Chapter 1: Prologue

***

[M Comics Column] – Interview with the Author of 'Adventure King'.

Q. First, congratulations on the completion. How do you feel?

A. Bittersweet. I don’t think there’s much more to say.

Q. Your work is famous for having a particularly large number of characters. Which character do you have the most affection for?

A. Naturally, the protagonist. I’ve watched and cheered for them the longest. Beyond that, the amount of attention a character receives in the story can be seen as a measure of my affection.

Q. Are there any characters whose disappearance you particularly regret? I understand you received a lot of protests from readers.

A. Not really. There were times when I felt some characters’ abilities were underutilized. But even so, the existing characters were enough to carry the story. There was no particular reason for the characters to disappear. They simply didn’t have the strength to survive. I offer my sincere condolences to the few readers who loved them.

Q. What are the conditions for a character to survive?

A. A character must capture the reader’s interest and attention from the moment they appear. If they fail to do so, they immediately lose their value. Even if they manage to capture interest, they are forgotten the moment they are no longer remembered. Except for the main characters who are born to play important roles, characters are fundamentally one-time use. The author can make them appear, but after that, it’s up to the character. If a character doesn’t strive to come alive, they will never see the light of day.

Q. Did the character popularity vote influence the story’s development?

A. I can’t say it didn’t. As a commercial author, failing to understand the readers’ needs would be a disqualification. However, ...

*

I read up to that point and closed the page. I simply couldn’t bear to read any further.

The expression was shameless.

A character that fails to capture the reader’s interest from the start will never see the light of day.

A character that doesn’t strive to come alive will eventually disappear.

It was laughable that the author himself said this. It was absurd.

The characters disappeared because the author didn’t draw them. They were forgotten because the author didn’t care.

What can a simple character do?

In fact, when my favorite character died, I even considered stopping reading. I didn’t read for several months because of this.

[Lucas the Fallen Knight].

My favorite character in Adventure King.

The Fallen Knight undoubtedly attracted a lot of attention. A character who appeared as an antagonist made it to the top 10 in the popularity vote by just the 15th chapter.

However, the Fallen Knight disappeared before the story reached its climax.

For the sake of plausibility?

Well, there was a lot of talk about this at the time. Many people believed that the story could have continued without the Fallen Knight’s death.

There were even rumors in the community that the author killed the Fallen Knight because he was about to surpass the protagonist in popularity, reducing him to a mere tool to enhance the protagonist’s appeal.

While the author can do as they please with their own work, isn’t it funny to say that characters need to strive? After all, the author is the one who moves, manipulates, and kills them.

Thinking about it made me angry again.

I immediately logged into my SNS and sent a message to the author’s official account.

- I read the interview in the column. But I have one question. What do you mean by characters needing to strive? Didn’t you, the author, kill off the Fallen Knight to enhance the protagonist’s appeal?

I knew I wouldn’t get a reply. The message wouldn’t even reach the author.

If the author had seen it, they would have replied to the dozens of messages I had sent over the years, even if it was just to tell me to stop sending DMs.

Anyway, sending the message made me feel a bit better.

“Phew...”

I slowly looked at the neatly arranged ‘Adventure King’ volumes on my desk.

A total of 60 volumes, collected over 10 years.

My treasure, collected since middle school.

...

I was just feeling nostalgic. Nostalgic.

No matter what, it was my favorite, and still is, manga.

The last volume, which I had bought a week ago, was still unopened. I didn’t want to admit that it was really the end.

...

But with the author’s afterword and interview being released, it was a bit ridiculous to deny it.

Well, since I thought of it, let’s read it.

Just as I picked up the last volume,

Beep.

My phone rang.

I had a message on SNS.

- I don’t lie.

I was shocked and my mouth dropped open.

It was from the Adventure King author’s account.

He had replied to me, after 10 years.

- Characters can struggle to survive. The Fallen Knight simply neglected to do so.

The shock was brief, and anger surged up again.

Struggle to survive? So the Fallen Knight died because he didn’t struggle?

‘What a ridiculous...’

But I couldn’t continue my thoughts.

The moment I read his last message, I suddenly lost consciousness.

- Would you like to try it?