Spoiler Latest Chapter Discussion Thread for Death Mage Raws

No, it's incredibly clear which real world event this is most similar to, it really was a war fought on an ideological basis and actually played out almost exactly like the Alda Vs. Van concept, and we have been dancing around it almost the entire time (and actually compared Alda's side to the country in question several times already in this comments section.) This is almost exactly like the Cold War in just about every single way, with Alda's side being the USSR and Vida's side being the United States.

It was a war fought over an ideological basis of the regressive ideal of communism which stagnates the economy and stifles creativity, Vs. Capitalism which emphasizes innovation and individual successfulness. The two sides never directly fought on a traditional war stage, the closest they ever came to such a war was the Cuban Missile Crisis which was almost an exact analogy for how the war to free Botin went (Except, oddly, Botin's scenario had the positioning of the sides reversed compared to the Cuban Missile Crisis scenario) and most of the actual fighting was fought in the form of proxy wars where the two sides would each lend economic support, arms, and some soldiers to any other two countries that were fighting each other.

Moreover, the actual weapons the two sides REALLY targeted one another with were economic burdens placed on one another and propaganda to win the hearts and minds of the general citizenry. The USSR had a lot of success in this early on before the US really got their heads in the game, but after the US started really getting involved they managed to have one success after another. For the clincher, the way the USSR finally fell apart, and they fell apart very quickly, is almost identical to what's happening with Alda's side right now.

About the only real difference between this scenario and the historical Cold War was that the USSR was a bit more successful in their intelligence warfare than Alda's side is. So, Densuke seems to have Gimped Alda a little. Meanwhile, Van is exactly as effective as the US was.

 

Umm, I was talking about the Alda vs Vida war 100,000 years ago, not the current Alda vs Van conflict....

I'm okay with the Cold War comparison as things are in the story now... but at the start of the story, Alda's side had control of like 90% of the habitable world and had been in control for 100,000 years. I don't see how to fit that into the Cold War analogy. I don't mind comparing Van to the US but I don't see Alda as being a communist or similar. I can certainly find analogies in selected aspects but the overall comparison is a bit shakier in my mind.

PS This is just a brief reply before I go to bed...

 

I am inclined to believe that 100,000 years is an arbitrary number. Depending on source material, you will find a different number for how long modern humans have existed, but for the sake of this argument I will be using an article from New York times.

If we are to look past the whole process of evolution and focus on human society. Then according to that article what we perceive as modern humans came to be between 100,000 and 150,000 years ago. From a purely human perspective that the reader posses, 100,000 years sounds like enough time to build advanced society or at least be on the way out of the middle ages. Without someone keeping solid records, nobody in human society should even remember that there have been a conflict between Vida and Alda 100,000 years ago.
If the number had been reduced to 10,000 years, I think that the current state of the world would be much more believable.

 

Raw has updated

 

Why now I feel that vandeliu will end up with many muscular lovers after marriage? In the end Alex was very lucky, everything could have been much worse. What would Zorna think if he knew that he tries to seduce a man in his 50s who has bathed dozens of naked women and who does not even enter the category of lolis because we already have the little harem of ghouls girls.

 

Alda Vs. Vida is quite a bit more difficult to fit. I don't think the Cold War comparison is exactly 1 to 1 either, I have already pointed out several key differences. It's just a matter of echos rather than reflections.

As for the Alda to Communism comparison, Communism was, as I said, an ideology that held back economic progress and innovation. Not intentionally, but as a result of several flawed ideas. It would be more accurate to say that Bellwood was Lenin to Alda's Stallin, Lenin being the real communist and Stallin being the power hungry megalomaniac that was roughly implementing a bastardized version of his predecessor's ideals.

Also, something communism especially did very intentionally was to punish anyone who tried to get ahead on their own. Anyone who was even the slightest bit more successful than their neighbors would have their property seized and they would be sent off to a reeducation camp under the mistaken belief that if you had even 1 dollar more than your neighbor it must mean you stolen from or exploited someone to get it. The Bellwood fanatics might be a little closer to the Spanish Inquisition in terms of how they behaved, but when you fit it into the rest of the picture that really does look so much like the Cold War, it is not a bad echo of the Gulags either.

 

Van's mansion burned down, except not really?

Zorna is a thot.

Van inexplicably saw Alex's status and immediately figured out what was going on. Van and Randolph are willing to fight over the issue.

