclusion."
.........And then, around the time I uploaded the first conclusion chapters, a series of events occurred that eventually caused the author's mental state to crash spectacularly.
Even though I diligently complied with Novelpia's single revision request, promptly deleting about 50 illustrations, I received an unheard-of 3-day account suspension under the incomprehensible grounds of "failure to respond to multiple revision requests" without any further contact. When I contacted the PD team by phone, only then was I told it was for rule violations, and I received an Instagram-worthy restaurant-style response: "For detailed inquiries, please contact us by email ^^." (For reference, the email I sent that very day still hasn't received a reply after nearly 3 weeks...)
The 3-day suspension was the first blow to my mental state, but still, to at least let readers know the circumstances, I wrote promotional posts for the first time in my life on various sites. Since the account ban literally prevented me from even logging in, and clicking the author's nickname showed them as a non-existent member, there was no other way to let even some readers know it wasn't a "delete-account-and-run" situation.
And there, I received an overwhelming amount of harsh criticism. I was showered with stinging rebukes for my sin of failing to properly convey the build-up to the readers. Thanks to that, I was able to realize I'd been doing something incredibly foolish.
This happened on a Friday, with 3 days left until the first conclusion. Before the helpless feeling from the prior 3-day suspension had even faded, I realized that everything I'd been doing had been foolish, and... it was pretty hard to take.
To the non-incest faction, I had ultimately pulled a drift regardless, and to the incest faction, it might have looked like I was playing a power game by stubbornly refusing to add the tag until the end. And like a fool, I'd just barreled ahead stubbornly, thinking "I'm doing this for the readers!" without saying a word.
I felt a deep sense of self-loathing as an author. That things I'd done supposedly thinking of everyone would come back like this. It's the kind of development where even if a character like this showed up in an afterword ramble, they'd get cursed out. That was why the afterword for the first conclusion was so full of negativity. I'd given up on trying not to say unpleasant things to readers as much as possible, and just cried and cried, spilling weak, pathetic words about how I was a good-for-nothing sandwich.
But, uh... after uploading the first conclusion chapter, I couldn't even bear to look at comments and was drowning in a bottle of alcohol, and unexpectedly, so many people cheered me on...? Though I did hear some harsh words too, both the incest faction and the non-incest faction joined together and gave the author a comforting pat on the head. Hm. Ah, now that I think about it again, I feel tears coming on. You damn cheeky bastards.
Thanks to that, I immediately threw away the thought of ending Bookmakdo and quitting writing. I'm sorry, and I love you. Truly.
Anyway. Enough of this unpleasant talk. The incest tag, which had so much controversy and trouble, was added like this. As the 10th and final tag, it suits the final boss, Erengard, well.
Erengard was a character captivating enough to shake the entire work. As the author, I'm deeply grateful for all the love she received.
And the next characters I started setting up... were Yune's older sisters. Since it's an older-girl/younger-boy story. Hm. Can't resist the older sisters, right.
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3. Charlotte, Margarete, Albert von Nordkirchen (aka Charl, Mar, Albert)
Honestly, I didn't put much thought into shaping Yune's three older sisters. As I've said, it wasn't originally planned as an incest story, and Maman alone was enough.
The twins, Mar and Albert, are a duo. Mar is a Knight Order Commander, full of mischief, the kind of older sister that could exist in reality. Albert is a strategist with a blackhearted side, a slightly sadistic creature who turns into a masochist if you bully her, like a magnet.
As for Charl... she was originally a mentally unstable, emotionless character, but I changed her completely. She became a silly, doting older sister who threw away her true self and wore a mask out of a desire to resemble Erengard, only for the mask to gently melt away thanks to Yune.
Anyway, all three became older sisters who can't live without Yune and faint dead away at the sight of him. Considering I didn't put much thought into their shaping, it was great that all three characters each had their own distinct personalities. Heh heh.
Anyway, after fully setting up the family relationships... the last ones I started setting up were the heroines.
But there's one thing I'm truly sorry about. I'm revealing this now, but all three were somewhat hastily thrown together.
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4. Kirschblüte von Charlottenburg (aka Kir), Chloe, Nibuer.
Originally, I planned to start serializing I Became the Youngest Son of the Northern Grand Ducal House in early January. I meant to craft the setting slowly and plan the plot carefully.
But... at the end of the year, not long after finishing my previous work, I kept checking the free serial ranking, and my instincts wouldn't stop whispering. "Huh? Maybe it's because the contest just ended—the field looks pretty weak. If I jump in now, it'll be easy pickings."
