Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka? Volume 5 G

Hello there. I’m Okina Baba.

We’ve finally reached Volume 5 of this series.

Five seems like a pretty good place to leave off, don’t you think?

Is it just me, or does it feel like a sort of special, exciting number?

Oh, it’s just me? All right, then.

Old man: “Ahem.”

What is it, Mr. Ronandt?

I feel like you’re going to confuse people, showing up in the afterword like this.

Old man: “In the web version, I seem to recall that I played a large role in both the spider and S sides of the story right around now. And yet it seems that I am not in this volume at all, no?”

Nope, you sure aren’t. Not a single trace. Your name’s not even mentioned once.

Old man: “Why, then?!”

I couldn’t help it.

Your part got sacrificed to a terrible phenomenon in the world of adults known only as a “page-count limit”!

Old man: “O-of all the—”

But fear not, friend!

For you are going to play a seriously major role in Volume 6! If all goes according to plan, at least.

So please look forward to the exciting antics of Elder Ronandt, who you could even call the real hero of this series if you really wanted to, in the next volume!

Old man: “It sounds to me like you’re making things up.”

It’ll be fine! Probably.

As of now, I really do plan to write Mr. Ronandt’s role in a very different way from how it played out in the web version.

In fact, the entirety of Volume 6 is going to differ quite drastically from the original web version of the story.

Perhaps the fate I’ve managed to avoid in Volumes 4 and 5 will finally catch up to me, and I’ll write a volume that’s 100 percent new content?

How very frightening.

Incidentally, while the advertisement for Volume 4 said that it contained sixty thousand characters of new text, that was actually just the count as of the writing of that ad copy. By the time I finished, it was apparently even more than that.

And Volume 5 has gone just about the same way.

Ha-ha-ha. I’m such a hard worker.

Now on to the thank-yous.

As always, I want to thank Kiryuu-sensei for drawing such charming and beautiful illustrations.

And also as always, I want to thank Asahiro Kakashi for drawing such charming and hilarious poses.

Let me also thank my editor K and everyone else who was involved in bringing this book into the world.

And all of you who have picked up this book.

Thank you very much.