Edit: Chrome is slowing down again. Time to close all tabs. I'm surprised it kept working up to this point, with what must be thousands of web pages at once.

 

WAAAAAH WHAT A CHAPTER! WHAT A CLIFFHANGER!

So, there was an incident in Orbaum one day. One of the Haunted Houses suddenly was engulfed in flames, and when everyone was taking care for the flame to not spread, the fire ended and the whole house was gone, considering the size of the house it was too fast, but nonetheless, it ended, there was no extra damage and there was no more haunted house, in fact, it was scheduled for the Alda Temple to deal with it in several days, but now it's not necessary anymore, so there is no need to pay them.

These mansions are still related to nobles, so priests of Alda and Zuruwarn were overworked on dealing with them, they would fight fierce battles against skeletons, and after fierce battles where they "won" (Or at least they think they won, since it's most likely to be Knochen making it look like the cleaen house is still haunted), they enter and find absolutely no other undead. The nobles related to Alcrem asked Darcia Zakkart instead of the Alda Temples to purify their homes, and according to witnesses, soon after entering the mansions they would see a strong flash as if she had used a strong spell.

And so all the houses were being cleaned until only one remained, the Silky Zakkart House. The house that was supposedly destroyed was relocated inside Van's inner body world.

------------

And so Van formally joined Elizabeth's team and moved just behind her as usual, she is concerned on why he always does that, his answer is a “expression” in japanese, something about people who follow their superiors as if natural or something like that, the expression is translated as “waist purse”. The 3 guys end up following Elizabeth similarly, although they don’t understand the joke, one suggests this is a form of showing the Unity of their team.

The fact that the trio ended up agreeing with Van took Elizabeth by surprise, especially because those 3 never did this before, but Maheria seems to correct her, because at least there is always someone next to her doing that, although it has decreased since she stopped inviting Alex. Elizabeth seems to understand what she is saying, but points out there is no need to do that all the time, it’s inefficient. Still, Elizabeth was honest in recognizing her surroundings now that it was made clear to her.

Van ends up finishing that this is not something bad, as adventurer’s need to constantly check on their surroundings, it’s not good if you are underestimated and lose on reputation or good opportunities.

Elizabeth ends up agreeing, although she still left her remark that she thought he was doing something childish, but in the end, thanks to him having joined her group there has been no rumours about her failure in joining with Alex, so she asks him to properly follow her from now on.

At this point, Van was already wondering if he should have a Ghost following her, although it’s unlikely that there would be any problems, but unexpected accidents could happen. For now however he has Demon King Familiars watching their houses, the school, and the way between them, this is to prepare for emergencies. Although everything that happened up until now has been unrelated to her, he has found small crimes like pickpocketing and arrested the criminals.

Elizabeth asked Maheria about her schedule, if there was going to be any “practical test”. The Heroes School has a similar system to the other adventurer’s schools, there is no need for the students to always attend classes, and they can just deal with the practical test if they are confident enough, but because these tests have no grading (As in, there is no difficulty level), it’s difficult for unprepared students with not enough credits to enter.

Maheria confirms that there is, and the available options are Alchemy, Craft and Practical Cooking. Alchemy is about making a makeshift Staff, Craft is about repairing an armor, and Alchemy, nobody should have done it yet.

So the first test of their party would be to make an instant staff that act as a magic medium, but Zorna requested that rather than that, they should do Practical Cooking. Elizabeth was confused by the claim, and Jozéf added that there are too many people in alchemy, there will certainly be a mess in regards to the materials, and in comparison, the cooking should work much easier than that. Jozéf is a mage, so one would suppose he would be interested in Alchemy, but all he was doing was trying to help Zorna’s plans.

So Elizabeth decides to go with Practice Cooking, and since they have Van, they should have good results nonetheless. She asks him if it’s fine, but he doesn’t mind, although he doesn’t have his Chef with him today. Elizabeth replies that the chef wouldn’t count, they are to cook monsters that they fought directly, so it means that the result will depend on who they find.

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The theme of the test is “While escorting a nobleman in a remote place on a long-term request, the employer decides to be selfish and says that he wants to eat something more delicious than preserved food.”. Meorilith was worried about Vandalieu being in the class, so they made something temporary to ensure that he wouldn’t be able to do something extravagant.