And a winning author's trait: just post it.
I figured what I'd already outlined was enough for Part 1, so I started serializing right away while continuing to flesh out the remaining characters.
The timing really was incredible, and I even took first place in the free ranking. It's a little awkward to mention, but a drama based on a web novel with a similar name pulled an all-time drift, and I caught a reflected benefit from that too. On top of that, right after the switch to Plus, the New Year's holiday hit, and I held the #1 spot on the bookmark ranking for almost a week. The timing couldn't have been better. I got a crazy amount of attention.
But as they say, where there's good, there's also bad. Under all that undeserved attention, trying to build character settings while doing a live serial was tough. Ultimately, none of those three managed to match the charm of the family members... Still, they're characters I poured my best effort into shaping.
The first one I worked on was Yune's fiancée, Kir. Kir was meant to be a character who, in a world of reversed gender roles, comes across as timid and boyish—until she realizes love and grows into a proper woman. I aimed for a realistic childhood friend who's a little brooding but never truly crosses the line.
That's why I gave her the important role of confessing to Yune first. And in the end, she's a cool tomato who succeeded on her second try. Granted, some of the family-focused readers muttered things like "Get that fiancée-wannabe out of here," but I still love her...!!
Kir, if not for your sudden confession sprint, Yune still wouldn't have realized love. I really appreciate you!
The second one I shaped was the personal attendant and escort knight who had to appear right away—Chloe. She's only a year older than Yune, but as a beastkin she matured extremely fast, so she already has a big-sister build. On the surface she looks after Yune with perfect deference, but inside she's childish and treats him like a little brother who needs taking care of. Beastkin scent fetish. Perpetual heat cycle. A seal orb locked around her neck—when danger appears, she removes the seal and reveals her hidden strength. A classic powerhouse-in-disguise concept.
...Even though not many of those settings ended up being used, I genuinely love Chloe, who looks after Yune with pure animal instinct. Beast-girl big sis, ahhh~
Lastly, Nibuer...... I'm really sorry, but she was a hurriedly thrown-together character. I only thought of her as an extra, but as I was writing, I went, "Huh? Wait, she could actually be a heroine?" So I just added her on the spot. The concept was a flat-chested elf merchant who recognizes Yune's exceptional nature and wants to serve him as her lord.
But among the heroines, her chest was overwhelmingly the smallest, her personality boiled down to "flattering Yune" one-trick, and on top of that, she had few appearances, so in the end I couldn't bring out much individuality. Trying to salvage her, I even tacked on the setting of a degenerate elf who's blissfully happy calling Yune "Papa"...
I ' m s o r r y ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
Well, I still like the character Nibuer. Even if the early narrative about slavery and all that turned into a MacGuffin once Nibuer fell head over heels for Yune.
Anyway. Those are the three heroines.
And... there's still more, right? There are four sub-heroines left.
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5. Flare, Hermine, Yuni, Emma.
Flare was a full-fledged heroine in the original plot. A tutor and benefactor big-sister figure I'd known since age eight—the very picture of an older-woman/younger-boy dynamic. Though as family elements were added, the family members became heroines, and she got pushed into a sub-heroine role.
Still, Flare is an important character who had a huge influence on Yune. In the early parts, she made him dream of becoming an adventurer and became an object of admiration. ...Because the time apart before they reunited was a bit long, she never got a confession from Yune in the main story. Even so, among the four sub-heroines, she has the highest probability of ending up with Yune. She just hasn't made a move—if she did, she'd cross the finish line in no time.
Hermine is... self-proclaimed Demon King. In reality, a pitiful living sacrifice who was brainwashed by the Demon King. A screw-up. And someone who gets along ridiculously well with Yune. I twisted the academy story's classic attack cliché by having her send cute animals instead of monsters. An eccentric but very kind kid.
The whole Demon King business is actually bait for my next work, set 500 years before the events of Youngest Son. Setting that aside, though, she's a character I really like. Every time I wrote her "heheheh" laugh, it was so delightfully pathetic that I felt thoroughly satisfied.
I decided on Yuni back when I was planning the fantasy elements. Ah, I've got to include a unicorn! And a Heavenly Horse stereotype at that! A Heavenly Horse obsessed with virginity—isn't that delicious? And Yune, not knowing any better, climbing onto its back and boldly certifying his virginity—that's delicious too.
Of course, as I mentioned in the author's notes after the first appearance, Yuni was originally an extra I never planned to turn into a heroine... but since readers loved her, she got promoted to a sub-heroine.
