Skeleton Knight, going out to the parallel universe [WN]

[Huh...?]

Originally Posted by sasuke706

It's a fairly uneventful novel but here's a quickie.

Spoiler for Volume 9 summary:

-Beginning is just cleaning up undead after the fight. They never find 2 of the 7 cardinals and when trying to find a clue about them, all they do is find a safe full of gold that they distribute to victims and some magic items much later revealed to be one-use teleports. And a bunch of papers I don't think ever became important. Also he saves a young prostitute and her young sister who quickly never show themselves again. They later estimate the cardinals probably ran off to the empire(s) but it's really just a guess.

-Arc finally starts on fixing up his onsen house. As in he gets workers from the beastmen and lumber to do so and that's about it.

-Arc and co (and some extra beastmen) find a river-cave that leads to the Canadian forest (I can't help but laugh every time at Canada) which can potentially help the two races form closer relations. Also it might connect to the human kingdom they're officially allied with but keep it a secret from them for now.

-Arc and co also fights some giant death scorpions that even his sword can't pierce. Apparently weak to fire but couldn't use because in forest. Ends up just getting on top of it and piledriving his sword into it over and over.

-They find out the eastern empire has a method of manipulating monsters to do their bidding. Eastern empire also has a young, talented emperor pretty much in control of everything (military/social) and has his eyes set on the western empire. The MC's faction and their allies share and discuss this info. The emperor also plans on using religion to war against religion somehow.

-Arc meets Lauren again, a noble girl (and her maid) who he apparently saved at bandits from one point but I can't remember it so who cares.

-Western empire has a secret formula for a medicine that increases strength when ingested to surpass even beastmen's strength. This formula was the secret behind the founding of their empire and made by the first emperor himself. The current emperor plans to bring it back to take care of the western empire. Also one of the cardinals is apparently sexing up a close aide to the emperor and also learns of it.

-Dwarf trying to analyze the Undead Pope's staff that he can't figure really anything about including what it's made of, and sees it has the same writing as Maple's founder, who I can't remember if was actually Canadian or just a Japanese obsessed with Canada. But he can't read it anyway and he local scholar he tries to get to seems like will take longer than the dwarf will live.

It's really just a big setup novel.

Well, atleast that clears up that the Light Novel is still ongoing, unlike the Web Novel, which had finished after the Pope plot.

[sasuke706]

That doesn't mean the LN is necessarily still ongoing. Volume 9 was released over 2 years ago and while the gap between the overall LN volume sequel releases seems to have increased with the coming of COVID, that's still a pretty long time for a series dependent on selling enough. Author's mentioned sales before and was hoping it'd sell well in the afterword as well.

Volume 9 likely didn't sell that well (I wish I knew how to check sales to any degree of accuracy), hence the long gap, but might come back due to it getting an anime and anime usually boost sales.

It was designed to continue though, yes.

[fishstick]

@sasuke706 - thx much for the info

Lauren and Rita (the maid) were the two girls Arc saved way back in LN01, like shortly after his transfer into this new world

and like Huh...? said, looks good that the series seems to be ongoing if LN09 reads like a setup volume

[Wheeljack83]

This story definitely feels like the anti-Overlord.

It's basically the exact same premise. Similar character and protagonist. Similar ideas and situation. Main difference is that it's a little less nihilistic. Rather than play the role of the world's ultimate villain and despot, the protagonist has decided to play the role of the hero.

Also I don't mind this at all. I see this story as a companion piece to Overlord. That said, the similarities between these two stories are hard to ignore. But I also like the idea of stories set in RPG type worlds exploring different scenarios or versions of similar ideas. It's sort of like the way RPGs themselves can be played.

[Huh...?]

Originally Posted by fishstick

and like Huh...? said, looks good that the series seems to be ongoing if LN09 reads like a setup volume

Well, i read the "Afterword" of LN v09, and it seems that the Author left it as an Open End for now, so that he could End the Series with LN v09, if he doesn't feel like continuing the Series.

Main reason for him not focusing, is the low Sales of the Light Novel, which is affecting his interest in continuing writing the Series. Though he seems to be somewhat worried as well, considering the Manga is popular (which is the reason why he ended up writing LN v09 in the first place, considering he originally planned to End the LN with v08).