They place they are in is next to the training Dungeon, Alex asks Dandolip-sensei if such a theme would really be useful in any way, it’s too specific, but Dandolip ensures that it will be, there are many idiot nobleman with such foolish requests, you are quite likely to meet one of them, to which Alex is astonished. All the students but one seems astonished too. Dandolip adds more to the story, but in the end, there are some idiots just want to put themselves in danger for some low level amusement, and if you don’t follow what they want, they can even fail you when reporting the results, you feel like killing them. But still, it’s not like only nobles are idiots, there are idiots everywhere, doesn’t matter race or class, and if you go to the library you will be able to read about many types of fools, this way the students should be prepared to expect this not only from nobles, but also merchants and so on.

So Dandolip asks if anyone has any more questions, otherwise they can start, and gives it a 2 hours deadline, but Van asks a question, if he can use ingredients that he has brought with him. Dandolip explains that the practice of the test suggests you are in a remote place, you are to stay in such place for a long time, so you should have nothing but preserved food, but then Van mentions his own Subordinate Monsters, like Eisen are with him. Eisen explains that it should be more delicious than preserved food, to which Dandolip had to agree… As she moved her branches filled with fruits, Randolphj wasn’t looking at her breasts, but at the fruits. Of course, usually Tamers won’t make such a suggestion, as that would mean killing their tamed monsters… but then, a Plant-type monster can produce fruits without receiving damage… and that’s the food of a top Rank monster even to Randolph’s eye, any nobleman would be satisfied with that alone.

And so Dandolip agrees, because it’s a Subordinate Monster, since it would be with him in such a request, he can use it. At that moment all the students sighed, because everyone knew that it would be impossible to win against the team that could use those ingredients. And so without the test even starting, Elizabeth already had a triumphant look as she had already won, the other members too… but Zorna.

So the test starts, the students move aiming for second-place, Alex too went with his party members. While the winners remain as they will prepare Eisen’s fruits and sap. But Zorna is in despair, she asked for the cooking class because in the other classes everyone would be around, while in this one she could find a way to be with Van and try to seduce him, but she forgot to check about the Monster that would come with him.

Originally, she would ask for the party to be divided for efficiency’s sake, and she would go with Van who can take care of anything, and be alone with him, and now she notes that even if she were to get in that situation, she would still have to do it in front of Eisen. As she compared her chest with Eisen, although she is using training wear so it can’t be seen, but she does have some well developed boobs for her age, plus, she is also confident in her looks and style, her face is a little childish, but it works well as a dwarf, and with some water on her eyes, looking from an above angle, most boys would be caught by her.

But Eisen is different, hers is the much bigger and the difference in strength is obvious, it’s ridiculous to compete, and she has the sex appeal of adults that Zorna doesn’t have. Still, as a Subordinate Monster, Eisen will always be during practice, at lunch break Pauvina will come to eat lunch, the other option would be the special training after school, but there is no time for that, her only chance is now!

Zorna suggests Elizabeth that they should do more than the fruits and look for ingredients in monsters, Eisen was the first to reply, offering her to eat one of her fruits, but Zorna tells her that she knows it’s delicious, the best, but- And then none other than Van helps. Although with Eisen’s fruit they can guarantee first place, it’s a shame to just cook for 2 hours, and for the sake of experience, they should collect ingredients, is that it? Of course, Van wasn’t aware of Zorna’s predicament, he just assumed that the senpais had their own ambitions and so on. Zorna staggers a little but confirms, she adds that she doesn’t want to be known for relying on her kouhai. And the trio agrees, that they should increase the difference from Alex. They didn’t know what Zorna was trying to do, but they considered that she had some idea and supported her.

Elizabeth thought and agreed, since someone would have to remain, Elizabeth asked if Eisen could stay there until they are back, and Eisen agrees, of course, compared to anything and most people around, she is overwhelmingly superior to them, of course, it’s not that Elizabeth knows about her real strength.

And as Elizabeth declares, Jozéf offers to spread in teams, Elizabeth and Maheria, the trio, and Vandalieu and Zorna, this should keep a good balance of front-liners and support. Elizabeth accepts and calls Maheria. Maheria thought there was something strange, but since there was no feeling of crisis, she gave priority to be with Elizabeth. Meanwhile, Van asked Eisen to keep an eye on the pot. And so Zorna and Van go their own separate way.

Now Zorna needs to try to seduce Van, to get some clue or info, something that will get her some peace of mind, although while she thinks they are alone, countless ghosts are floating around them.

