Chapter 451: Charity Work at Brixt (1)
Link: https://ncode.syosetu.com/n2710db/
Author: Eguchi Ren
Translated by Zzonkedd
Edited by Gumihou
Gumihou: Editing as we go~~
We still have a little bit more time at Brixt.
The mansion (castle, really) I rented still have a couple of days left which I plan to fully make use of before leaving for Carelina.
The plan for today was to visit some churches and orphanages as per Tristan-san’s advice. I plan to dedicate the next day as an offerings day for the pantheon. In fact, I had already collected most of the orders, however, there is one individual suffering from beauty product fever who was taking too much time compared to the rest.
And no, having the tenant store did not help things. If anything, it just made things worse.
I don’t really have that much time, so I told them to use today to make a list of the things they want and to give it to me tonight. I shall give them the goods the following day. [5]
Naturally, there was one individual who opposed this. From her frenzied crying, I guess she must have eaten up all her stash of sweets and desserts.
Sadly for her, but fortunately for me, the other Gods and Goddesses proceeded to give her a dressing down, with threats like ‘Don’t be selfish’ and more effectively ‘God of Creation-sama will be angry at you’.
There was really nothing much for me to do in town.
I had spent the rest of my time resting or making food for the trip home. Normally, I would make enough for two or three weeks’ worth of travel, but Grandpa Gon confidently told me that he could easily take us back to Carelina in one day.
Wow, like, wow…
Anyway, the mode of transportation will be… Grandpa Gon.
Naturally, I was a little reserved, but the Ancient Dragon confidently told me to ‘leave it to him’.
“Won’t we fall off your back?”
“Absolutely not, it will be fine.”
“Right, right, I’m putting my trust in you here, Grandpa Gon.”
So, please don’t let me down.
No, really, don’t let me fall down.
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“Right, let’s start with this place.”
‘This place’ being one of Agni’s, the Goddess of Fire, church.
Fer grumbled, “”We should go to Ninril-sama’s church first.””
“”How many times do I have to tell you? This way is more efficient. If we go with level of importance, we’ll be out here all day. Do you want to do this all day or have it be done quickly?””
“”Nu…””
That’s right, the reason why we started with Agni’s church was that it was nearer. According to Tristan-san, this church has the third-largest number of believers. As a dungeon city filled with Adventurers, it made sense considering how the popular floors consisted of monsters that could be dealt with through a lot of aggressive fighting energy.
Attached to Agni’s church was an orphanage, which has the reputation of producing excellent Fire Mages and, for some reason, spearmen.
When my party entered the moderately sized church, we could see that it was old but pretty well maintained.
However, there was no sight of Agni’s statue anywhere.
“Excuse me, is there anyone here?”
No one answered.
“”No one’s coming to meet us. Let’s just leave the money and go.””
“”Fer, enough with your irresponsible words. Just because you want us to visit Ninril-sama’s church quickly-””
“”Master, it would appear that there are people in one of the nearby rooms,”” said Grandpa Gon.
Not long after that, I heard it. It was the sound of children’s voices going ‘Yah! Yah!’. So we headed towards the sound. The door opened to a large courtyard where several children were swinging and thrusting their spears with all their might.
“Put more strength into your legs and back. Swing it! With a weak waist, you can’t even defeat a single goblin!”
The one giving orders was a woman.
“”“Yes! Sister Corinna!!””” the children shouted.
Eh? Eh! That warrior-like lady is a… sister? A nun? Aren’t nuns supposed to be more… benevolent looking?
Then, then again, I seem to remember that Agni-sama’s church has a lot of buff-looking people. Considering how their orphanage train mages and spearmen, I guess this should be normal?
While I was thinking of various things, the woman, Sister Corinna called out to me, “Hello there, do you need anything from the church?”
Ah, I’d been discovered.
The warrior nun was looking warily at Fer and Grandpa Gon, which was not surprising, but she managed to maintain her composure and politeness, which was a credit to her skill and dignity.
“Yes, that is… I’m, ah, here to make donations to the church…”
A large smile suddenly bloomed across Sister Corinna’s face, “Please wait while I go fetch the priest.”
