First, to those who have been with me since the very beginning of this journey, I thank you for your time, patience, and support up to now. Even when I was very inexperienced at the start, having enough people taking interest in it convinced me enough to keep it going for some time now. At the time, while I was continuing to come up with new ideas to the plot, I already had some vague, short plan, a roadmap if you will, on how it would go and how it would even end. I just had no idea how many twists, turns, and even changing perspectives it would take in between stops, and before I knew it, I had no idea how much closer we were to the end, and at some point, I had grown tired of it.

  Having almost 200 chapters of this story now, you wouldn’t believe that A Cheap, OP Brawler had a completely different cast, characters, and direction previously, having done many chapters of that, before I had rewritten it, more than once, until I finally took the courage to post it publicly online on Webnovel. I had posted fanfictions previously under a different name and platform (good luck to finding them as I won’t tell, as that’s a ‘dark history’ I’d rather not revisit), but this was the first real original work I put up by myself, before my other stories came along and before I met my main proofreader/editor. That’s why unlike the few fanfictions I had written that I just left unfinished and disappeared from the fandom, while I feel it’s only right that I end the series like this, I’m a little regretful and sad. I really did come to love writing this story, many of its characters, and I was excited to see where I could take them, even as I was busy with other matters in my life outside of writing.

  At some point, though, as I got better as a writer, tried a few things, and attempted other stories in a different way, the more I looked back on this one with a renewed perspective, the more unnerved and uncomfortable I felt going back to the writing style that shaped this story, a style very amateurish, barely polished, messy, and aimless. I just got tired going back to this style, and I just feel that even if I applied what I learned up to now into this story, it just wouldn’t be the same for me and the readers. It’s especially so if I went back and ‘remastered’ the story from the beginning. It may look and read better if I tried, but it just wouldn’t be the same story that you all came to love.

  In short, I basically grew out of this story, and it was time that I moved on.

  I understand this is an abrupt way to end this series, especially with this number of chapters and how it ended with only one of the main characters’ core issues resolved. Part of me wanted to keep pushing myself until hitting the big 200, but as I tried finishing the last chapter of this story, it was harder to write it the way I did previously without staggering. It’s like my ideas were clashing with my mental functions to write well, and I just got exhausted shorter than usual. Even when I tried writing with some compromise between the two, if it’s noticeable enough for some to see, I just didn’t feel good about it by the end. Over the last decade from writing stories, I’ve learned that when you don’t feel good about writing something, more so after the fact, not only will it not be a good story, but it’s time to drop it and move on. It’s part of why I had come to the decision of dropping this series.

  If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

  Of course, I’m not planning on deleting A Cheap, OP Brawler from all the platforms entirely. Some people may still want to read it, maybe even reread it from the beginning to see how it flows, I understand that much as I’ve done that countless times just so I have some collection of how the story went previously. I may even go back to this from time to time just to see how far I’ve come as a writer. As cringeworthy and amateurish this work of mine is, it’s still the first original story I’ve ever posted online, and as they say, the internet is forever. I’m glad I’ve left some mark in this near infinite space of 1’s and 0’s, and even if it’s small, I hoped it had amused a reader’s day to some extent, just as it did for all of you.

  If you’re depressed about not seeing what happens to Jinma, Umeiyon, and the rest, I might do like an outline of events that happened after the last chapter. It won’t be in a story format, it will just list the short of what happened, how it could have played out in the real story, very straight-to-the-point, even revealing secrets that might have been nagging at your minds for a while (like Kisaki’s and Shining Teaset’s true identities, for one). If enough people want that, I’ll try to push it out, at the least, maybe even answer some questions from the readers in the comments for any that I might have missed.

  So what’s next after this? Well, as I’ve mentioned in my last Life Update Announcement, I have a new project in the works that I’m planning on posting in the near future, already having many chapters stockpiled up to now and counting, I just need to go through them for cleanups and update some information to keep things consistent. My other projects like The Xeno King and Living the Great Sage Life with my Fairies and Lovers in a New World, I’ve been on and off from writing them and going over them with my editor. Great Sage I’m working on a new version at slower than a snail’s pace, but I’m considering doing a reboot with Xeno King if others are interested in it. And of course, I have a bunch of other stories gathering dust that I’m planning to post again on Subscribestar, only (I have all the latest chapters from Xeno King on there for now, but I’ll post them on the other platforms in the future, too), but whether I continue writing them when we get through them all would be on my own time and convenience.

  Even though A Cheap, OP Brawler will finally close here, just know that I’m still writing other works, and I’ll likely still continue doing so for years to come. Once again, I want to thank everyone here who has been with me on this journey. Though it’s quite late in the game and I’ve moved onto other projects by the time you’re reading this, any final thoughts and critiques you have for this series and how I should improve myself in my other works would be greatly appreciated. I hope you enjoyed the ride, and that I’ll see you in my next work.

  For the last time on A Cheap, OP Brawler,

  This is your author, Orange Rain, signing off