Million Dollar Bill: Volume 1 – Author’s Afterword

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Author’s Afterword

 

 

The afterword······ is upon us.

 

I always welcome new readers!

Thank you for purchasing this book, thank you for reading this book, and thank you for not skipping this afterword. I love you, my readers. I wish fortune upon all of you.

Let me give a proper greeting after 4 lines. Hello. I’m SAVOY.G.

I’m very nervous as this is the first release of my new series 16 months after my debut with the online book ⌈Gunpowder Tea Party⌋ (No longer sold due to publication rights being withdrawn) on May of last year. Aah, it seems I’m also finally able to release a physical book with a cover and several illustrations. Thank you, Lord.

For starters, before getting into the afterword, I wish to thank the people who helped this book get published.

Department Head Kim Tae-hyeon of Haksan Publishing who helped this book get safely published, Author Lee Sun-oong who, despite having never met me before, recommended me to Haksan after only reading my debut work, Seop for drawing these amazing illustrations for me, and Mr. L who manages the editorial department’s Twitter account.

Furthermore, the people who I would always consult with about my story and would always give me good pieces of advice: Author Squishy Slime, Author Dahimiagi, Author Index, Author Bbing, Author Seo Shi-hyeon, Author Word Play, and Author Kilkae. My little sister, parents, friends (Junho, when are we going to meet?!), the many authors who waited for me, and the readers who purchased this book.

I thank each and every one of you. I love you all.

Now, let’s get into the actual afterword.

First, according to the customs, the reason why I wrote this story···.

The reason why I started to write ⌈Million Dollar Bill⌋ isn’t that special. Before I enlisted in the army, I watched a couple of western films and the sudden thought, ‘Come to think of it, if there’s a 〈western-themed light novel where people fight with special powers〉, then I’d like to read it.’ hit me, so I tried to find one but I couldn’t. Thus, I wound up writing one myself. The reason why I wrote my debut novel was also, ‘I wonder if there’s a revolution+steampunk+mecha light novel (Although, in the end, what came out was LeftNovel.)’, so nothing about me has changed. If I don’t see a novel with the themes I want to read, then I end up writing it myself.

Wouldn’t it be fun if the main character was a poor bounty hunter who could turn his body into money? This story, which began with such a casual thought, came out as a book with Seop’s amazing illustrations contained within it. You truly don’t know what the future holds. Seriously.

It was quite a long wait. 9 months have passed since I finished writing the manuscript for volume 1. It was on the third week of January that I signed the contract. During the wait, I went around here and there doing my second job as a Japanese and Chinese interpreter and translator, served as a waiter at a beef entrails restaurant, and dabbled in writing some other series. Looking back on it now, it hasn’t been a boring time. Fortunately.

I’ve been thinking recently that it might be hard to make a living as an author, but I enjoy this work. When I learned music, my eyes would always drift towards minor things besides music, but writing is more, how should I say it? It feels more genuine when I write. I haven’t been writing for long, so I never thought in detail about things like, “Why do I write?” or “For what purpose do I write?”.

My debut work is the first book I ever finished completely in my life, and the first volume of Million Dollar Bill is the second. I’m just a rookie. At this point, I’m still writing because I ‘enjoy it’. I have a light belief that since I enjoy writing, you guys will have a good time reading my work as well. Even if I reach a bump in the road while writing, I can endure it knowing that I’m doing something I enjoy. I still haven’t reached the point where pain passes my enjoyment. It might happen one day.

I think I was lucky in many ways, however, it’s still the truth that I lack skill and experience. Regardless, I have hope in my future self that I’ll get better as I continue to write. I want to become an author whose books are worth buying.

Good luck, future SAVOY! The current SAVOY will just throw a cheer and head to Numbani now!

Oh right, should I talk about the illustrations a bit?

In the beginning, when Department Head Kim Tae-hyeon showed me the work Seop had done for Magic Library: Qurare, the Di Renjie card (twitter post of the illustrations), and asked me for my opinion, I felt like I got shot by a stun gun.

I seriously, seriously like Di Renjie. A nation’s prime minister-cum-detective (It’s different in the movie, though). He’s like the eastern version of Sherlock Holmes. The hat and cape-coat remade into a Chinese style, the pipe that became a short pipe, etc. The Di Renjie that Seop had drawn was all too my liking. Be it the art style, composition, or the outfit, I liked it all.

The author is utterly brainless when it comes to character design, but I believed that if I left the illustrations to this person, then they would be able to create amazing and fashionable visuals. Thus, I told the Department Head that I wanted to leave the illustrations to Seop. I think this was the best decision I ever made in my life.

I can’t believe that one to two lines of unscrupulous words could create such stylish characters. It feels like plain water had turned into T.O.P water. It came out better than what everyone imagined, so when I was handed the character sheets, I nearly shouted: “I have no regrets in my life!”. Yup, I nearly set up my own death flag. I survived because I was so moved that I choked up and couldn’t say anything.

Before I saw the illustrations, I had thoughts like, ‘Ah~ this is definitely going to be hard to design······Let’s give up on this.’ about many of the characters, but I think I can be more at ease now. In volume 2, I’m going to believe in Seop’s designing skills and go all in.

So, my readers, please look forward to volume 2!

Mostly Seop’s illustrations! They’re amazing! They’re going to be amazing!

······I’m kidding. Honestly, if I make such a reckless announcement, then follow-up volumes will never come out.

In any case (making it seem like I’m ending this urgently), after receiving the help of a lot of people, volume 1 was safely released. In truth, I already finished writing volume 2. The editorial team told me that it was more enjoyable than volume 1. Spoilers are forbidden, so if I’m to give a small hint, ‘that person’ who only appeared by name in volume 1 will take the role as the main character in volume 2. I personally like this character a lot, so I hope you like them as well.

Now then, I’ll end my ramblings here and see you all in volume 2. Please continue to watch over Aretha, Bill, and Ray’s adventures.

From SAVOY.G

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TL Note: Thanks for reading through volume 1 of Million Dollar Bill.

I feel like the afterword is one of the hardest things to translate in a novel. It doesn’t seem too bad since it’s not that long, but it’s actually difficult because this is where the author usually stops caring about the way they write. They use a lot of grammatically awkward sentences and slurs because this is where they can talk casually. It’s really hard trying to translate these kinds of casual texts.

I’m going to make an update post soon after this, so I’ll go into detail about my plans there, but for now: I hope to see you guys read whatever series I continue translating next!

VOLUME 1 EPILOGUE 2 | VOLUME 1 ILLUSTRATIONS