She left quickly, but not so quickly that she did not forget to yell at the children, “You kids keep training! If you slack off, the training will never end!”
“”“Yes! Sister Corinna!!”””
The children had been staring interestedly at my familiars as I spoke with Sister Corinna. After she shouted at them, they continued with their training.
Goodness, such discipline.
Soon, Sister Corinna returned with a tall man in his mid-fifties. The warrior monk (?) looking person was dressed in white priest robes with flame patterns around the collar and cuffs. He had steel-grey hair that made him look more imposing and dignified than scholarly.
“Nice to meet you. I am the priest of this church. My name is Gregor.”
“Ah, I am Adventurer…”
“Mukouda-sama, isn’t it? I have heard about you,”
“Ah, you have? Well, as I have explained to Sister Corinna, I am here to make a donation.”
“I see, may Agni’s Blessings be upon you.”
“Ah, er, thank you. That is, I should say that this donation is meant for welfare purposes. I’d like it if the children from the orphanage could benefit from it in some ways. I- I am not particularly religious, but I want to contribute to society…”
“Very commendable, thank you very much, Mukouda-sama,” said Gregory.
“Also, apologies, but I only have platinum coins, so… here you go,” I handed him a sack with three platinum coins.
The list of churches and orphanages I received from Tristan-san was quite extensive. After some consideration, I decided to donate 300 gold (3 platinum) coins per church/orphanage.
Anyway, I have nowhere else to spend these platinum coins aside from [Net Super], haha.
Not to mention, I still have a lot of credit left after depositing two of those platinum coins…
Priest Gregor and Sister Corinna stared at the platinum coins in surprise. However, they did not make a big fuss over the money. They thanked me politely and offered to show me around the church and orphanage.
Unfortunately, since I was pressed for time, I had to decline.
As my party left the church, the priest, sisters and other members of the church sent us off with ‘May the Goddess of Fire’s Blessing be upon you!’.
Well, I already have Agni-sama’s Blessing (small). They waved at us until we were out of sight and I was suffused with the feelings of having done a good deed. I do hope that the money donated could be of some help to them.
The next church was Kishar-sama’s Church of the Goddess of Earth, which boasts the largest number of believers in the city. Rather, it has the largest number of believers in this entire country.
“Woah, it’s pretty huge,” as expected of a church with lots of believers.
Even so, I quite like the fact that it still looks quite modest and not at all gaudy.
When we entered the church, I noticed a few people praying earnestly in various corners. So, I turned to my familiars and sternly ordered them to stay outside. I went inside alone and looked around until I found a tall, benevolent looking old man with pure white hair watching over a flock of believers. His priestly habit was a simple brown outfit.
Believing this person to be a fairly high-level priest, I hesitantly called out, “Um, excuse me…”
“Yes, my child?” the benevolent old man beamed a pure smile at me.
Ahhh, priest-samaaaa!!
“Ahem, that is…” I explained my purpose, doing my best not to sound too proud or arrogant. I think I apologised a lot…
Partway through my explanation, the priest suddenly grabbed my hands and said, “Thank you, thank you, may the Blessings of Kishar, the Goddess of Earth, be upon you, my child.”
Aahhhh, it’s so embarrassing to be at the centre of attention…
After discreetly moving Grandpa Priest to a corner of the church, I presented the three platinum coins to him. To my surprise, the priest actually enveloped me in a passionate hug.
Kyaaa!!
A-anyway, I was able to escape and fled the church.
The next stop was Ruka-sama’s church.
The Goddess of Water has the second largest following in this city. The design of the church looked more like an open temple. The building was old and solidly built from stone. Inside, there was an open-air classroom for children in the courtyard. From the way the children stare at their fingers, it looked like they were in the middle of a math class.
The teacher soon confirmed it by asking, “If I pay 1 silver coin for a 5 copper bag of wheat and 3 copper coins worth of potatoes, how much change should I receive?”
It was a heart-warming sight indeed…
Suddenly, one of the children yelled, ‘Look! A wolf! Dragons!’
The teacher looked over at us and suddenly flushed red.