Princess Levia seems to be happy, that morning she was able to burn a fake cursed mansion, and as a reward she is joining Van (it mentions a reward, but doesn’t seem to explain what it is, so I’m guessing is the fact that she can be with him). If Zorna knew another beauty was just around her, she would faint from shame, after all, Levia is just as big as Eisen. Van doesn’t detect any monsters, he guessed they may have noticed Eisen before and fled.

Van doesn’t look at Zorna with eyes of looking at a woman, much less as a target of love. Although it’s debatable, this is his 3rd adolescence, so it’s not like he is not interested in the opposite sex, but he already has more than one engagement, it’s too many unless if compared with an emperor, plus he is already a father, as such he doesn’t see others besides his fianceés as targets of love.

If Zorna was some sort of pretty girl in a muscular sense, it would be like an insect flying around a light trap. Zorna then calls him, that they are alone. Van doesn’t understand why she is stating that, and agrees with the obvious. His reaction was dull, besides, he could also see Princess Levia, Darock and Bellquert around her.

Zorna asks to hold hands, Van says that it’s dangerous to do that during training, but she tries to act cutesy, that she wants to depend more on him, that he is different from the other boys. Van replies with a thank you, it’s something to be proud off when said by one of his senpais.

She asks Van what type of girl he likes, if he hates Dwarf girls, but he replies nonchalantly that his preferences are girls with muscles, and Dwarves who have more muscle density than humans because they are shorter are marvelous. Although Van answered honestly, he understood that Zorna’s condition seemed strange, she is different than normal, so he keeps on talking stuff to fake that he didn’t notice what she is talking about. He wonders if she could be feeling anxious if Van has something against them. Yes, Van noticed… The wrong thing…. Again. Because he is expressionless, maybe they are confused. If there are misunderstandings in a relationship, it should be solved as soon as possible.

Zorna is surprised by the Muscle statement, but asks what he thinks of her, and he replies that she is an important friend, one that doesn’t forget and cared about him when he just joined the party and even started chatting with him. Zorna could only blink at his words. Van adds that he sees that everyone has potential, everyone will work great as adventurers, and he feels appreciation for everyone, he sees the “charm”. Van continues a speech to try to solve the misunderstanding she had on him. She describes Zorna as the Mood Maker, who Bridges Elizabeth and Mact and the others-

Then something strange appeared in his vision. It was someone’s status, it was not from an undead or any companion, the name was Alex. Zorna asks what’s wrong, but Van doesn’t reply, he is confused why he is seeing his status, and he notices that Zorna can’t see it, so it’s not some illusion projected in the air, but then he noticed why he could see his status, he noticed the Unique Skill Magic Eye of Great Appraisal, and it was reflected thanks to his Root skill. He calls all his ghosts that Alex was able to see his Status, search for him.

Princess Levia and the others were desperate trying to find Alex, and there is no time to explain to Zorna. Van uses Detect Life, however he can’t determine between the students and monsters who is Alex, he can only guess from the location and number. Levia comes back saying that Gufardgarn-san found him, he was right, Alex was using Light Attribute Magic and looking from behind rocks. Vandalieu received the message and picked up Zorna, he was worried that there could be some assault on him.

Zorna is confused by the action (Most likely a princess carry), sure she was courting him, but she still needs to prepare her heart. Van apologizes to her, but tells that it’s an emergency, so she will have to forgive him for now, meanwhile he asks Levia and the ghosts to go protect Elizabeth and the others, meanwhile, Van ran after where Alex was while holding Zorna with both hands.

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Towa is a Rabbit Beastman, and is Alex’s slave, she is able to participate in this practice because she is Alex’s property. She seems to understand that Alex wasn’t able to do what he was trying to do (So she knows about Van). Alex shuts down the spell, and confirms that he was not able to see it, but he still felt some chill feeling around.

As expected, Van’s status was fully garbled, the same for his Imouto Pauvina and Eisen and the Vampires subordinates of his, he however could read the status of the self-proclaimed Undead Chef. But that’s fine, he wasn’t expecting anything after all. But the amount of garbled text was unexpected. He couldn’t read the status, but the number of digits in the status were overwhelmingly superior to his, he can also guess the number of skills of the opponent. He commented to the slave about the strangeness in the number of digits from the abilities, and especially of the mana. The number of Passive and Active skills, but the amount of Unique skills is uncommon, from this he should be superior to A Rank Adventurers, but from this way… It’s not enough (not sure if he was trying to get stronger than Van, or if he thinks that even with that amount of skills it’s still not enough to reach S Rank?)

