Hi everybody! Author here!

It's been a couple of weeks since I released Lightfall (to Webnovel, Tapas followed after), and I just remembered that I never actually introduced myself, ehe.

I'm Vorpalism, Vorpy for short. I hail from the beautiful (the government sucks, but the country itself is still heckin' beautiful) country of Indonesia. I have worked in the creative industry professionally as an editor for about 8 years now. However, I have been writing in my spare time since I was twelve years old (so that was... a while ago.)

My first writing was super cringey (hopefully it has improved), it was about a highschool student (a girl) that tries to save the world through her writing. Got confused after I scope-creeped myself into oblivion, I dropped it after I got busy with school and university.

My second writing was a post-apocalyptic story, kinda a precursor to Lightfall, in a way. The story follows a boy who is destined to be the witness of the new process of creation. Also got scope-creeped to death (apparently I got the tendency of delving too deep to the lore, but not actually going through with the act of writing). I dropped it again. 

My third writing, the world of Sendrassilea, was used for many, many years (this is the ninth year) as a part of my still ongoing Dungeons and Dragons campaign here, in the city of Malang, Indonesia! I new I got some knack at world building (given my propensity to scope creep myself to death), so I asked myself 'why not become a DM?', and then I was stuck as a Dungeon Master ever since. I wrote multiple short stories for this particular world, and these same stories ultimately landed me my dream job as a writer for a creative company! I might post them in the future (after extensive round of editing, of course, they're pretty rough).

Lightfall is my fourth (fifth? sixth? I think I forgot a couple) story. Back then, I was thinking about a story of a predator and its prey, asking questions such as 'what if a predator walked the road with its prey, suppressing its desire to feed every step of the way until they found out that the act of predation itself is unnecessary?'

It's a trope that has been done a thousand times, especially in vampire/werewolf romance stories. I was thinking something more leaning to fantasy, like Frieren, and filled with majestic vistas and scary heckin' monsters ready to tear the characters limb to limb, like Monster Hunter!

Thus, Lightfall was created.

And with the help of a beautiful and talented artist, Chise (@christineczeslaw, follow her at Instagram, she's awesome), the first character design for the male lead was conceived:

The revision process was extremely quick; Chise is just too good at her job.

At this point, he doesn't have a name.

Later, I chose Sol, a very overused name, because I can't think of anything else, lmao. Sorry.

*ah-hem*

Of course that was a lie, the name was chosen carefully and it will be reflected through the entire process of his journey! Hopefully, in the end, he will be a boy who can reflect his name fully through his actions!

Next comes the female lead, Nia.

Her creation also took Chise a couple of hours, I just told her about the things I know that Nia should have, the core traits like 'oh she's a gentle girl, oh she doesn't really fight, oh she got long hair, yadda yadda', and suddenly Chise came back to me with a sketch of a beautiful girl!

She's just too good.

I accepted this without revision (well, there's one, but that's for the hair).

Hopefully, a lot of her secrets will be divulged as the story goes on!

The name actually comes from another character named Nia. From Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, I just liked the name (and the story + character's design too!) 

Truly one of the greatest anime of all time, if you haven't watched it, go watch the two OVA movies (or better yet, the two full seasons); it's worth it, I promise.

THIS IS THE DRILL THAT'S GONNA PIERCE THE HEAVENS!!

*another ah-hem*

You might notice that Wanwan's sketch was pretty rough (and not digital). That's because, not until I wrote the actual story, did I ask myself 'aren't two people kinda lonely for a journey? Frieren got Fern and Stark, Journey to the West got Tan Sanzang and his disciples, so why not give them another member to their party?'

Thus, Wanwan was conceived! As a mascot and as a loyal partner to them both! The name itself, 'Wanwan', comes from 'wan-chan', which just means 'doggy' in Japanese. And there's a Marksman character in Mobile Legends that I liked so much (her gameplay sucks, however, it might be just my skill issue), which is also called Wan-wan.

I hope I can improve the roster as time goes on, maybe somebody else will join the party, maybe they will act as a guest party member for that particular arc, but their friendship will forge an unseparable bond between the party members and them (like Vivi and Bon-chan in Alabasta Arc of One Piece!)

After chapter 15, you might also notice that the party structure of Wanwan, Sol, and Nia follows the traditional MMORPG Holy Trinity of Tank, DPS, and Support. It's because they are! I have at least fifteen thousand hours in multiple MMOs such as World of Warcraft, Guild Wars 2, and ten thousand of those hours alone were for Final Fantasy XIV throughout A Realm Reborn to Endwalker (skipped Dawntrail, I'm just here for mommy Hydaelyn's arc, I'm not sorry. Besides, the writer for Dawntrail is no longer Natsuko Ishikawa; if mommy Ishikawa is not writing the scenario, I'm not coming back.)

Thousands of hours were also spent in multiple Monster Hunter titles starting from the first OG Monster Hunter game in PS2 (the one that lags everytime Fatalis hipchecks you at Castle Schrade), MHP2, MHFU (screw you Bullfangooooooooo!!), MHP3, MH3U, MH4U, MHGEN, MHXX, MHGU, World, World: Iceborne, and Rise! (I skipped Wilds, my PC is just too potato for that game.)

That's why I feel like including monsters in the story might pose an additional challenge for the party! That also became a good method to increase the power level of our main characters, as they improve with each battle, each loot, and each upgrade to their equipment.

I have tried my hardest to avoid any blatant gamification in the story so that the suspension of disbelief remains intact throughout the reading experience. To be honest, I grow tired of all the fantasy stories with systems on the internet, and just yearn for something truly fantastical that can stand on its own two legs.

Lastly, you must have seen the cover and banner art. The one with Sol and Nia chasing Wanwan through a road in the middle of a meadow. That was also Chise! Hail! Hail! She truly is the greatest.

Well, that's about it; All in all, I think I like where the story goes, and I plan to continue this story consistently until my schedule gets wrecked with Dungeons and Dragons once more, at that point I plan to release at least 3-4 chapters per week, or we can just keep this pace for four years, fingers crossed!

For the short-term plan, I think I will rework the first five chapters of the story and consolidate them into one full chapter (because they're too short). And, perhaps I can also give a chapter 0, so that people who just opened the novel can understand what it's about.

For now, I'll work on the webtoon script and some of the images that I plan to include sketches of the novel scene in each chapter of the novel (drawn by our own Chise, of course! She's a storyboard artist for multiple webtoon titles, so she's pretty busy.)

Hope you guys have been entertained by the story!

Until then, let the wise words of Kamina accompany you on your journeys!

DON'T BELIEVE IN YOURSELF! BELIEVE IN ME THAT BELIEVES IN YOU!

See you at the next Author's Note!

Thank you for supporting me through this series! Love you, mwa!

PS: If you want to re-read chapters 14 and 15 with some OST from Frieren (Extended version of Zoltraak comes to mind), it will enhance the experience by, like, twenty thousand percent. Try it!