Emma... had the latest debut, didn't she? She appeared around chapter 105. I added her because I wanted to write a knight character who awakens thanks to Yune. A hard worker. She endures Adelheid's hellish training and the Northern Knight Order's rookie discipline without faltering—a knight through and through.
Among the sub-heroines, she has the least presence and never even got a proper illustration... but still, she went as far as joining the knight order for Yune's sake. Ehem.
These four sub-heroines will pair up with Yune someday. Almost inevitably. They all dedicated their futures to him, and all of them—big or small—have feelings for him. Someday, probably through an "accident," they'll cross the line and quietly slip into the reverse harem like the family members did. I couldn't write more in the main story due to lack of space, though.
Anyway, that's all my rambling about the sub-heroines.
Now... shall we talk about the girl who never became a heroine? The Crown Princess?
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6. Crown Princess (Isabella)
The Crown Princess was also originally planned as one of Yune's heroines, alongside Flare.
As the image above suggests, she was the type of student council president who spouts nothing but off-the-wall nonsense. Her intentions were good, but combined with the typical high-ranking ignorance of how the real world works, she was a walking disaster for the academy students. But as she continued student council life alongside Yune, she gradually learned moderation and grew as a character.
...But the moment the family dynamic became a fixed narrative, I scrapped every plot featuring the Crown Princess. Originally, she was supposed to take Yune as her prince consort and set up a reverse harem for him, but that plan just crashed head-on into the family-related narrative. On top of that, once she was entangled with Yune, her position as Crown Princess would have made the story hideously complicated. So in the end, she's a regrettable character who never got a heroine arc throughout the whole work. Neither Yune himself nor Isabella ever showed romantic interest in each other either.
Still... it would be too much of a waste not to pair her with Yune somehow. So I'm considering connecting them in a "what-if" side story. A side story where, without that damn chest staff incident, she became Yune's close friend alongside Kir ever since the Founding Festival, and they formed a student council trio—then, after a catfight with Kir, both confess at the same time, and Yune becomes both prince consort and ducal consort. Something like that. I'll have to put it to a vote, but still, I do have the desire to write something like that.
There's plenty more to say about Isabella and other characters, but I'll stop my character talk here.
Now I'd like to talk about the MacGuffins and the foreshadowing I deliberately left unresolved.
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7. Unresolved Plot Threads?
As far as I remember, the unresolved foreshadowing by the time of completion comes down to five main points.
A. The political fight between the Noble Faction and the Pro-Imperial Faction entangled with Kir and Yune's engagement.
B. The early hint that the crystal ball Yune used originally belonged to the XXXhop family.
C. The conflict between nobles and commoners at the academy, such as nobles calling commoners Untermensch.
D. The identity of the hand that stroked Yune in chapter 215, the reason Ryu Si-u possessed Yune, and why Yune absorbs energy like an incubus.
E. The identity of the remaining ducal house among the empire's three ducal houses—aside from Nordkirchen and Charlottenburg.
Let me explain each one.
A. The engagement between Kir and Yune was actually a promise Schmut and Erengard made back in their school days. As successors of their respective houses, they were fed up with all the faction fighting—Noble Faction this, Pro-Imperial Faction that. So they decided, "Let's just step up ourselves and erase the faction conflict!" That's why Charlotte's name oddly resembles the Charlottenburg Ducal House... But I can't write complicated political stuff well, and I felt like readers wouldn't want to see it either, so I cut the whole thing.
B. XXXhop was actually Kirchhof—the family name of Bruel, the spirit who was possessed by Hermine during the Founding Festival and attacked Yune. The Kirchhof Viscount House ultimately failed to obtain that item, which nearly split the family apart and sent them down the path of ruin. The reason Bruel was manipulated was that Hermine, whose intellect had been jacked up by the Demon King's brainwashing at the time, tempted him by saying, "With this (the Inner Core of the Sun Fire Carp), you can make your family great again." But fortunately, the attempt to attack Yune failed, and instead Yune asked Erengard to cover for Bruel, saying he wasn't guilty. As briefly mentioned in chapter 232, as a bonus, Erengard gave them a little help afterward, and the family revived.
Looking at this narrative, you can see Bruel was never meant to be a throwaway one-off character. He was supposed to stick to Yune as a senior at the academy, constantly shouting, "How dare you spout such nonsense to Lord Yune! Apologize immediately!" wherever he went. A supporting sidekick role like the ones that often appear in villainess stories. And Bruel's younger sister, as Yune's classmate, would follow Bruel in serving Yune—that sort of feel. But over at Novelpia, the reaction was, "Why a male supporting character?" So I ended up canceling his appearance.