And as his fear increased, he was moving his mouth and he noticed he couldn’t move anymore. He felt like his body was being pressed by something invisible. He could only move his eyeball and look at Towa, but otherwise, he can’t move at all.

Gufardgarn is pisssed, he should give up on resisting him after baring his fangs against the Great Vandaliel, this weak little idiot. Of course, the one that sealed the whole space around Alex was him. Although the Dungeon wasn’t created by him, as long as you are inside a Dungeon, the Evil god of Labyrinths is the strongest foe, no matter how strong they are, Alex and Towa can’t win. The pressure increased, it looked like they would be killed, but Gufardgarn didn’t do that.

To taunt the great Vandalieu, while he is enjoying his school life, even Towa who called Alex as master, Gufardgard gave no shits for them, they should be erased from this world, but Vandalieu doesn’t want that, so that will not happen, he is only keeping them at bay. He should be able to arrive in seconds with Labyrinth Creation, but if he is trying to hide the skill, he can just wait, that’s not a problem. And in the next moment Van appears while holding Zorna who saw Alex and Towa.

And behind Alex a red haired Elf, Dandolip appears having brute forced through Gufardgarn’s Space Attribute magic.

Van: “Alex, I will ask you a question”
Dandolip: “Be as honest as possible, and make sure to properly answer Vandalieu’s question”

In front of the ummobile Alex, Vandalieu and Randolph talked at the same time.

Van: “Otherwise I will have to fight against Dandolip-sensei to kill you”
Dandolip: “Otherwise I will have to fight one of my students to protect you”


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Anyone was looking for a Dwarf waifu? Guess Zorna found the hint she was looking for, too bad she won’t be able to talk about it. :x

So, considerations.

I wonder if Towa is well treated by Alex. Here comes a Rabbit Girl slave. Although we probably already have some unnamed ones from the slaves Van saved.

Also, no more haunted houses as everyone already moved to Van's house. It's nice to see Levia back into action too.

I had an impression that Alex had already seen the garbled text previously, but I guess he wasn't able to because of the amount of people around, maybe they would constantly block his vision, still, to go all the way to Light Magic reflection huh, you know you are doing something bad.

And well, I can't wait for Zorna to go back to his team as the only one that knows about Van now, and being unable to talk about anything to them, just "DON'T DO ANYTHING AGAINST HIM"

Also, this info will find it's way to Rod eventually, unless Gufa decides to keep Alex inside his Dungeon

Oh man, this cliffhanger, THIS DAMN CLIFFHANGER, it feels so long until 08/02...

Edit: there is ONE character that can fix everything! KANAKO
she can read Alex mind, and intermediate with Randolph

Edit 2: Added an extra at the second paragraph that implies that Knochen was making the priests busy.
Also Eleonora should be able to also charm Alex into revealing everything they want, and possibly help with encroach?

 

Now that what I called a proper Cliffhanger. DAMN I WANT FRIDAY TO COME FAST!

 

Alda's clergy must be extremely annoyed. They can't take care of the haunted house because it took care of itself, so now they can't get paid for it.

So it's all according to keikaku. But what was the point of relocating the house in the first place? To flip off Alda?

I thought Van was his own chef?

I love how Randolph learned to just stop giving a fuck. "Oh, yeah, the world is filled with idiots. This scenario is actually quite realistic."

Begone, thot!

No arms, only hands? So Van just hoisted Zorna high into the air or something?

He gazed into the Abyss, and the Abyss gave him a very bad premonition.

I think it means that A class doesn't sufficiently compare to Van's massive stat sheet.

I think Randolph's idiot soliloquy was foreshadowing this very moment.

10/10, would cliffhang again.

If you know what I mean. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

 

Especially if you consider their social status.
This is something I can easily see him getting killed for getting caught doing to the wrong noble... and hiding while doing do just makes it look so much worse.

Homes for Mei???

 

What he said. Why?
Where is van going to live now officially?

 

It's free real estate

 

possibly it will be mei's birthday soon and they want to surprise him and if they can disturb the temples of Alda and set things on fire, it seems like a total victory, especially if we can protect those innocent ghosts from those insane fanatics.

It is still possible to fight between rank S solo leveling vs Lovecraftian demigods, with the rule of only being able to use rank A power, I wish that Alex cowed to be able to see this epic combat, although I have the feeling that we will have more of the small cozy for a time.pd: Gufardgarn was angry that they threatened vandeliu or that they spied on him without his membership of the vandeliu observer club?

