Dec 30, 2024 12:00:00

A final spurt for the busy monster-hunting and game-developing side job! A look back at the struggles of a hero and corporate slave and the mysteries of the world

The full-color manga 'The Part-Time Life of a Hero and Corporate Slave,' about the hero Kuzuru who is transferred from a monster-infested 'other world' to 'modern Japan' and leads a tough part-time life of 'working as a corporate slave at a black game company on weekdays' and 'returning to the other world to exterminate monsters on weekends,' is scheduled to be completed in early 2025. This is your last chance to catch up on the story, the mysteries of the world, and how the hero Kuzuru, a corporate slave, will fight against his predicament, so we will explain the story, the mysteries of the world, and some little details that will make the work even more enjoyable.

You can read the full story below!

Read Death 1 'I've started working part-time!'

◆01: What does it mean to be both a “hero” and a “corporate slave”?
◆02: What is the mystery behind the birth of this 'hero and corporate slave' man, and what crisis has he caused to the world?
◆03: A comprehensive explanation of little details that will make the work even more enjoyable

◆01: What does it mean to be both a “hero” and a “corporate slave”?
Kuzuru was born and raised in Konam, a parallel world of magic and monsters. Due to his origins and talent, he was recognized as the only 'hero' in the world and tasked with defeating the Demon King.

However, Kuzuru was a lousy hero with no motivation, no perseverance, weak stamina, and a coward. He was only able to get by thanks to the help of powerful companions: Flare, a big sister type who excels in hand-to-hand combat, Ecclell, a talented magician, and Faron, a genius priestess girl.

One day, the party encounters a powerful warrior from the Demon King's army, and is defeated. Kuzuru, who can only hide in fear, meets his end at the hands of the enemy.

However, just after he thought he was dead, Kuzuru woke up in a world he didn't recognize, a world filled with people and steel as far as the eye could see.

When Kuzuru wanders into a game event, he is picked up by a beautiful woman who says she is an employee of the game company. Her name is Valkyrie. She is Kuzuru's demonic boss who will continue to torment him after he is fooled by her shining smile, and she is also the one who will determine Kuzuru's fate.

From there, Kuzuru was working at an unfamiliar job in a really black game company. There were no scary demon kings or monsters here. Instead, there was a pile of work, vacant-eyed colleagues, and a boss that was scarier than the monsters...huh? Isn't this more tiring? Then one day, a magic warp gate like thing opened in front of him, and his friend from another world, Faron, appeared. The friends came from another world in search of a hero to defeat the monsters. The colleagues didn't want to lose even one manpower to complete the game. Either way, it was hell for Kuzuru.

However, what awaited Kuzuru was not such a kind hell. In order to settle things, his boss Valkyrie offered to give him his much-desired two days off per week. This marked the beginning of a nightmarish double life, straddling two worlds: a corporate slave on weekdays and a hero on weekends.

From then on, Kuzuru's days are filled with hectic events, such as when he is fighting a life-or-death battle with a monster and receives a call from his boss that forces him to return to the office, or when he is working without a moment to catch his breath and a monster comes to the office and gets in his way.

From then on, his days were busy but smooth sailing, as he defeated his arch rival, the Demon King's executive, Dullahan, defeated a succubus that had infiltrated his company with a back drop, tamed a summoned beast using the contracting skills he had honed at the company and defeated the strongest monster, and fought off a spy from the Demon King's army who had lied and diagnosed him with only three months to live because he had been working too much.

That is, although he was a lousy hero and had zero knowledge or experience as an office worker, it seems that his experience in black labor and the knowledge of games he had forced himself into were useful in his work as a hero. Although the six months of corporate slave life were busy and tiring, he wanted to run away at any opportunity, but it was not in vain.

One of the results is 'Magic Theory.' Kuzuru should have had the talent to be chosen as a hero, but he was stupid and had no patience, so he couldn't understand the complicated mechanics of magic. However, the coding knowledge he was forced to learn as a corporate slave at a game company helps him apply it to magic and understand it. It is also rumored that it is the key to important battles.

