volume 2 - Chapter 122 (1/2)

Chapters 123 – 125 are still undergoing a basic spellwriting check.

I’ll start off with the important news first. Next update is on April 1, in case anyone is wondering (I don’t do April Fools jokes.).

I have pretty much spent the past ten days translating non-stop and I’m going to have to seriously catch up with my art stuff now. For the next 11 days and the whole of April, I will expect myself to draw a number of fanart images and start exploring the options to either freelance or put up a portfolio so I can start applying for a job some time in May/June.

The next few regular updates for TAS would be restricted to 1 chapter at every weekend for the next 3-4 weeks so I can catch up with my planned art stuff. If there’s going to be any donations for TAS chapters during this time, I will probably need two days to clear it (I’ll allocate 3 hours/day if there are any donations during this time period).

Despite the batch translation, I found out that the chapters later on are still at sort of a cliffhanger mode, but I can’t put in anymore regular time for this month. In my mind, I was hoping to kind of bring forward the regular updates so you guys wouldn’t be stuck on the cliffhangers. Welp…..

Skip if you don’t like to see how I edit things.

The recent chapters have three particular issues that I want to highlight as to why it took so long for me to do. This section contains spoilers for the chapters for chapter 119-121 in case you haven’t read it for some reason. You can come back to read this section once you read them all (the chapters have been posted).

1) Level design.

Okay. Imagine you’re playing a RPG, you have a team consisting of Warrior, Archer, Wizard and Priest. You’re tasked to invade a castle. Ever wonder what the castle looks like? Back in my art school, we were asked to imagine and design our ‘levels’ so that it looks believable.

I.E

Dining hall maybe leads to Kitchen/main hall/courtyard

Kitchen maybe leads to garden/cellar/side road (to accept delivery)

Main Hall leads to 2nd floor/barracks/main road

And then we had to fill them up with things that are related to what they have. Could be flags, statues, weapons, food, etc.

The recent chapters of the Elven Ruins were pretty much barebones descriptions. It’s kind of like how I imagine a client doing this for the first time would say, ‘yeah, I think I want two outer walls surrounding that ritual hall which is the tallest building something. The ruins should have 1 main and rear entrance and 2 side entrances, yeah.’

This is the stuff I had to work with in the raws, and I think it’s the worst section thus far.

2) Storyboarding

I also had some storyboarding taught (just a little), but enough for me to have a headache when I try to piece them together to make it coherent.

So, Amandina is leading the mercenaries. She studied Infantry Tactics, okay sure. How is she going to lead the mercenaries in battle? Is there some gesturing or shouting when she relays orders? No idea, it’s not mentioned. This kind of goes back to that level design because maybe you can’t hear what that girl is saying if she’s too high up and yet the description was, that building is the tallest Elven building in the ruins (also not described how high it is).

Then does it mean that the hand gestures are universal? Would the Mercenaries understand it? We all know that Mercenaries of Lopes come from a different time period and are different from the Grey Wolves Mercenaries. All these details are missing.

In case you guys don’t know what storyboarding is, imagine you’re the cameraman capturing scenes of people doing stuff. Like Group A mercenaries goes up to Position A on the ground, then asking Amandina about her decision. Then you direct the camera to Amandina at Position B. Cut to long shot scene of Amandina > to close up of Amandina’s face shouting from lower angle. You’re essentially capturing these few moments in a movie/television show and drawing them (moments) on a medium like paper or PC.

3) Inconsistent facts.

The author also got the levels of the boss wrong. That’s kind of a small mistake compared to the above two. That’s sort of minor and can be fixed easily. The above two problems, hmmnnnggg.

4) Changes made to Chapter 119 – 121

Ultimately the detail settings that I roughly made are, this building in the center — I’ll just call it G.o.ddess Temple to give it an ident.i.ty. It’s a building that is tall enough for people to communicate by shouting and see gestures (it can still be the tallest building, sure).

Amandina conveys orders to Elementalists sisters and they signal out to the Mercenaries of Lopes who then relay commands to mercenaries by mouth.

Some other misc stuff in regards to overall plot that does not affect world settings.

This editing took me a whole day to figure out something plausible and the longest edit (in terms of time) by far, taking even more time than translating the chapters. Hopefully this doesn’t need to happen again.

Chapter 122 – The Final Battle (10)

Soon after Hewjil left the battlefield, he received a report from the Lizardmen under Conrad and discovered that he had escaped much earlier. It cursed loudly in front of the Lizardmen, but was secretly delighted. If it was the first person to escape and leave Conrad behind, there would be repercussions from the Tree Shepherds.

If Hewjil did not discover the secrets of the Elven kings’ grave, it would not consider leaving its men behind. Telling the Tree Shepherds this secret would earn a great amount of goodwill and absolve his responsibility for leaving early.

As for Conrad who escaped like a coward, he would be treated as the scapegoat, while the Lizardmen would be seen as the ones who stayed behind to resist valiantly. The situation was unfortunate as the Silver Elves were ultimately drawn out from the graves by its actions, otherwise it would be free to complain to the Tree Shepherds about this b.a.s.t.a.r.d and land him into great trouble.

[This b.l.o.o.d.y bunch of sharp ears b.a.s.t.a.r.ds.]

Hewjil’s uplifted mood turned dark when he thought about the Elves again. All his stolen goods were placed in the ritual hall of the Elven temple. Giving them up like that made its teeth itchy. Suddenly, it knocked into its adjutant who was in front as it did not pay attention.

Hewjil did not have anything to vent its anger on, and this made it reach its boiling point: “You mindless b.a.s.t.a.r.d! Do you have no eyes—“

The leader of the Lizardmen suddenly realized something was wrong, it quickly snapped its head to the object that was obscuring the light in front of it.

There was a tall Silver Elf fully clad in a heavy-looking silver armor. A pair of silver eyes was behind a pointed helmet with two wings at its side, and at the tip of it was a long white ta.s.sel extending below his shoulders.

And he…… was riding on a white unicorn.

Behind him were rows of Elves also riding unicorns. They looked almost like they were carved out of the same image; every one of them had the same body height and figure.

They stood quietly there in the forest, while the forest was completely silent—

The Elf in front of him looked down at Hewjil with expressionless eyes, yet they made it tremble. He spoke after a short moment, his voice gentle and low: “Hewjil, I presume?”