If It’s for My Daughter, I’d Even Defeat a Demon Lord: Volume 3

by CHIROLU

  Such carts also chase after fads, so when there was a pancake boom, for example, plenty of carts serving them popped up. They disappeared before long, though. I enjoy walking along and looking for such differences. In the last few years, I get the feeling that the number of carts serving ethnic dishes has been on the rise. I even saw a pho cart with a huge line in front of it when it got cold. Such things can be hit or miss, but it was doing better than I would have expected.

  And then there’s poppo-yaki, which isn’t actually squid. [ED: In most of Japan, poppo-yaki refers to grilled squid.] It’s a staple of the carts in the Kaetsu region of Niigata. I’ve heard even people from other parts of Niigata say they’ve never heard of it, so it’s apparently limited to being quite a small local snack. Even if you ask what sort of food it is, it’s rather hard to describe. It’s light brown, has a brown sugar flavor to it, and has more of a springy texture to it rather than being fluffy. When I attended an event in Kaetsu, it left quite an impact on me to see five carts in a row, with three of them serving poppo-yaki. Just how beloved was it for over half of them to be serving it?

  This is straying from the topic of festivals, but as I mentioned in the afterword for the last volume, my family outings always took the form of strolls through picturesque scenery. Being able to eat while walking around such places was something I got to enjoy that you generally can’t do in your everyday life. In fact, before my siblings learned how to eat fish with chopsticks, they learned how to eat grilled sweetfish on a skewer without dropping it. Having seen children manage such a thing, I can’t help but tilt my head at the rising trend of people who dislike fish because of the bones.

  My parents were the complete opposite of those folks who decide they don’t like a food without even trying it, and they always tended to take the initiative when it came to chowing down on dishes they’d never seen before. I get the feeling that that may have been a big part of what made walking about and eating at our travel destinations so much fun. When my family all went to a buffet-style restaurant the other day and I saw that we all had palm sprouts on our plates, I realized that my parents’ teachings had been passed down. Let me just note that the texture was like that of bamboo shoots.

  Even though the titular daughter wasn’t supposed to be a gourmand, she ended up eating anything and everything without me even thinking about it, so perhaps the problem is with me.

  Even so, I’d be glad if my story was able to get across some of those special events from my childhood and how they excited me.

  Thank you so much to everyone who helped make this book a reality. Thank you for always putting up with my strange hang-ups and for drawing an adorable “daughter,” Kei. And more than anything else, to those of you who chose this book out of so many options, you have my deepest gratitude.

  As long as this book brought you at least a little joy, then I’ll feel truly blessed.

  February 2016,

  CHIROLU

  Copyright

  If It’s for My Daughter, I’d Even Defeat a Demon Lord: Volume 3

  by CHIROLU

  Translated by Matthew Warner

  Edited by Sasha McGlynn

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2016 CHIROLU

  Illustrations Copyright © 2016 Kei

  Cover illustration by Kei

  All rights reserved.

  Original Japanese edition published in 2016 by Hobby Japan

  This English edition is published by arrangement with Hobby Japan, Tokyo

  English translation © 2017 J-Novel Club LLC

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property.

  J-Novel Club LLC

  j-novel.club

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  Ebook edition 1.0: October 2017