Well, in the end, it all depends how the Anime adaptation for this Series (releasing in 2022) does, and whether it helps boost the sales or not. Or, whether Author gets re-interested in the story because of the upcoming Anime (without considering the sales aspects).

Or else we can practically say that the Author probably won't write another volume.

Here is the "Afterword" from LN v09 (as per "Seven Seas" translation), for anyone interested.

Spoiler:

Afterword

THIS IS ENNKI HAKARI, the author of Skeleton Knight in Another World. Thank you so much for picking up Volume 9 of this story.

I regret that it’s been so long since Volume 8 went on sale—a whole year, in fact—but all I can say is that I am eternally grateful for your patience. I’m relieved to finally be able to get this out to you.

It’s been a while since your last adventure with the Skeleton Knight, but how was it? Did you enjoy it?

In the afterword of the previous volume, I mentioned that I wanted to write this volume like an after-story of sorts, but as I’m sure you noticed, it turned into a proper continuation of the main plot. Now how’d that happen…?

The previous volume ended with two of the cardinals in hiding, the dueling empires on the verge of action, and a lot of stories still left untold. Personally speaking, I like ending stories with plenty of potential still remaining.

(When watching movies or reading manga, I often get lost imagining all sorts of developments with the side stories and subplots, completely losing track of the main story. If there’s anyone else out there like that, I’m sure we’d be fast friends.)

However, quite a few people reached out to me to tell me that they wanted to hear what happened next.

When it was decided that my book would actually be published, I honestly never expected it to make it all the way to nine volumes. People say that the publishing industry is on a downward trend, and I own more than a few book series that were cut off abruptly after the second volume with no further releases. All I can say is that Skeleton Knight must be quite lucky indeed.

Even when sequels are published, I’m told that fewer and fewer copies are printed with each new volume, but that simply wasn’t the case with Skeleton Knight. In fact, it did so well that a manga was made. Part of me feared what might happen if I continued to push my luck.
Therefore, I decided to continue the story in a second series.

When I first started writing the story for Volume 1, I already had the events through Volume 8 planned out in my head. (I figured I’d write about a million characters by the time the battle with the pontiff took place.) I had a vague idea of what I wanted to do after that, but I actually had to sit down and really think things through as I wrote this volume.

I guess I’m the type that has a hard time writing if I don’t set things up much earlier in the story, because this volume took a really long time to write. I’m truly sorry for the long wait, but I hope you enjoyed it.

The cover kinda gives the feeling of returning to a normal, slow life and is also intended to tie in to Volume 10. I plan for the next volume to feature the pursuit of the cardinals, but first, I need to hope and pray that this volume actually sells well.

If you happen to have any friends who haven’t heard that Volume 9 came out, I’d really appreciate it if you’d let them know.

Finally, I’d like to thank all of the people who helped make Volume 9 a reality. It’s only through your efforts that this saw the light of day. To my editor, my illustrator (KeG), and my proofreader, you have my eternal gratitude.

That’s about it from me for now. If there ever is another volume to our beloved Skeleton Knight’s story, I suppose I’ll see you then!

FEBRUARY 2019 – ENNKI HAKARI

[fishstick]

early digital release was released

Spoiler for don't click me:

story starts on the Empire vs Empire front where Emperor Domitianus gets a couple field reports of the ongoing campaign

the Emperor learns their advance has stalled after securing the border town back in V9 much in part due to how they were able to easily take it, the Monster Corps

seems the logistics of incorporating these monster units into the army has become more troublesome than predicted

basically it read that each army division couldn't keep up with the monster troop they were in charge of and this coupled with the varying speeds at which they were advancing created a stop gap in coordinating any unison effort deeper into the West empire

hearing this, Domitianus recalls all the monster corps to regroup at the border town to initiate a more effective second invasion

think the above as the prologue chapter setting it up that the Empire vs Empire war is on a temporary hold until the East side can get their sh*t together ...