 

The word is 腰巾着 (koshiginchaku), basically a cloth money purse tied around the waist. It's an old word but it's still contains it's old meaning in modern times (more as a fashion accessory these days). But it also has a slang meaning which is "hanger-on; follower; flunky; sycophant". So basically, Van is intentionally acting as Liz's entourage.

It does sound like a princess carry though the word isn't used...

The nuance is something like Alex had figured that Van was at least an A-rank adventurer but now he feels that could be an underestimate. However, he's rather unsure - it's not like he knows what the status of a typical A-rank or S-rank adventurer looks like (as far as I'm aware at least).

Random thought: in this series "appraisal" is a pretty weak skill and in general there's little risk of someone's status/skills/etc being leaked. In stories where this can happen it's normally considered at least "bad manners" and often "an attack" to forcibly read someone's status. That being said, I've almost never seen a development where this actually happens. So it is actually quite fun to see Appraisal being treated as "an attack" in a social sense and what happens when you try such a thing on the wrong person.

Meanwhile, Zorna had wanted to get closer to Van but since some high level secrets are going to be spilled at least indirectly, maybe she's going to have the opposite problem - how to escape the Great Demon King?

 

OK, now a little calmer, oh man, what a chapter.

so, I wonder if Kanako will end up in the mix, although Van can encroach, I don't think he can read minds directly, so he wouldn't know what to encroach. Even the people he encroached for the better, like the ones in Legion and so on was something not done solely by him, but by both sides. For Alex's sake, Kanako is his best option.

In fact, I now imagine she arriving via teleport, calling Van and as she looks at her surroundings, she notices Rudolph, who also reacts to her. After helping with the deal with Alex, she looks at Zorna and Towa with a big smile, asking if they want to be Magical Girls, of course they don't know what she is talking about though. Zorna could also end up learning that Van already has a fiancee.

I wonder what will be Towa's reaction now, although she is a Vida race and should have a small boost in Van as a good guy from his Vida's Miko title, I guess it's not enough to support the surprise and fear she should be feeling now. At the same time we don't know what are her views on Alex and her being a slave. For Alex's sake I'm expecting her to defend him, but at the same time, she is his slave, I don't expect her to refuse a chance to be free. Of course, both options are not mutually exclusive, she could save Alex and be freed by Van.

I don't expect Alex to die, and although I wasn't expecting things to reach this level, I can kinda of see Van deciding to take his eye already. Once he learns that he has been checking on everyone including Pauvina and his subordinates, I don't expect Van to leave him after knowing his friends and family had been "peeped on". It would be funny if Alex got the "peeping tom" title.

Still I feel like this is an arc filled with gray, where Elizabeth and Alex, who could be described as having bad traits are found out to have their own problems to deal with, and maybe, Van could understand that he is getting things wrong too much or something? Although he has made mistakes, he never did something that he regretted to such extent, and I don't think it's bad for something like this to happen now.

Zorna, I have great expectations out of you.

Meanwhile, outside, I guess there is a chance that Rod won't get the info if he wasn't checking on Alex in real time, and if Alex is encroached, he may forget things, and if we remember info from Zakkart's trials is that the people who entered the trial and then were gone had no proper memory of the inside, so there was no way to confirm the inside of the dungeon, so I guess encroachment to hide things is possible.

Randolph... I guess it will be harder for him to join the good party now, and I wouldn't be surprised if he were to flee after this. It would be funny if he were to meet and befriend Noah through that.

Jemini-san, as Kari already gave you the answer, I don't plan to repeat it, but I want to add a few things, to remind you of something.

Yoshi is NOT the official translator for Death Mage.
How could this be!?
But that's right, Yoshi doesn't get support from Densuke, as such, unless there are furigana to help, japanese names will be unknown to him and the best he can do is try to make the way look good. When the reincarnators move to Lambda their names are changed to Katakana, which can also explain how the name was to be read.

Here are a bunch of examples:
Just like Rokudou, Shouko Akagi, the Ifritah, is translated as Shouko Akaki, the Ifrit. Now, despite the obvious one, Ifritah which is the female for Ifrit (And the Katakana is for Ifritah, not Ifrit, which is the name of the Elemental Spirit of Fire made by Moriya at the end of the 2nd Origin Arc, that one is indeed Ifrit), it's a reminder that the reincarnators in Origin were born in "not-Japan", and got Japanese names.

