Translating is easy, that’s what every bilingual person must have thought of at least once. I can finish reading a chapter in 30 minutes, I should be able to finish translating one chapter with just the same amount of time.

However, it is not that easy in reality. The words don’t get automatically translated in your head, the structure of the sentence is different in both languages and you have to think of the most appropriate words to use in order to translate each sentence without losing its meaning. One sentence which can take you 3 seconds to read will take you 3 minutes to translate. One chapter that can take you 10 minutes to read can take you 4 hours to translate.

I have a friend who told me he could translate a single chapter in 30 minutes, so I gave him a project and asked him to translate it for me. I asked him the next day, he told me it’s not done. I asked him again the day after the next, he’s still not done. And this process repeated for a month and he’s still haven’t provided me with a single chapter.

Translating sound like an easy job, but it’s actually not. You have to stop whenever a new term come out and do some research to see if there’s an official translation of said terms and if there is not, you have to think of how should you translate that word. I especially hate any words with the “神 (literally: god)” character in it. Any terms with that “god” character attached may come in several meanings and is very ambiguous. To name a few, it can be “consciousness”, “mind”, “spiritual power”, “shikigami”, “eyesight”, “temple”, “expression”, or literally “god”.

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• • Volume 1 (Second Arc): Chapter 5

Rain is a blessing from heaven. I almost died from heatstroke at work just now, no kidding. It was so hot I could feel the heat getting into my head. Why can’t the weather play nice and lower the temperature to a moderate degree! Don’t you just hate summer? It’s so hot to an unreasonable degree! What’s worst than summer is that you are in a tropical country where summer is prevalent 365 days a year.

Thoughts of the day:
I wish spring would come to me, in both meanings. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

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• • Volume 1 (Second Arc): Chapter 4

Yes, I guess many of you have been wondering why I haven’t been posting on Ziru’s Musings. There are various reasons but I guess the main reason had to be this: It’s just not worth the hassle.

What? That wouldn’t cut it? Okay… here goes the nagging.

Thoughts of the day:
Wow the author literally used a Japanese character in this chapter’s title.

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• • Volume 1 (Second Arc): Chapter 3

Wao… what just happened? The site just went “Error 520” for the entire day and got me panicked at work. After I got back and spent a few hours trying to fix it, and then without really accomplishing anything in the end, the site health just went back to normal. What gives… I wasted all day worrying and trying to find out what is the issue and it just up and fixed by itself…

What an unproductive day it is… I am already as busy as I can get, yet this site was toying with me for an entire day 🙁

I’m thinking that maybe it’s time to move this website to another server soon. I just don’t have the time to take care of this site while working full-time and translating simultaneously. It is better if I just move to a managed server so I can have professionals looking after my site for me while I do my own thing, even if it is a lot more expensive than unmanaged server…

Correction:
Changed Bathrobe to Yukata (Suggested by IB)

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• • Volume 1 (Second Arc): Chapter 2

Well, this is nothing new as it’s always been this busy at work every year from February to April. Anyway, just a heads up. Starting from this week, I will be required to work even during the weekends until the end of April.

Since I do not translate during the weekends, I doubt it will affect the current release frequency. But who knows, translating is still considered a “work” no matter how nice you try to put it and there’s a possibility I will need to work overtime during weekdays as well. There’s also the chance that I might have another mental breakdown from overworking and go into a slump. Anyway, I will try to keep up the translation without putting too much mental stress on myself.

Thoughts of the day:
What do you guys think of Progressive Web App (PWA)?

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• • Volume 1 (Second Arc): Chapter 1

This is the last chapter of the Night Arc of Volume 1, the next chapter will be the beginning of the next arc. I have no idea what’s the actual translation of the next arc yet mainly because the title remains as ambiguous as ever, so I’ll just leave the arc name as blank for now until we read deeper into it and figure out the content of the following arc.

Though if you insist, the literal translation would be Rising Moon Arc I suppose? Rising Moon eh, looks like we can expect something related to the moon in the next arc…

P.S. And no, this is not the end of Volume 1. There’s still many more chapters to come in Volume 1. The first volume has been separated into many different arcs, and each arc comes with at least 30 to 50 chapters.

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Ziru’s Musings (Dark Theme)

The answer to the thoughts of the day last week; what’s the biggest taboo for a translator? I’ve gotten a lot of interesting answers and the taboo varies from person to person.

But personally, to me, I think the biggest taboo for a translator has to be indulging in reading a novel or manga. Whenever I picked up a new series to read and get attached to it, I’d forgo everything else and indulge myself in reading throughout the days and weeks until I finally finish all the chapters. That includes my full-time work, translating, and even sleep.

When I picked up a new novel to read, I always find myself reading EVERYWHERE, literally everywhere, when I’m in the car, at work, at home, at a restaurant, at a party, in a meeting, and even on the bed. It be like I’m totally possessed by something that propels me to read until the end as soon as possible.

