Graveyard Shift Dracula! – Volume 1 Afterword

The Author is always searching for topics to put in the Afterword —AND YOU—


This is just my opinion, but I believe that every person who has produced literary works as their livelihood has probably lived like an owl—staying up late and sleeping in the morning—at some point in their lives.

I myself am such a one, and all the other authors I am friends with know the beauty of early dawn that changes with each season and the marvels of watching the sun rise.

From a biological standpoint, humans are supposed to be a diurnal species, so it would probably make more sense to go to sleep at night and wake up in the morning. However, for some reason, I often find that my life is inevitably nocturnal.

On one such day, when I was in the middle of work, I looked out at the early morning glow through my window and wondered if I would never be able to fix my sleep schedule as long as I worked in this business. While I was thinking about what the most extreme case of a “nocturnal person” would look like, the idea for the protagonist of this series, Toraki Yura, suddenly popped into my head.

That happened on an early winter morning, during the stormy days of writing the final volume of “Hataraku Maou-Sama!” and agonizing over what the plot outline for my next work should be.

As for this afterword for “Dracula Yakin!”, it was written directly after I finished my final piece of work for the last volume of “Hataraku Maou-Sama!” 

For the people whom I am meeting for the first time, it’s nice to meet you. For those who I have not seen for a while, it’s nice to see you again. As for those whom I met last month, thank you very much.

My name is Wagahara Satoshi, a nocturnal-type author who unintentionally ended up this way at some point.

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Practically speaking, living a nocturnal life can be pretty inconvenient.

It varies from person to person, but there is always the feeling of not aligning with the standard flow of time that is followed by the rest of the world.

That was still fine when I was younger, but once I started having to do things on my own, such as going to a government office, the bank, the post office, or a hospital, I constantly ran into issues such as the appointments being full due to the late hour. Assuming, of course, that the place in question was even open during the time when I was awake. Left with no other choice, I would have to wake up in the morning or the afternoon, which could only be described as agony.

As far as I am concerned, any time before 9:00 AM is too early.

There are many jobs in this world that have to be done at night, or cases where working at night is unavoidable. It is inevitable that people working in such jobs lead a nocturnal life. However, Wagahara’s job is something that could just as easily be done during the day. The fact that it is not is entirely an issue with my own management skills.

However, the problem is that many authors find it acceptable to keep late hours, and most of Wagahara’s author friends are also night owls. It has gotten to the point where even the main character of my novel is a person who can only move around after sunset, biologically (?) speaking.

Most likely, my nocturnal life as an author will continue for a while yet.

Unlike the majority of stories out there, this work is a story about characters who have accepted themselves for who they are, and yet cannot get rid of a certain sense of shame as they desperately live their lives from day to day.

This is a new “daily life experiences of an otherworldly cast” story, illustrated by Arisaka Ako. If you enjoy reading it, I couldn’t ask for anything more.

Who knows, maybe that one person at your job might also be a visitor from the world of shadows.

I hope you are looking forward to seeing what will become of the story about a vampire who is the next person after Maou to receive the title of a “hard worker”.

Goodbye!

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