As such, Hiroshi's name is based on one of the kanji in Amamiya Hiroto's name.
But shouldn't his name be Hiro? Or Roto? Or something like that? Where does the "shi" comes from!? It's impossible!? It doesn't make any sense!
This is the thing, during the first time his name was given, there was furigana to teach you how to pronounce it.

Furigana is a way to "overwrite" how you should read a Kanji, but without taking out it's meaning. As an example from another series, in Fate/Stay Night, the Visual Novel, all Noble Phantasms are like this, as an example, the "Sword of Promised Victory"/"Excalibur", this means that, at any point of the text, if you see Excalibur, you can think of "The Sword of Promised Victory", and vice-versa.

So in Hiroshi's name, we got it, but in most other names, we didn't, this means that all you can do is "Guesswork", unless you go and ask Densuke how to read a name, in which case he should easily reply for them. As such, names like Rokudou were unknown until we found them in text, but we still have a bunch of names that we don't know of, specially the new reincarnators with Japanese names, that's when we didn't mix up with the text, like during the 2nd Origin Arc where we initially mixed up Mari's name with "Truth".

Ironically in regards to Akagi's name, her name is still translated as Akaki during a good portion of chapters where her name is in Katakana, which means that Yoshi could clearly see how her name was written. My guess is that he translated them right, but the editors, not knowing that this was the correct form simply "corrected" the name to keep the nomenclature intact. Meanwhile, the recent chapters have it as Akagi without such correction.

But even like that, there are a bunch of other terms that differ from what Densuke intended. Here is another example:

Do you know what this thing is?
This is a Drakonid.
It's a made-up race from a game called World of Warcraft.

Yeah, it certainly looks nowhere near what the Dragon race is supposed to look like, right? But that's the liberty he took, he may have thought it was similar to them and decided to use something to give a hint of what they are supposed to look like without him himself knowing what they look like.
What's the original name for the race? It's Ryuujin, translated as Dragon People.

Is Drakonid wrong? Certainly would be, unless you go by the "English Version" of the story.
Why isn't it corrected? Yoshi has already said that he would like to correct it, but readers are already used to Drakonid, so he will keep it wrong like that.

Here is another exclusive terms for the English Version: Kyojin.
Have you ever heard of that manga/anime called Shingeki no Kyojin? If no, maybe you heard about it as Attack on Titan.
Did you get it? I dare say it's similar to the above example, but oh man, the mess! The damn mess!

So, Kyojin is simply a really big person, a Giant so to speak, so we suddenly got Titans as a race (Titans appear in greek mythology mind you, and they were divine like entities ranks above mere "giants"), and later on we found about Talosheim, the Capital that celebrates Talos, the "Giant" of the Sun.
And then when Diana appears for the first time, she is named as a Colossus, and she is the Giant of the Moon.
So when the Braver codename Titan (Iwao) ends up meeting with the Giant race, don't expect any Titan joke or pun, cause there isn't any.

So now we have a weird terminology where, Titans is a race of humans, Colossi are the Gods, and Giants... Are the titles of the colossi, while also being the name of the enemy Colossi that fled to the Demon King... Or something like that?
What's in Japanese? Everything is Kyojin.

But sure, context matters, as such, if we can differentiate the two because we have such terminologies, then why not? But is it proper that way? I can understand that the terms came in order, because there is no support from the author, everything was translated as Yoshi was reading and finding new things. Want to hear the worse? Yoshi uses the Wikia as reference for stuff that he has forgotten.

Do you remember Isla's Shapeshift Unique Skill that suddenly turned into "Transform", and now we get Transformation sticks? Could Isla have gotten the Transformation ability before anyone else!? Could she be the Original Magical Girl!? Of course not.

Here are some other localizations:
原種 = Pure-Breed
貴種 = Noble-Born
従属種 = Subordinate
The last Kanji for all of them are the same, so why not Pure-Born, or Noble-Breed, or Subordinate versions of both?

マシュクザール = MASHUKUZAARU = Marshukzarl
I don't know how he arrived at this, but the end of his name is clearly a reference to Czar, the rest is basically Mashu or something like that. Where he found an R between the Ma and Shu is a mystery to me.

It seem that Nineroad's name has been translated as Kyudou Rina previously (Not sure where, they were talking about it on Discord).
But the Furigana in Arc 9 gives Kudou Hina.

Saria, the maid armor sister.
What's her real name? Salire.
How do we know it? Thanks to the mangaka. So we only found about it recently.


And worse than old characters having different names, what about the protagonist himself? Is it really "Vandalieu"? Are you sure?

