The Shaman can't become a Hero
The Time has come for a New Story
It’s a bit sudden, but from the 7th of July, 2016, I will be starting a new series!
Speaking of new series, this would be the next one after ‘Nightmare World’ which I submitted for the Dengeki Novel Prize, but instead of a short, this is planned to be a serialized long-running series.[1]
This may not be related, but I’ve been quietly writing many works other than Kuro no Maou for a while now. Half of them were just for some change of pace, and Kuro no Maou has been given top priority.
However, the new work to follow Kuro no Maou is the one I put the most effort in. Originally, I wanted to announce it after Kuro no Maou had ended... but umm, when will that be? When will Kurono become the Demon Lord and drive out the Crusaders from Pandora? Even I, the author, have no idea.
I couldn’t keep it in anymore, and so decided to start posting the new story.
Now, as for this new work, I’ve been writing it for quite a bit now. Checking the date on the file it says ‘2011/10/23’... 5 years ago, what in the...
Time certainly goes by fast. I never imagined I’d be posting stories for 5 years. I wanted to publish it much sooner, but there was the case of getting published, and a lot of writer’s block too. There was also the period when I didn’t write much at all.[2]
Still, I had made prearrangements for this new work, and had been done writing upto the first juncture, so I finally made the decision to release it to the public. It hadn’t gone that far into the story, but I thought this was the least amount necessary to be able to show anyone. So I let that much sit and incubate for 5 years.[3]
Hopefully, like with Kuro no Maou, it too is blessed with high readership.
And now, for some information on the new story itself.
The genre is the same old other-world summoning. Of the categories listed, it should be High-Fantasy.[4]
Kuro no Maou had a summoning of only himself, but this time it’s a bit different, but actually not that different at all, it is the infamous ‘Class Summoning’.
I’ve also read a fair amount of class summoning stories. A lot of them have the loner or bullied kid get a Cheat Skill and/or Growth Cheat and have them get revenge or something but... Since I have this unit called a class, I would like to liven that up. Using a cheat to realize a bullied kid’s petty revenge is terribly boring, and not something I wish to write.
And what gave me the strongest image when thinking of this class unit, was that famously controversial novel ‘Battle Royale’. It’s an impactful story where middle schoolers kill each other until only one remains. I liked the manga version a lot too.
This work is not meant to be a complete rip-off of Battle Royale, but a gruesome, mutual killing between the protagonist, and the rest of the class, is something I definitely want to write, is how I started this work. That being said, I think this new work will have even more terrible events than Kuro no Maou.
※ However, no such thing as the heroine getting raped or depictions of NTR.
Anyway, please look forward to painful depictions, and dark developments. But to those who expect cruel things happening to the heroine, I apologize. There’s no such disgusting event... the Yandere is stronger than that.
In a way, the protag for this new work would be placed in a harsher environment than in Kuro no Maou, but this protagonist would be the antithesis of Kurono’s scary face + tough build, as in, a short, weak, trap character. He is a normal male on the inside, and not superbly beautiful in a womanly sense either, so it becomes a vague appearance. He won’t be activating the trap’s classic Skill of ‘Woo both Men and Women’. He would unfortunately be someone without any Cheat Skills, and would have to laboriously improve using wisdom, bravery and desperation; him and his classmates would grandly engage in mutual killing so please cheer on this, even more hopeless than Kurono, protagonist.
Lastly, at risk of sounding too business-like, I won’t be stopping Kuro no Maou chapters in place of this. As per usual, I will be regularly posting every week at 5pm Fridays, that I promise.
About the new work, starting from July 7th, I will be posting continuously until a certain point, at least for the 1st act, I will be posting daily. For act 2 and beyond, the posting interval is undecided, but in the end, the updates will stabilize at once a week like Kuro no Maou.[5]
Finally when we are a week away from the day, along with the afterword in Kuro no Maou, I will let everyone know more on the new series.
So by all means, please partake in this new work, this other-world, class transfer, dungeon survival, dark fantasy!