Afterword

This novel was harder to write than I’d expected.

You probably wouldn’t know this, but I’m an avid TS-novel reader. I’ve been reading and re-reading them for years — starting with Mookhyang: Dark Lady¹, then all of Jo-XX’s TS novels, and No-XX’s too.

I’d read so many and loved them so much that I figured writing one would come easily… but it turned out to be harder than I thought.

Still, I managed to see it through to the end. My sincere thanks to everyone who stuck with it this far.

As for what got me started on this novel — there’s a manhwa called The Correlation Between TS Works and Female-Corruption Preferences². There’s a TS girl in it who goes, “Oh!? You’ve found someone you like!? Who!? Who!?”

I read that manhwa over and over, like I was under a spell. The girl was so charming that I wanted to write a novel featuring a TS girl just like her… (I even commissioned the artist for the first cover. They drew it far better than I’d ever hoped, and I’d like to thank them again here!)

But once I actually started writing, the TS girl I’d pictured while reading that manhwa didn’t quite come to life on the page. I don’t know when it’ll be, but I’m telling myself I’ll get her right next time. I’ve already taken one swing at a TS novel, even with my lacking skills, so I’m hopeful the next one will turn out better.

And then there’s Oh Haengbok… that orc geezer was another reason I wrote this. Early in planning, his plotline came together unusually well, and that was a big part of what pushed me to actually try writing this novel. And sure enough, Oh Haengbok ended up getting a ton of attention and love from readers — which I’m proud of, but at the same time, as a TS author, I feel a real pang of guilt that the protagonist Seo Yun’s charm and growth didn’t quite measure up. T_T

There were plenty of shortcomings and things I wish I’d done better, but it really was a novel I had fun writing.

Once again, my heartfelt thanks to all the readers who gave this story far more attention than it deserved. I wish you all the best in everything you do!

* The stat sheets I promised should go up sometime this week.³

I’m planning to put serious effort into Warlock Saga next. Even if I can’t take it all the way to completion, my goal is to get at least ten installments out.

Once again — thank you, truly!!

Translator’s Notes

1. Mookhyang: Dark Lady (묵향 다크레이디) — The second arc of JEON DongZo’s pioneering fantasy/martial arts series Mookhyang. The protagonist Mookhyang, proud hierarch of the Demonic Sect and one of the strongest martial artists of his world, falls victim to a curse from his enemies, the Blood Sect, that flings him into a fantasy realm of elves, mages, knights, and dragons — only to be cursed a second time into the body of a young woman, the very thing he hated most. The arc is widely credited with introducing the TS (gender-transformation) genre to Korean genre fiction, and received an official comic adaptation in 2019. ↩
2. The Correlation Between TS Works and Female-Corruption Preferences (TS물과 암컷타락 호불호의 상호관계) — A Korean indie manhwa short by the artist Jjangz (짱즈), originally posted on Arca.live’s TS fiction board in May 2021. Part of a series of meta-comics riffing on TS-genre tropes and fandom taste debates. The “TS girl” the author references is the manhwa’s narrator-character. ↩
3. The Korean source reads “주에 올라올 것 같습니다” — the qualifier (이번/다음, “this/next”) is missing, so the timing is genuinely ambiguous. ↩