then we get to Team Arc with their usual LN introductions volume to volume

to sum up what they do in this volume is pretty simple-

they use the teleport item found in V9 which takes them to a border town in the West empire region

for visual context - Domitianus's army is stalled somewhere on the West empire's eastern border but this teleport spot is on the far west side of it

and where the trio ended up was a decrepit looking cathedral building that was likely used as a Holy Hilk hub back when the Pope was going on strong, however the team can't make any headwind into finding any clues about Cardinal activity of recent in this town

however not wanting to abandon this trail in its entirety, team Arc decides to become "mercenaries" as their cover to continue their search

but they are soon to learn that they need a certain guild rank to travel about in this region now (due to the looming Empire war), with Arc selling to the local guild that their town entry was being part of a foreign convoy in

during this we are introduced to a couple mercenary teams, one is the Black-Fanged Dogs whose party leader is quite antagonistic towards the newly dubbed Turbulent Ponta Patrol

the other is a pair from Silver Blades, Brad and Meel, who are more friendly to the newbie team

note: Brad and Meel are also those 2 characters featured in many of the volume illustrations, but more on them later

basically this volume has the Ponta Patrol go on two mercenary quests in an effort to build their rank high enough to be given guild permission to visit other empire areas abroad

and meanwhile, we get scenes of Arc gate'ing the party to and fro Lalatoya in giving reconnaissance reports to the elves

skipping to the climax of this volume - the border town all of a sudden gets attacked by a goblin horde and amidst this confusion, team Arc faces off against a group of masked "ninjas" attacking the town lord's castle

after fending the "ninjas" off, the trio meet up again with a ragtag group of Black-Fanged Dogs who are also caught up in trying to defend the city in this confusion

they regroup and learn that a group of bandits that team Arc had captured mid-volume have broken free from their prison cells and are on a rampage and so the town lord's wife basically puts in an emergency quest to stop them

they find the bandits easily enough, but these guys are all hopped up on that V9 magic drug the West Empire is trying to cultivate making them much harder to deal with since they are all in "berserker" mode

while all this is happening, Gramn - the party leader of Black-Fanged Dogs - finds the town lord and is desperately trying to fend off the bandits but team Arc arrives in the nick of time to save the day

however the masked "ninjas" rejoin the fray to assassinate the town lord and summon a pack of haunted wolves - the same type as those Arc fought back in V2 - to make their getaway

but with most of the baddies dealt with in town and the retreat of the "ninjas", the climax of this town battle ends

the next day, the widow of the town lord takes command and congratulates the two mercenary parties for a job well done

and the Turbulent Ponta Patrol gets their silver tags so they can now travel about in an official capacity

rest of Epilogue ... where the story comes full circle

Arc notes that while the town lord's widow is wearing black in mourning for her late husband, she doesn't seem to be really grieving a loved one's death and so he writes if off them having a political marriage ...

which is sorta true in that she was actually a mole planted there by the Aspania Kingdom that lies east of the Western Revlon Empire and her husband's death has just put her in charge of this border town, and THAT was the goal of Brad and Meel all along

we then learn these 2 are undercover agents for the Aspania forces using the looming Empire war to topple the western faction, whom they hate because of a territory war they long lost to the Revlon Empire when they expanded west

the volume ends with these two meeting with Aspania's crown prince and giving him their report

turns out Brad and Meel were "confounded" by this new mercenary team of Ponta Patrol all throughout the volume and the reader learns here they were responsible for the assassination attempt made against them midpoint in the volume

to explain it: they basically booby-trapped the ruined cathedral team Arc was using to hide their teleportation antics to collapse on them but Arc simply teleported them out, and so Brad and Meel couldn't figure out why they were acting all nilly dilly the next day like nothing had happened

and if it wasn't also clear at this point, they were also among the "ninjas" being fought during the battle climax

so it was kind of a red herring in this story where the mercenary team that acted antagonistic towards Arc's were actually the "good" folks

and the two who were being all friendly were the true volume antagonists ...

anyways Brad is one of Aspania's Four Royal Knights and Meel is an elite bodyguard of his family line of Dukes, and almost all the crap that went down in this volume was by their design

the prince orders the two to keep tabs on the Turbulent Ponta Patrol just in case they try to hinder their plans going forward in this region, with their next target being the West empire capital city, which incidentally is where team Arc is also heading

oh and I should point out that during the battle climax, Meel realizes Ariane is a dark elf, which confuses their side greatly considering the Canada forest is on the other side of this NW continent, and that Chiyome is like her, a beastkin though not aware of her affiliation

as the demihumans who live in Aspania are part of its own nationality with the humans that have long been at odds with the West empire