Never expect they’d be a day when I actually look forward to weekdays more than the weekends and public holidays, but these hellish days are finally over. I can finally throw back and relax now.

I need to give myself a pat on the back for keeping up with one or two chapters per week despite the busy schedule, but now that the tension is gone, I’m all burnt out and I believe I deserve a good rest. With that said, pardon me for taking next week off and won’t be releasing any chapters.

Thoughts of the day:
I love-hate short chapters. I love it for the fact that I can translate short chapters quickly. I hate it for the fact that short chapters usually contain many difficult words.

Click the link below to start reading:

• • Volume 1 (Second Arc): Chapter 11

Well, it took quite a while for Ziru to notice that I’ve stopped posting on his site. He sure was angry though, as he rightfully should. He blocked me after saying everything he had to so I had no chance to explain. I suppose it was a pretty mature choice to avoid escalating possible conflict further than necessary. Though I do have a few things to clarify.

1) I did specifically tell him that I won’t be making Ziru’s Musing my new home and that I will pull out any time if things don’t go well.

2) My conscience was indeed hurt due to his spartan editing, but that was not the reason why I stopped hosting on his site, if that was the case, I would have said something and stopped the collaboration before it went public.

3) What made me stop posting on his site was because I don’t feel welcomed there. It has got nothing to do with how busy he was or anything, and I wasn’t even expecting a full review of the novel when I asked him to read it. All I expected from him was just a simple introduction of the novel and the translator, a welcome message of the sort. It’s something he should have done without me deliberately telling him to, it’s what should be expected of everyone when a new employee joins their company/team. Is he really expecting me to go up to him and say, “Hey Ziru, I just joined your team, aren’t you going to introduce me to your company?”

4) I don’t hate Ziru or anything, I only hoped he could have done a better job at entertaining his team.

Click the link below to start reading:

• • Volume 1 (Second Arc): Chapter 10

I actually wanted to translate three chapters this week so I can have more leeway next week, but alas, this chapter has so many terms in regards to tea ceremony and gave me a run for my money. It doesn’t help at all that this chapter is 1.5 times longer than usual and my brain just gave up thinking from overworking. This chapter alone ended up taking me 4 days to translate. Good thing I only released one chapter last week and the other chapter was half completed already.

Thoughts of the day:
I heard sugar is nutrient for the brain, I wonder how true is that?

Click the link below to start reading:

• • Volume 1 (Second Arc): Chapter 9

If you see me inputting a lot of comments in the chapters, that’s me getting stressed out in the middle of translating and had to find a way to vent it out.

Anyways, moving on to business. I have given this offer to someone who left a comment in Patreon, but he never did reply back, so I’ll be giving this opportunity to the first comer. Now that I’ve gotten a fair amount of patrons, I can afford to spend up to 50 dollars per month to buy the VIP chapters off another reader, at the rate of 1 dollar per chapter. Do note that I can buy all thousands of VIP chapters from the publisher for not more than 60 dollars, then why am I spending 50 dollars per month to buy only 50 chapters from a reader instead? Isn’t that counterproductive?

It’s simple, what I need is a raw text file, the image format of the raw from the publisher is not what I’m looking for, and it’d slow down the translation pace too. (I’ll explain more on this in the next post).

If you’re interested to take up this job, please send a sample text file to [email protected]
Preferably Volume 2 Chapter 18, the first VIP chapter of Demon Sword Maiden. I need to check the text file against the raw from the Publisher to determine if the accuracy is high enough for me to pay for the future chapters. Once approved, I will send you an email for confirmation and we can discuss the payment method and delivery method after that.

Click the link below to start reading:

• • Volume 1 (Second Arc): Chapter 8

Yep, I don’t have a schedule. Even though I was releasing 2 chapters at a fixed time per week, I do not want to set anything in the stone because it will only end up pressuring myself, and I know for a fact that I can’t keep a schedule. If I don’t have one to begin with, nobody will expect anything, and nobody will be disappointed if I am late with my chapter release.

Same goes with Patreon, please be reminded that becoming my patron is 100% voluntary and the rewards are not guaranteed. You only get early access to as many chapters as I have translated. For only 3 dollars, you will gain access to everything I have. Be it 1 chapter, 2 chapters, or 10 chapters, it will cost you nothing more than 3 dollars per month. I will not ask for more to get early access to more chapters as that would be contradictory to everything I said prior to this.

For now, I find that translating one chapter with an average of 3k words in 2-3 days to be manageable, so you can continue to expect this steady pace for a while. That is unless real life gets in the way or the author increases the chapter length, I hope not right?

Click the link below to start reading:

• • Volume 1 (Second Arc): Chapter 7

I have so many things to say but there’s just not enough column to contain all my rant. But the really short version is that life sucks so expect only 1 chapter next week.

Anyone who cared to read the long version; there are two reasons:

Thoughts of the day:
I said that I don’t have a schedule, but I am somehow keeping up with two chapters a week. *Mind Blown*

Click the link below to start reading:

• • Volume 1 (Second Arc): Chapter 6

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”.

Click the link below to start reading:

• • 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 ͡°)

Click the link below to start reading:

• • Volume 1 (Second Arc): Chapter 4