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Ziru’s Musings (Dark Theme)

Hm… anyone interested in taking up the role of managing the Wiki page of Demon Sword Maiden? You can find the syntax for the infobox in this link, use that when you’re creating a new page for characters and don’t forget to add the categories so that they will appear in the appropriate category page.

Thoughts of the day:
Do you know what’s the biggest taboo for a translator?

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Ziru’s Musings (Dark Theme)

Is everyone out there surfing the web safely? Did you check the site’s reputation first before visiting it for the first time? No? Don’t worry, WOT Web of Trust has you covered! It can protect you from potentially harmful sites and let you check if a website is safe before you reach it.

It is not completely foolproof since the site’s reputation is mostly rated by its hundreds of thousands of users, but at the very least, you can view the site’s reputation as rated by the users before accessing it.

WOT Services have saved me from accessing harmful (virus/scam) sites on several occasions and let me know what to expect when visiting new sites for the first time. So why am I telling you this now? Of course, it’s because I wish you’d download the extension/app and rate Re:Library on WOT 😉

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Ziru’s Musings (Dark Theme)

Chinese New Year turned out to be as busy as expected, glad I translated these chapters ahead of time and scheduled them sparsely.

By the way, did you guys know we have Facebook, Twitter, and Discord channel just around the corner? If you prefer to receive updates from sources other than email and NovelUpdates, you can always follow us on Facebook or Twitter, and yes, you can also receive RSS-feeds from our official Discord Server.

These icons (       ) can be found right at the footer of Re:Library.

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When I first published some chapters on Patreon, I never really expected to receive anything… but lo and behold, I now have 18 patrons and 3 of them became my patron purely out of goodwill. That was really unexpected, I honestly thought that 1 or 2 patrons were already a lot.

I can’t thank you guys enough for your generosity by becoming my patrons. Though I did say that I’m not doing this for money and I won’t be taking any donations for sponsored chapters, but hey, every little bit of money is always good for motivation boost! Of course, money is important, but your likes and comments give me just as much of a motivation boost.

You won’t believe how many times I visited the site just to check on the comments and likes every time I just published a chapter. It’s enough to make me go into the red with my mobile data.

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Ziru’s Musings (Dark Theme)

Have you ever been in an awkward situation due to your tone of voice? When I speak in English, I always have this slightly deeper tone due to a force of habit, but when I am speaking Chinese, I am using my natural tone, which as my friend describes; an angelic voice. I remember one day during High School, my natural voice came out when I called for the waitress, and all my friends were looking at me as though they were shocked.

They kept praising my voice and told me to use that tone to speak to them more often, but I involuntarily switched back to my default English tone right after that and the whole situation turned very awkward until we returned to class. I mean, I can’t help it alright, it’s totally out of my control xD

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Re:Library (Light Theme)
Ziru’s Musings (Dark Theme)

Well, the first day on Ziru’s Musings turned out to be quite the disaster ^^’
I forgot to double check the timezone and ended up scheduling the chapter release on Ziru’s Musings 1 day later than the intended date. The end result was that all of you were left hanging for up to 8 hours. But anyway, enough of the gloomy stuff, it’s Chinese New Year!!

Yes, today is the start of the New Year celebration for the Chinese. It is a joyous day, but also the busiest day for us Chinese. For you English natives, Christmas is the biggest event, but for us Chinese, it is the Lunar New Year. So with that said, you should probably expect a slower release during the New Year celebration.

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Re:Library (Light Theme)
Ziru’s Musings (Dark Theme)

P.S. Oh and I’ve disabled comment on Ziru’s Musings because I think it is better to have a centralized comment section. Don’t worry though, I’ve made a redirect link that’d bring you directly to the comment section of respective chapters on Re:Library so it wouldn’t be too much of an inconvenience.

Today’s finally the big day! I will now be dual-hosting this series on both Re:Library and Ziru’s Musings. I have already come to a decision regarding the direction I’d like to go with this co-host project. Instead of publishing it one week earlier on one website or the other, I will be publishing new chapters on both sites simultaneously. You can think of reading on Ziru’s Musings as reading on a Dark Theme while reading on Re:Library as Light Theme.

However, for this week, just for this week alone, I will be directing you all to Ziru’s Musings first to commemorate the start of the collaboration, and let you all have a feel of what’s it feels like to read on Ziru’s Musings.

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Re:Library (Light Theme)
Ziru’s Musings (Dark Theme)

Lazy week, not quite in the gear to translate these past few days… and I regretted it when the weekend comes around. I was expecting to cram this chapter during the weekend, but real life had other plans for me. Work has suddenly picked up this year and I was made to work at the weekend, then my cousin got married and I was invited to the dinner party.

I think overworking has somehow killed a part of me. Since I woke up on Sunday, I had been holing myself in the computer room for the whole day doing nothing productive until 5 AM the next day, all the while skipping my three meals and live through the entire day on junk food… I honestly felt as though I was a zombie…

Click here to read Chapter 21 – Bathing in the Moonlight

P.S. This chapter is lewd, make sure you are not reading in Public ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)