Afterword

Hello to those of you I’m meeting for the first time.

I’m the person who wrote A Demon Lord’s Love.

When I was young, I often had nightmares. It’s not that I don’t have them now—I still do from time to time—but when I was a child, specifically until about halfway through elementary school, they were particularly frequent. What constitutes a nightmare is likely a matter of personal judgment, but well, I don’t think I have many memories of good dreams. So, for me, it’s better not to dream at all. I wake up, and it’s morning. That’s the ideal.

But I digress.

This is about the nightmares I had as a child. Among them, there is one that I still remember to this day. Dreams are things you forget after a little while. But, even though I didn’t write it down anywhere, I can still recall that one dream vividly. There is a large, bottomless hole. Its diameter, let’s see, was probably about the size of a baseball stadium. It was deep, dark, and the edges seemed a little too neat to have been formed naturally. I am peering into this hole. Besides me, several other people are also peering into the hole. I don’t speak to them, and they don’t speak to anyone else. One by one, they fall into the hole. They don’t make a fuss; they fall of their own accord. And after seeing a few of them go, I suddenly think, Ah, it’s my turn. I take a step forward. Ah, I’m falling.

And that’s usually where I wake up.

Thinking about it now, it’s a strange dream. What was that all about?

I suppose, because of that dream and the other nightmares I had, I was a child who was afraid of dreaming and disliked sleeping. I used to think that once I let my consciousness sink, I might never come back. Nowadays, that’s not the case; in fact, I rather like sleeping, or rather, considering I write novels, recklessly cutting down on sleep is counterproductive, so I make sure to sleep. I wonder, maybe reality has become scarier than my dreams.

And now for my acknowledgements.

To my editor, who has helped me from the publication of my previous work to the launch of this one. To Ayuma Sayu-sensei, who provided the wonderful illustrations. To the proofreader, who corrected my clumsy writing. And to everyone else involved in the publication, my thanks.

And above all, to you, who picked up this book, I send my greatest gratitude.