[Thank you for reading!]

As of publishing this chapter, I've already reached the minimum designated amount of words for the contest [currently 50 002 words], and I want to write a bit about the experience and thank everybody who has read it. 

First and foremost, thank you SOO much for reading! I never imagined anybody would be interested after the first few chapters. But seeing that someone was reading gave me strength. 

I think many of the initial chapters were pretty bad. Even though I tried revisiting them, I still think they need to be better — I started too late, though, so I didn't give myself enough time to edit it properly. 

I'll come back to it after trying for the other contest and taking some time to rest, and maybe even do some actual cover art — the current one is AI XD. I'm not good with drawing though. 

Inspirations:

My greatest inspiration is Hirohiko Araki (mangaká).
The setup was inspired by another mangá, Golden Kamuy — I initially envisioned it with a lot of Yãnomami culture (It is a native tribe from the amazon), but there simply wasn't time to research.
The meta aspect was inspired by the book by Jostein Gaarder, Sofia Verter — Which also ended up inspiring The Author's child's name. 
Some other inspirations include Gachiakuta, ORV and HunterxHunter.
Daniel was the first character I thought about, and it was what gave me the last push to write. I read about children as young as 9yo being recruited to fight wars and that really shook me.
His backstory was inspired from the 2018 article “Eu sou uma criança soldado”, by Nacho Carretero from El País.
Joy's relation with her brother, José, was inspired by the siblings in Card Captor Sakura. 
The woods were based of the Amazon rainforest.
Fracaleza's name is based on the brasilian city of Fortaleza (In Portuguese, Fraca means weak, while Forte means strong)
Mar de Fevereiro's name is based on the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro (In pt, Rio de janeiro means January's River, and Mar de Fevereiro means February's Sea) 
Continuá's name is based on the Brazilian state of Pará (In pt, Parar means stop and continuar means continue)
Fúria's namesake is the Portuguese word for rage.

What I think about the novel [Contains Spoilers]:

The name of the novel hints at it not being original — By being in a foreign language and not being a proper translation of that language, since "GUILDA DE COMBATE" would've been a more appropriate name for the guild and having a tag with the language it's written. Hinting that there is a real novel that has Don as the Protagonist.

I really like how my power system ended up. The powers are scarce and very well tied up with what the characters are feeling. It ended up helping me write. I think I managed to deliver with every power, they all ended up with relatively easy to see sentimental roots — Maybe except why every enemy turned into jaguars: Which would be because they all lose themselves to an instinct of rage that is common to all of them, since they were all trained by the Regime.

I never connected or found space to write more about Biel. I knew he was going to perish, so I kinda didn't want to connect, I guess. He'd also be more present on the Fracaleza's arc — Which was going to be completely different, but was overhauled to be simpler due to deadline issues. I didn't know Lily was going to die, though. I just kept seeing them together, and then she was still there when Biel perished.

I don't really love how the 'Chapter 27: Aquarela' turned out. The moment Joy talks with the narrator was something I was hyped about since coming up with the narrator as a character — On chapter one. But I don't know, it just didn't give me the chills I expected. I love everything else, though. I think I managed to tackle effectively how different the very fabric of reality would be in a world obviously made by a human, and how Joy would perceive it. Same for 'Chapter 37: Decadence', when Yapowe gets to the conclusion from a completely different angle.

I also love how it didn't work between Lily and the MC. Although I think there are some missing scenes of the dynamics changing in the camp. I just cannot think of anything to happen after the hunt for the caiman, 'Chapter 31: Blue Jay Way', that would have any significance.  

I think I overcooked with the main character's name. I tried to take some Yãnomami words, but I don't speak Yãnomami. I used the Yãnomami-portuguese dictionary by Loretta Emiri. Ya is the first person. Po means marriage or binding or something like that, and We is a common particle on male names (according to Into the Heart by Kenneth Good).

However, I really like how its actual significance turned out. According to "Os nomes próprios nas sociedades indígenas das terras baixas da América do Sul" by Marco Antonio Gonçalves, In Yãnomami cultures, people's names are not shared and some don't even get a name until they deserve, so I used that to tie his name reveal into his development.

I'm actually SO sad for Joy — She wasn't going to die. I hate myself right now.

Notes: