32 thoughts on “The Amber Sword – Volume 1 chapter 1”

  1. Thanks for the hard work. For a speed translation it looks good.

    Did the author say “decimate” in “…Aouine was completely decimated,” ? I am curious because there is common misuse of the word in popular culture when “destroyed” or “devastated” is more appropriate.

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    1. Well the word decimated as seen from the dictionary means, “destroy, killed, or remove a large portion of,”.

      The original text stated is literally “Aouine was terribly defeated.”, and then there was that line about survivors were less than one out of ten.

      I don’t really think that it is incorrect when I express it that way, and there is also the reason that I don’t particularly like to follow the original raw word for word. There are a ridiculous amount of “忍不住” in the original text that I cut out too because I find it too verbose.

      The author is actually pretty good in his writing but at the same time, in Chinese lingo, there is sometimes “water” added into it (unnecessarily wordy and meaningless to the plot).

      I try my best to TL it into nice reading English (or so I hope) but I’m not sure about that. I mean, I played Ace attorney and that’s what I call true localization.

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    2. Decimate is basically the textbook example of a word being misused so much that it became acceptable usage of the word.

      The original basically meant to take one tenth of something and was commonly used to refer to actions such as taking tithes from a region.

      Somewhere in history (fairly recently) it started getting mixed up with “devastate” by someone and eventually this definition became the common usage of the word as no-one really used the old definition in casual language any more. Then because dictionary companies need to justify selling new editions of their books, they changed the meaning to match the popular usage of the word.

      So “decimate” is correct English and matches what the author was trying to say, but the translator could have used “devastate” as they essentially have the same meaning in modern English.

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      1. More like the old Roman punishment for serious disciplinary infractions. One in ten men per squad was selected then beaten to death by his squadmates. Nothing to do with tithing.

        Don’t think there was a word for the reverse, killing 9 and leaving one. But as long as the meaning is conveyed, I don’t see a problem.

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      2. Actually the oldest references to the word “decimate” are on documents referring to tithing and collecting taxes or tribute as I’ve mentioned above.

        I originally thought the same as you – that “decimate” was originally the term describing the Roman military punishment (I think for desertion) but when I had this same “decimate / devastate” argument with a friend and we looked their history up, it turns out that the earliest written references to the word refer to tithing and it wasn’t until several hundred years later that a historian used it to reference the Roman punishment (from memory all written references to the word are only found on documents written after the fall of the Western Roman Empire).

        So while it’s possible that it was the word used by the Romans to describe the punishment and we simply don’t have any records with it in (mundane records from the Greek and Roman Empires weren’t maintained very well during the Dark Ages), the general assumption is that using “decimate” to describe the punishment was actually the first linguistic shift for the word before it became equated with devastation.

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      3. A bit late, but the history for decimation in English is this: yours decimation, from which stems “to decimate”, derived from the latin “decimatio” from “decimare” that means to inflict an hard punishment, and is inquired to stems from the Arian “dek” (to bite\to take a part off) arrived to Rome via Sanskrit, with the midpoint being the greek states. The first historical mention is in 471 B.C. and was a form of punishment inflict to coorts for cowardice, and later in history, the Italian fascists renewed the practice after the greek stalemate. The “decima” which you refer to means simply the tenth part and refers to an ancient tax use widely from middle east to Rome, and this decima is actually derived from the greek “deka” (ten). When the word decimationem was introduced in English late in history (15th c. AD) it was misuse referring to the tithe and only after this to the military practice. So it started being misused from the beginning. And the misuse you refer to, dated back to 17th c., so it’s a bit late to complain xD For an Italian like me, since we use the word correctly, it’s quite an eyegore, but for anglophones should be quite acceptable now.

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  9. Uuu what a headache! But awesome and interesting chapter. I like how he called his other half “weak and arrogant” well no duh he couldn’t handle a weak skeleton! I hope he does OP soon

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  10. I’ve noticed a lot of translators doing the same thing, and this is just the first chapter so idk if you stopped doing this in the later ones but… When you have a story that’s written in 3rd person like this, and the character is ‘thinking’ something, it’s kind of weird when there’s no distinction between the narrator and the character’s thoughts. Here’s an example:

    His first reaction was to curse in his heart, that bunch of twat bastards from ‘The flaming thorns’, never mind their incompetence, they even had to dragged their allies down by allowing the enemies to surround their rear, this was fucking horseshit!

    Personally, I would have done this:

    His first reaction was to curse in his heart, “That bunch of twat bastards from ‘The flaming thorns’, never mind their incompetence, they even had to dragged their allies down by allowing the enemies to surround their rear, this was fucking horseshit!”

    I’m not sure if it’s because the Chinese language doesn’t really make a distinction between things like this or what, but I’ve seen it so many times on other stories, that I finally just decided to say something about it lol.

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    1. The original WN did not differentiate the narrator and characters’ thoughts throughout the series, but I edited that approach at some point of the series to exclude all the narrator’s POV and tagged most if not all characters’ POV with a [] to show their thoughts to make things clearer and more involved for the readers.

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  13. The Amber Sword is the best of the genre of ‘reincarnated in the game’ that I have seen. That does not mean that it is the best out there, but it is the best that I have seen.

    I cannot wait for v2c59.
    — === === —
    The huge army were comprised of thousands of skeleton, and
    there necromancers hidden within them, as well as skeleton
    dragons and blood curling wraiths circling in the sky.

    should be:

    The huge army were comprised of thousands of skeleton, and
    their necromancers hidden within them, as well as skeleton
    dragons and blood curdling wraiths circling in the sky.
    — === === —
    His first reaction was to curse in his heart, that bunch
    of twat bastards from ‘The flaming thorns’, never mind
    their incompetence, they even had to dragged their allies
    down by allowing the enemies to surround their rear,
    this was fucking horseshit!

    should be:

    His first reaction was to curse in his heart that bunch
    of twat bastards from ‘The Flaming Thorns’. Never mind
    their incompetence, they even had to drag their allies
    down by allowing the enemy to surround their rear.
    This was fucking horseshit!
    — === === —
    Not only did his heart dealt a fatal blow, he even had
    carrion poisoning.

    should be:

    Not only had his heart been dealt a fatal blow, he even had
    carrion poisoning.
    — === === —
    Brendel’s skills with the swords are literally pointless. The
    sudden assault from Madara was something out from a classical
    textbook. Swift, merciless and silent, and when this ancient
    kingdom reacted from it, the entire army within this region
    had received a cataclysm.

    should be:

    Brendel’s sword skills were literally pointless. The sudden
    assault from Madara was something out of a classical
    textbook: Swift, merciless and silent. When this ancient kingdom
    reacted to being attacked, all the different armies within
    this region would receive one cataclysmic defeat after another.

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  17. So, he was playing the game for at least 45 years?

    Why would scouts attack him in his sleep? That’s not a scout’s job. A scout that does that gets disintegrated by its necromancer for ruining the surprise part of the surprise attack.

    This is probably the only time I’d advocate changing the MC’s name during translation. Sophie just plain isn’t a guy’s name.

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    1. Hm, I thought he means the game “start” 45 years later? Or he really play for that long.. In the game timelines

      And I agree, Sophie still bother me. I decide to call him Brendel 😛

      Thanks 4 the chapter!

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  20. Is it normal for a Chinese male to have Europian name? Does english readers really feel comfortable about it?

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