Not only that, but my colleagues who are trying to create fantasy games consider Kuzuru's life of fighting monsters to be a valuable resource. Kuzuru, who was too incompetent to be wanted by anyone, has now become an indispensable force in both worlds.

◆02: What is the mystery behind the birth of this 'hero and corporate slave' man, and what crisis has he caused to the world?
His days of smooth sailing began to fall apart in a surprising way. One day, as he woke up at work as usual, he saw the TV news reporting the appearance of a monster. Kuzuru is able to travel between modern Japan and the other world, Konam, thanks to special magic, so monsters from there shouldn't be able to come here. Furthermore, one of Kuzuru's companions, Flare, falls ill with a serious illness that even healing magic cannot cure. The truth is that it's influenza, a disease that shouldn't exist in Konam.

A crisis is happening to the world. That's what Valkyrie, Kuzuru's boss, told him when he got lost in modern-day Japan and brought him to the game company. Valkyrie reveals her true identity as a god who selects people with godly qualities from various worlds and makes them ascend to godhood. Kuzuru has great potential as a hero, but because his life was in danger, she rescued him early and made him work at the game company she created to train him. Valkyrie orchestrated all of Kuzuru's growth and success, including his part-time job, overtime, and heroism.

However, as Kuzuru travels between the worlds so much, the two worlds have become too close, threatening to collapse. To prevent this, Kuzuru must speed up his final goal and become a god. To do so, he must overcome the two difficult challenges he currently faces: 'Defeat the Demon King and save Konam' and 'Complete the game and release it.'

In order to clear the task, Kuzuru accelerates his side job. However, because the time limit, which was originally much more flexible, was accelerated due to the world crisis, he is overwhelmingly short of resources to create the game. So Kuzuru comes up with the idea of first defeating the Demon King, and using that as a hint for creating the game.

After fending off countless demons and defeating the powerful Demon King's army executives, Kuzuru and his friends finally reach the Demon King's castle. However, a disappointing truth awaits them there.

By receiving the power of the Demon King, monsters revive no matter how many times they are defeated. Kuzuru, heartbroken at the sight of an infinite army, once suffered a major defeat. The game is never completed. The monsters cannot be defeated. Kuzuru is unable to proceed in either direction.

Rising once more from the depths of despair, Kuzuru takes on his final battle. He will bring together his days as a hero and his dizzying days as a corporate slave, and fight to the very end, so please support him until the very end.

And the Demon King is revealed. Does Kuzuru have a secret plan to challenge the most powerful being...?

◆03: A comprehensive explanation of little details that will make the work even more enjoyable
The script for 'The Part-time Life of a Hero and a Corporate Slave' was completed from the first episode to the final episode. Therefore, later episodes and information are scattered throughout the story. We will explain all of these hints, little tidbits, and naming secrets.

First, let's talk about the names of the characters. The monsters that most often appear in the way of the heroes are 'Tasks,' who fight in groups, and their boss, 'Maltas.' 'Task' comes directly from 'task' (work), and 'Maltas' comes from 'multitasking.'

In

episode 7 , the top executive 'Compra' who contacts the hero Kuzuru in an attempt to get him to defect to the Demon King's army is named after the word 'compliance' (observance of laws and regulations). Compra's aides 'Kopo' and 'Reto' are derived from 'corporate' (company), and so the monsters of the other world have names similar to real-world business terms.

Another point about the naming is about the warp gate-like magic that became an important factor in the 'dual career' that traveled between the other world and modern Japan. This magic was originally a special magic used by Faron (left in the image below), a companion of Kuzuru, but later Kuzuru also acquired it.

The magic to travel between worlds was named 'Moonlight' in

episode 5 , when Fallon used it to save Kuzuru when he was in trouble after meeting his strongest enemy, and in episode 7 , when Kuzuru learned it in a desperate attempt to escape from his boss. This comes from the English word 'Moonlighter' being used to describe someone who has a main job during the day and a side job at night. When considering the title of the work, the word 'Moonlighter' was one of the candidates, so it was repurposed as the name of the magic to make the idea of a side job possible.

