The Amber Sword

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 Goddess Temple to give it an identity. 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 bastard and land him into great trouble.

[This bloody bunch of sharp ears bastards.]

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 bastard! 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 tassel 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?”

The Lizardman opened its mouth and wanted to deny it, but it found that it could not do so because from the intense gaze that seemed to pierce through any falsehoods.

“Good.” The Elf nodded: “We intended to slowly find our way to you ever since the Lizardmen invaded the ruins, but it was only until recently that we were forced to come because the kings’ graves were disturbed.”

Hewjil’s eyes narrowed in terror and felt faint. These Silver Elves were not the same as the ones they fought earlier.

The Silver Elves had truly reappeared on this continent—

=============== Brendel’s POV ============

The card in Brendel’s hand turned grey after ten minutes passed. He threw it out and it burst into flames, and left nothing behind. The card had gone into the graveyard and he felt a little annoyed at that fact. Instead of reducing the number of cards inside his grave, it seemed like he needed to retrieve more of it. Knowing that the cards in his deck were limited made him feel even more frustrated.

He peered deeper into the silent forest. Ekman had a poor sense of smell, but it had strong vision and hearing senses. It was able to listen through all of its six limbs, and capable of capturing frequencies much more than a human could.

But the distance between them were nearly five kilometers apart. If he did not make any noise, the monster would probably have a difficult time finding him.

He considered for a while. Although he wanted to wait a little longer, he was afraid that it would turn around and go for Scarlett instead. If that was the case, that would be the end of her since she was unlikely to beat even a normal person in her condition.

He chose to raise his right hand and shot a Wind Bullet into the forest.

[The ring is almost useless against that monster anyway. Using it to attract the enemy is using its capabilities well enough.]

As expected, once the spell was released, sounds of trees being felled quickly could be heard. The monster’s reaction was incredibly quick, almost rushing straight towards his directions.

Brendel did not feel tense at all. He took a deep breath to focus himself, took out a ruby from his pouch and counted the time in his mind.

Countless trees were being knocked down one after another in rapid succession, to the point where it sounded like an automatic gun being fired.

[Three, two, one...... Here it comes.]

Brendel immediately squeezed the ruby in between his fingers and formed an ‘okay’ sign. He chanted the activation words and a red light was transmitted from it. The surroundings within ten meters of Brendel was instantly silenced. The rustling of leaves, the sound of his breath, his heartbeats; everything was silenced.

– Charge remaining: 6/10

Brendel saw the indication in his eyes.

The Acolyte of Earth immediately stopped in confusion and looked everywhere. It realized that the faint heartbeat it heard earlier had completely disappeared. While it was hesitating on whether it should go back to the girl, it saw an elegant white deer appearing in front of him.

The deer trotted slowly across the ground silently. It was truly like an open challenge to Ekman who was in a berserk state. It uttered a guttural roar and charged towards it. However, the white deer was nothing more than an illusion which was made out of light. Brendel could make it as fast and agile as he pleased, and Ekman could not do anything other than to be toyed with.

Brendel hid on the branches of an old tree, holding on the statue and playing with the monster like it was a game. Every time Ekman bellowed with frustration, he giggled without holding back. There was no sound from his laughter, of course. Each cast of the Silence magic lasted for five minutes, and he had six charges left. With the addition of the ten minutes that the warhorse had given him, he gain a total of forty-five minutes.

The last option he had was the Unyielding talent, and Brendel believed that the Silver Elves would be done with the Lizardmen, even with the worst scenario where the Lizardmen attacked the backlines. Obviously, he would not gamble with his life if he did not have the means to delay the boss for that long.

The time passed by slowly—

When Brendel wanted to cast the Silence Magic for the fourth time, his heart suddenly skipped a beat. That was because he discovered the monster had suddenly stopped moving and was not paying anymore attention to the white deer.

It was making repeated growls that Brendel recognized as a warning.

[Someone’s coming, who is it? Nalaethar?]

Countless thoughts passed through his mind, but he did not waste any time and recast the Silence spell again. However, he confirmed that there was something amiss as it did not look to the north but over to his direction.

[What the actual fuck?]

His heart suddenly tightened. He went through his actions in his mind once, but he did not believe he made a mistake.

And then he caught something in the corner of his eyes—

The bushes suddenly parted, presumably with a rustle, because the monster reacted by extending to its full height and roared. A familiar face emerged from the bushes, and the person was someone whom Brendel had seen before.

It was Eke Lantonrand Ophelon, the cause of this entire chain of events.

He was the only son of Duke Rhun, and the successor of the Lantonrand territory. But that was not the biggest problem. Eke was capable of seeing Brendel from his position while Ekman could not.

The first thing that Eke saw was certainly Ekman’s body fully covered with the Element power that it had and he paled instantly. But when he looked around for a moment, he saw Brendel looking back with an incredulous expression.

[T—– This fucking wanker!]

Brendel wanted to strangle Eke for intruding into his plans. He truly did not foresee this person appearing in this desolate place.

Eke hesitated for a moment before he looked at the monster again. He pulled out his sword and ran further away from Brendel, while yelling at the monster: “What are you looking at, you monster, are you trying to pick a fight with me?”

[...... Hah?]

Brendel watched the baby-faced youth try to lure the monster away. He understood what his intentions were. At that moment all his thoughts were replaced by something else.

[Holy shit! Is this kid Oskar Schindler?!]