As for the children, they were all staring at my familiars with sparkling eyes.
I sighed and stepped forward to say, “It’s fine, they are my familiars. In fact, would you like to play with them?”
“”H-hey, wait!!””
“”Wha-“”
“””“Yay!!!!”””
At once, the children stampeded out to play with my protesting familiars. After a final warning for them to ‘Make sure to look after the kids’, I approached the nun, “Sister, if I may have a word with you?”
“”Ouch! My fur!””
“”My tail!!””
“”Um… what do I do now…””
“”Yayyy~~~!!””
Ignoring the telepathic noises in my head, I continued, “I’d like to make a donation to this church.”
[5a] [5b]
The nun soon brought the priest over. Together they thanked me over and over again. It turned out that the problem for this orphanage was the lack of food. The church did its best to feed the kids, but it was the orphanages of Hirschfield and Rosendal story all over again.
I hope that my donation could at least allow the kids to have a good and filling meal every week at least…
After touring all the churches and orphanages, I should cook a good meal for my familiars.
Fer, Grandpa Gon and Dora-chan were exhausted from playing with the children, or should I say, from being played by the children. Sui, on the other hand, was extra bouncy and cheerful.
“”I-it’s over…””
“”Master… help…””
“”I- I can’t…””
Luckily, perhaps sensing something wrong, the nun quickly gathered the children to her and they all waved goodbye to us as we left Ruka-sama’s church.
“”Phew, I’m exhausted…”
“”Human children are such troublesome things…””
“”Demons, they are like demons…”” muttered Grandpa Gon.
“”They are worse than demons, we can kill demons,”” Fer answered darkly.
“You are all very good with children,” I said cheerfully. “I’ll depend on you to distract them from now on~”
“”No wayyy!!!””
“”Sui had fun with little humans~~!!””
[Gumihou: Starting from the next chapter, Gumi will be solely in charge of both translation and editing~~!!]
[1] Structural Change: Combine 2 paragraphs
[2] Structural Change: Combine 3 paragraphs
[3] Structural Change: Combine paragraph & dialogue
[4] Structural Change: Change passive sentence to dialogue
[5] Delete Repetitive or Pointless Information… starting to delete pointless scenes now
[5a] Deleted most of the ‘Oh noes, kids!!’ scene
[5b] Deleted poor kids don’t have enough to eat, we only focus on quantity. Mukouda happy if they get delicious food to eat, rinse, repeat of the Hirschield orphanage.
[6] Additional Information for Aesthetic Purpose
[7] Add Dialogue Tag
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Wait, 2 platinum for Net Super??!! Did Mukouda just put 2 millions yen deposit?
Speaking about edits, the section (about Steel Will eating) following the end credits of the anime episode two feels like something Gumi would stick in. Anyways, sometimes the little extras help the main story along.
I’m not surprised, since I’m really imitating Eguchi-san’s style minus all the unnecessary bits.
It’s kind of like being given a doodle and realising the end result of said doodle into proper art.
If it’s ‘similar’, I count my attempt a success.
Editors aren’t meant to ‘change things’, good editors should help writers realise the potential of their writing. I love Tondemo Skill because of its great potential.
X, the readability of Gumi’s version is greatly improved over the original that was being padded with repetitive or clumsily long prose by the author to have a higher word count.
Just caught up after the anime release and I have to say I really really hate all the “edits” gumi has done for almost every chapter. Idc if some people feel the story is more streamlined now, but “removing repetetive/unnecessary parts” while “adding extra details” is not the job of an online editor who has no direct line to the author. Adding or removing things in editing would be based off of the biases of what is necessary or not of the editor and since no one but the author knows what direction and style they want for their story. It’d be like if an art restorer while restoring a piece of art like for example the Mona Lisa (this story isn’t comparable in value to the Mona Lisa but just use it as an example) decided “hmm the background of this art piece isn’t at all important and takes away from what’s really important; Mona lisa” and so they just paint over the background with white paint, removing it. Or they decide “hmm Mona Lisa seems like royalty, she needs a crown or tiara” and paints that in. Editors should not add or remove things from the base material unless specifically hired by the author to make the story more streamlined.