C. This was something I set up as the student council's long-cherished project at the academy. But similar to A, I didn't want to write political stuff, so I cut it entirely. In the first place, Yune—the sole male idol among the noble-track students—was on friendly terms with the commoners and constantly hanging out with them. There was no way a young lady from a mere marquess house—not even the heir, but a second daughter—could look down on commoners and call them Untermensch. Above all, as people spent time with Yune, everyone grew more mellow, and they stopped hating commoners just because they were commoners. As briefly shown in the Yune kidnapping episode, they even stepped up to protect others in a crisis, putting noblesse oblige into practice. And the commoners, watching Yune's sausage mukbang, realized that not all nobles are bad people. So even though I didn't resolve the foreshadowing, the conflict itself quietly faded away.
D. There was a hint about mana stroking Yune—that was actually Jürgen's spirit body. It'll come up in the side stories, but Jürgen had actually been watching over Yune continuously, like a guardian angel. I even added the metaphor "like a father praising his child's first steps" to drop a hint, but nobody caught on, which left me a little crestfallen. Anyway. The story of Jürgen, the circumstances of Ryu Si-u's possession of Yune, and the reason Yune has incubus genes mixed in will all be covered in the side stories.
E. This one, I genuinely just spaced out while writing. It was supposed to be two houses... But since it ended up this way, I'll make good use of it in the next work. A character who definitely existed but whose duchy title ended as a single-generation noble line. So in the empire's history books, they'll teach that there were three ducal houses. Something like that.
That's about what I remember. If you notice anything I might have missed, please let me know! I'll add it in!
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8. Side Stories and the Next Work.
Even after completion, I will write side stories. I need to talk about Jürgen and all that, and I'm also debating whether to write a Crown Princess "what-if" side story. Besides that, I still have one stack of R-19 episodes left, so I need to write that too. I'm thinking of taking a vote on these.
I'll open a notice and post the side story ideas I have in mind as comments, then readers can vote by recommending the comment they like. I'll pick the one with the most recommendations and write that one—plus the R-19 episode as a bonus.
As for the next work... I'm going to write it. Almost right after finishing the side stories.
#Fantasy #GenderRoleReversal #Harem #Cooking #MunchkinSupporter #Shota #Misunderstanding #Rescue #Possession #Adventure
I'm thinking of mixing the sensibility of an anime like Dungeon Meshi with a hero party version, with a slightly eccentric shota protagonist similar to Yune doing overpowered-while-unaware antics and rescuing the heroines—that might be the core? Since the next work is set 500 years before the events of Youngest Son, characters connected to it might make brief appearances—like Yuni, or the first head of House Nordkirchen. Anyway, once the series is registered, I'll announce it in a notice, so if you're interested, please give it a try!
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9. Closing Remarks.
...There was a lot I wanted to say, but I didn't expect to write this much. Ow, my fingers hurt. I'll wrap it up with a short author's note at the end.
To my readers.
Thanks to the last eight months I spent with all of you and with Yune, I've been so incredibly happy. Thanks to you readers, who played along with such an inadequate author and stayed with me to the very end, I was able to bring one more story to its conclusion.
Of course, due to the nature of live serialization, there are many chapters that leave me with lingering regrets, wishing I could rewrite them better (especially chapter 8... ;ㅅ;). I failed to manage expectations, kept changing the plot, and ended up adding the family tag—it was a disastrous failure as an author. But in spite of that, what I can say is this: I gave my best in every single moment. Just for chapter 8 alone, didn't it take me 11 hours just to write it and scrap it over and over? Though that only proved that time and quality don't necessarily correlate.
Still, I'm confident that the effort I put into writing a better story can hold its own even compared to famous authors. So today, the day I've put a period on this work, I think I can at least say this much.
Thank you for watching over my novel—the story of the reckless Yune growing into an adult—even if it wasn't the best, it was my very best. Thank you for watching over I Became the Youngest Son of the Northern Grand Ducal House.
Now this lacking author will take her leave... or so I'd like to say, but I've had a tiny bit of lingering regret from my previous work, you see. So I'll leave my true final greeting in the author's note below, using my favorite English letter closing. It means "sent with sincere feeling," and I'd say it's the perfect way to wrap up a messy afterword where I spilled all my emotions.
Since I'll be using the reader nickname feature, don't be surprised if your nickname appears. The site just automatically substitutes it.
Well then———