A word with a similar origin is in

episode 9 , when Walküre, who is heading off to the final battle and seeing off Kuzuru, mutters 'Corporate Brave.' This is a combination of the English slang 'corporate slave' and 'brave,' and was also considered as an example of a title.

After learning 'Moonlight,' Kuzuru betrays his company and friends in

episode 7 and tries to get a job at a white-collar company and the Demon King's army. However, although he thought he had escaped from his company to another world using Moonlight, his friends from the other world were waiting for him.

In the end, Kuzuru is beaten up and captured, but he wonders, 'How could Valkyrie, his boss at work, tell everyone at Konam in the other world?' The answer to this question is related to the secret of the brave corporate slave and the secret of the world's collapse, which are revealed in

episode 8 .

As a more detailed joke, energy drinks appear frequently in the story. Fallon becomes interested in the energy drinks that Kuzuru, who has become a corporate slave, drinks regularly.

The energy drink that Kuzuru gave him did not seem to suit his taste due to the unfamiliar taste and carbonation, but perhaps he liked it or perhaps because it was a gift, as he is shown drinking it in the spin-off episode,

episode 3.5 .

There was also a scene in

episode 8 where they were drinking energy drinks. Eclat (center) was drinking it with a straw, while Flare (right) was drinking it with gusto, showing their characters. Also, while the two of them had purple packaging, Fallon had a different pink can, so it seems like she chose the milder tasting energy drink.

There is a little story behind the design of the character Flare. As a warrior, Flare usually wears a sleeveless top and shorts, making her easy to move in, but when she enters a cold area, she wears an orange hoodie.

This hoodie is often worn by Kuzuru in the story. In

episode 2.5, 'Presents from the Corporate Hero,' Fallon's friends prepare gifts for her birthday. However, Kuzuru is so busy he forgets to prepare anything, so he hands over the company hoodie he was wearing at the time, which gets him really angry. It was not allowed as a present for Fallon, but Flare, who liked the street style of the hoodie that doesn't exist in the other world, retrieved it here.

The reason why the episode 'Flare receives Kuzuru's hoodie' was created in the first place goes back to the initial character design. When creating the character design, the character designer drew a hoodie look as a standing image based on the image of the character, and it was decided that 'It's strange for a character to be in a hoodie because he's from another world, but it suits him very well, so we want to use it.' Therefore, the scene where Kuzuru receives it was added to the script. As an aside, the animal ears in the upper right corner below were not included in the original script or setting, but they looked strangely good on him, so the setting that 'animal ears grow during battle' was created later.

As a further minor aside, in

episode 4, 'VS Succubus!? Three-round battle for the workplace!!' , Kuzuru's boss, Walküre, has a cosplay showdown with the monster Lilimir, who has entered the company. In the main story, Walküre is shown cosplaying as a police officer, and Lilimir is cosplaying as a female ninja.

At the naming stage, another candidate was the idea of 'wearing the costume of a famous game character for a cosplay competition held at a game company.' Although it would be a famous character, it might be difficult for people who are not familiar with the game to understand the intention, and cosplaying as a character would make it difficult to distinguish between winners and losers, so this idea was discarded.

In the spin-off

episode 3.5 'Don't forgive those who push work onto others and leave before others' , there is a scene where Walküre wonders whether to buy a Japanese-style costume that was not used in the main story. This is a remnant of the idea at the naming stage.

As a further aside, because I wanted the characters to look their best in this cosplay scene, I asked

Sukoyaka , who was in charge of the original name for ' Himitsu no Miyazono ', for advice on how to present the characters. Originally, I only wanted advice on the composition and key points, but Sukoyaka said, 'When I read the script, I wanted to draw a cosplay scene,' so he wrote a new name for the same scene.

'The Part-time Life of a Hero and a Corporate Slave' is scheduled to end with the 10th episode, and episodes 1 to 9 can be read below. In addition, by joining the GIGAZINE Secret Club (GSC) , you can support the author even more, and there are benefits such as deeper behind-the-scenes stories and making-of information on the know-how of the story, a bookshelf where you can read the manga in a list, and early releases where you can get the latest chapters earlier, so please check it out here !

Read Death 1 'I've started working part-time!'