Harem Dynast Part 1: Afterword

[Note: This Afterword is from the original version. The rereleased version has no Afterword.]

This is Takeuchi Ken, author of Kingdom Conquered by the Golden Dragon – Part 1: Rape of a Princess. This was my very first book (and so I really hope you liked it).

Umm…so do you readers like war and women?

I must apologize to any of you good-natured people who do not because you must not have liked this book very much. (Not that you would’ve bought it in the first place.) But if you are the dangerous sort of person who has the hot-blooded belief that war and women are the romance of men and who inspire the ire of pacifists, then I bet you did enjoy it.

Boys innocently love violent worldviews where men burning with ambition plot against each other, race across the battlefield, and take kingdoms and beautiful women for themselves. (I’ll probably get some people saying I’m only assuming other people are that way because I am, but my evidence is how people have always loved Japan’s Sengoku period, China’s Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and Genghis Khan.) But we certainly couldn’t live such a hard life, so we instead enjoy vicariously living a hero’s life in novels.

So if I wrote a story about warring kingdoms and kingdom-stealing battles in a fantasy world with the usual swords, magic, and dragons, it would be sure to sell. And that’s why I wrote this. (I hope I was right and it does sell.)

Now I should probably get to the customary stuff for a new author.

To my editor Okada-san, thank you for giving me this debut novel. I hope we can continue like this for a long time to come.

To Senbata Rou who did the illustrations, thank you very much. (The readers drawn in by your skill will probably drastically increase the sales of this novel. But if my skill as an author gives them a rude awakening, that will show up in the sales of Part 2… Tremble, tremble. It scares me just thinking about it.)

Okay, everyone, goodbye for now. Until we meet again in Kingdom Conquered by the Golden Dragon – Part 2: A Princess’s Scarlet Tears. (If you’ve read this far, you must be curious how it turns out. Please don’t forget to buy Part 2.)

You can look forward to Knight Woman Lucy’s counterattack! (That’s supposed to be an ad for Part 2, but I can’t find a good way of putting it. …Anyway, that ends Part 1’s Afterword.)

Harem Dynast Part 1: Chapter 6 - Battle of Corlal Field

The day after the wedding ceremony in the Domos capital of Fenrir, the Domos’s military flag was raised: black with a yellow border and a legendary divine wolf in the center.

The supreme commander was of course Domos King Lorent. He was followed by his generals: Stephan, Almeida, Kubdai, Shigsal, Naja, Carnap, Vatistuta, and Lumishas. The army was 12 thousand strong. They had far more horses than soldiers, so 20 thousand horses kicked dust high into the sky.

Domos Queen Ansandra rode in a carriage in the reverse of the journey she had taken just a month earlier.

The maids and knights that had accompanied her from Clanaria were shocked and dumbfounded by this sudden turn of events. The marriage had been intended to build friendship between the kingdoms, but it had led to the exact opposite.

They had no idea what to do, but they were forced to choose one of two things: Serve Ansandra by assisting Domos, or die.

Every last one of them chose to serve Ansandra as before. This had less to do with Ansandra’s leadership ability and more to do with the naïve idea that surviving now would lead to alternative options in the future.

Ansandra sat in the shaking carriage and it was Dominic rather than Mimi who sat opposite her this time.

That viper of a woman was trying to gather information on Clanaria from the traitorous princess. Ansandra hated Dominic, but she was Lorent’s wife now and she had steeled her resolve, so she was willing to help.