Feel free to go to the original Japanese chapter by Eguchi Ren and read it for yourself if you really want a true, raw experience. All the “edits” (including translation) is not art restoring, it’s more like art redrawing. Redraw the Mona Lisa from western style to modern style, anime style, black and white style, cyberpunk style, even Japanese old Edo style for example. Base on your reply, I guess you don’t want to see a cover Mona Lisa art, you want to see the original, one and only Mona Lisa. I suggest that you should stop reading this English translated light novel and find the Japanese one. It may deliver a better experience.
Beside, an editor, translator’s job isn’t solely translate word to word from one language to another. That’s dull, boring and uncreative. One sentence may sounds natural in Japanese but when you translate it to another language, it can become unnatural, difficult to understand, even lost its meaning. This is a problem that good editors/translators need to solve. They change words, details, delete or add sentences, make it easier to read, easier to follow, more natural for the readers and appeal to them. Aftet all, what we’re reading is an English translated light novel with some personal touch, views and imagination from Gumi.
Gumi is doing a great job and working hard making this light novel more interesting to read.
…I was a paid editor for a very famous online web novel translation company for a bit. I know the roles of translations and editors. Your example of the Mona Lisa and saying “just go read the original Japanese version then” is flawed and pointlessly antagonistic. In such an example you wouldn’t be able to understand what you are seeing of the original. From my understanding translators translate the original text as closely and literally to another language. Editors Jobs are to then fix sentence structure, grammatical, punctuation, and spelling issues, and then try and make equivalent exchanges of puns/jokes/terms/etc that would not make sense translated. For example translating “onii-chan” to “brother (but both terms are acceptable nowadays) its not the job of an editor to add and remove content willy nilly and streamline it though. Again such decisions are incredibly biased, in a lot of chapter notes, gumi mentions removing stupid jokes, repeated content etc. I like that style of writing. What if gumi or another editor was not a fan of all the descriptions of food or the combat in dungeon chapters? Would it be fine if they just decided to remove that content because they disliked it?
I think gumi is a great translator and editor, I just think the (in my opinion egotistical) idea of removing and adding content you like/dislike to a work not your own is wrong.
I understand why people would like a shorter more streamlined version, so I don’t blame you or gumi or anyone else who would enjoy this style of editing. I don’t think gumi would stop now anyways as it’d be a dumb idea to change the style of editing this far in, I just wanted to voice my distaste for it.
Also the “I was a paid editor for a famous online web etc” was not to be seen as a brag although it does come off that way. I just have a strong opinion on these things and wanted to give my (although unproven ) credentials/authority on a subject like this
Ahem, if I may add to this topic?
Jnovel is the licensed translator for this novel, so in reality, it IS possible to read an ‘English official translation’ for this novel. The style of their translation for Tondemo Skill faithfully follows the story, which is in keeping with your (x’s) translation philosophy.
As for everything else, I shall refrain from commenting since I’m sure everyone knows my stance on this topic.
Cheers and have a good Lunar New Year!
The anime is out and it has a reasonable voice acting and an interesting color palette. I hope that the three anime heroes have a bigger part of the story instead of getting ignored. The three seemed to ignore Mukouda’s welfare, so I don’t have much sympathy for them especially when they talk about the suffering of the people and were dismissive of Mukouda as the online grocery guy; what about Mukouda’s suffering?
I still say, since powerful creatures make more delicious meat in this world, Mukouda should capture the three heroes and turn them into holy warrior steaks, cleric girl fajitas, and mage girl stir fry meals for his hungry familiars.
Cant waitvto here from a certain wimd godess’ church.
Good luck editing and translating! Long time follower and lurker, dropping in to say hi. Thrilled that the anime is out now. Keep up the delicious updates, much appreciated!
I like the edits.
Thank you~
Thanks for the treat.
Silly Fer and grandpa Gon, they should ask Sui to split into many bodies to help ease the burden. Well, considering they didn’t use barriers to keep the children away, I guess they aren’t 100% against playing with the young organisms.
Thanks for the chapter! Awesome translation! May God bless you!
Good luck!