Heyo,

I thought for quite a long time whether I should or shouldn't write this (I never wanted to put "too much" of myself out here), but given the messages I got via both discord and on the platform itself, I just wanted to give a short explanation for my long hiatus.

As written before, I have lost my job a few months ago, which was a big hit to me. There was never the fear of landing on the street or starving, but it still destroyed a lot of plans and visions. For now, I got a similar job to bridge the gap, but the amount of money I will lose over the course of this year is counted in "thousands".

To me, it was a big problem to become a "nuisance" once more. Not that my family thinks that way, but I am one of those people who dislike being a bother.

The mix of this stress and some other medical stuff also led to me fighting depression once more. I had depression once due to medical problems (my body couldn't produce some needed hormones) but this spring my entire world just collapsed on its own. It's "funny", how one missing card can destroy the entire house of cards.

I lost a lot of weight without even trying, my stomach is killing me whenever I eat too much, there isn't enough strength to do all the stuff I want to do. Sometimes I just sat somewhere and started crying. Without any real reason. Just tears until I felt empty again. There was a lot of anxiety and struggle, of self-hatred and self-doubt. I binge-read hundreds of webnovel chapters just to feel something else. Or rather to not think about my own life.

Writing to me is always a hard thing. English isn't my mother tongue and I always feel like my writing is lacking. So while I enjoy creating worlds and telling stories, I hate the act of actually writing it. It's not even about getting negative feedback (the overwhelming majority are rather kind), but it's something in my head telling me I should just stop.

Due to that I had to step away from writing for some time. Wasn't even logged in here for a long time, because those "missed chapters" would just be more stress on top of it all. I feared I would just delete everything on a whim.

One of the worst things about depression is how you don't ask for help. Because you don't want to be a bother or you don't think you are worth it. And for me it was the same. My situation got worse, but I still smiled to others and laughed things off.

But a few weeks ago my mother saw through it and actually forced me to confront myself and the situation. And since then, with a lot of help from others, I slowly took a few steps in the right direction. I don't want to take anti-depressiva for know, so I have to fix my life, instead.

It'll probably a long way. I am waiting for my first therapy sessions, I started renovating my apartment to make my everyday life brighter, I found ways to create walls between my work and private life during home office, I looked through my free time and dropped a lot of "not really for me" novels or time-wasting youtubers. Trying to use my free time more on those things, I really love.

I always wished to learn japanese. So I went to a course and started learning the language, instead of just thinking. In a way I did the whole “What do you want to do today?” from this volume's prologue to myself. And through all of it, I realized, that there are two stories I really want to write. This being one of them.

Two weeks ago I started writing on a short-story for a small contest and it was the first time I actually found the peace of mind to sit down and just write. It was a bit of a mess, not as good as I thought, and nowhere near good enough to win. But hey, I got some likes and I finished something.

Given all that, I want to slowly start writing again. I don't think, it'll be X chapters a week all the time. But at least I want to push out one chapter a week, so that the backlog won't get any bigger. Maybe two here and there, so that the backlog gets smaller from time to time.

One of the small goals I have is a little patreon that might give me enough money for a cover or illustration from time to time. Thanks to work this won't be possible until next spring, but until then I want to slowly work on the backlog, so that I can start the patreon with "I delivered all owed things".

So for those, who asked about me or the story. Thank you a lot. It honestly made me feel blessed, that months after the last chapter, people still came to me and asked for new releases or news. It buggles me, how there are still so many readers who didn't throw this story out of their reading list (although some might see this post and remember to do it now).

So honestly, I just wanted to show some life signs. I'm not dead. And neither is this story. I took my time and thought a lot about it, the way the system should work, etc. There might also be some "retconning" about the way the system and powers work (although it's more a matter of "I won't edit volume 1 right now and will change it later") and my writing will probably be even more rough around the edges after so many weeks off.

But I love this story. I love the characters in it. And both I and the story are still alive.
And hopefully, you'll stay with me on my way to getting both my life and this novel back on track.

Lost