This is his name: ヴァンダルー VANDARUU
How would you read Vandalieu? In my mind, that would be "Vandaliú", I'm not sure because I'm not french, but I can imagine something like that.

Here is another name: ブラバティーユ BURABATIIYU
This is how I translate this name: Brabatieu
Why do I use "ieu" like in Van's case? Because his name actually has the "iiu" at the end, and I would expect Van to have the same, but his doesn't.

As such, I consider the name Vandalieu actually incorrect, and only use it because I'm unfortunately already used to it, but if I were to give my own translation, it would be to end the name with "u" or "oo", so I would go with Vandalu, but considering how his name was given, Darcia would have to have her name changed to either Dalcia or Dalucia (And considering the names of other Dark Elves, I would go with Dalucia)

Another name that we have something of an impasse here is Natania's name. Some use Natanya, me? I go with the first. Why? simply put, I don't want to put a poor "Nyaa" pun in the Wildcat girl's name, plus I treat it as a variant of Natalia. Either of them could be right for all I know.

In one of the recent translated chapters we got 2 specific Demon King fragments that were named Treasure Orb and Wings, although Treasure Orb is not wrong (You could translate it as Jewel or Pearl), the Wing is actually Feather.

Same for Van and Pauvina's new titles by Tiamat, for some unknown reason, Yoshi gave them Elder Dragon Emperor/Princess, but the Kanji are simply "Dragon", no Dragon God (Which, mind you, is another localization change, where the Dragon, Titan and Beast Gods are called as Elder and Emperor names)...

Or how about all the Japanese Quirks that are completely stripped from their characters? Privel's bokkuko, Gizania's samurai speech, Myuze's Degozaru, Zadiris' Noja. I shall remind you that from the first chapter that Zadiris appeared, her speech is that of an elder, and one of high rank, definitively not normal nor young speech, this is to contrast the whole Princess trope that clearly doesn't match her.

How does the english audience treats it? Because they don't know that trait, they just think of her as an old loli and that she should just accept the title. The english audience is completely losing on the joke and understanding Zadiris as something that she isn't.

Could such traits be translated in english? Surely we have seen such cases, from just leaving "desu" or "degozaru" at the end of the sentences, but some consider it "bad quality". Another way for Zadiris specifically is to use archaic engligh, as an example, in JNC's translation of Arifureta, Tio uses exactly the same "Noja" speech pattern, and you can notice her royalty from that. So yes, I dare say that there are ways to translate this sort of thing.

And while it hasn't happened yet, do remember that Elizabeth uses "noyo", that will certainly also be stripped from the English version.

So, this is to remind people that there are now basically 2 versions of the story, if someday the story gets published in the west (Unlikely for other reasons), and the names are completely different from what you expected, now you know why, so don't blame them for being correct. Yoshi's version, as good as it is, is still fan-translated.

Now, I'm not here to bash on Yoshi's translation, all my bickering here is in regards to specific keywords, things that could easily be changed or just announced as changed, the rest of the text and flow is certainly great and high quality.

But this is an example of a long story filled with different terms, and when you least expect a new hierarchy is added, and now you have to make up stuff to deal with past mistakes.

So, just to keep it clear, my summaries and light translations, as well as my posts, I will NOT necessarily be using Yoshi's terminology, instead I will be using my own, and if I got something wrong, I WILL fix it. Although I will not edit every post behind, my Reference Guide is updated regularly, and I do base myself on it.

So to me Titans are the gods-like guys and Giant is the race, Salire is the correct name, and so on. I don't mind if people don't catch it, that's not my problem.

As such, I do appreciate criticism and corrections, but please, as long as the base is correct too. We are not in the LCD thread, we are in the Spoiler thread where we read things directly from Japanese, MTL or not, we can understand directly from the source material, and we must be aware that there are differences between the two stories.

If you want to be like me, you can already treat them as 2 different stories: Death Mage by Densuke and Death Mage by Yoshi. They are mostly the same, but not the same at the same time, however here we prioritize Densuke's version.

Technically, when Rokudou made ghosts of the trio, well, ghosts are undead. However, to make a Ghost you need a high amount of mana, which Metamorph doesn't have, so in that regard, Van and Rokudou are the only ones capable of making Ghosts.

Also as already noticed by Luciliano, Van's golem making is equivalent to pseudo-reincarnation on objects, another term for that would be Poltergeist. This is the version that Mei did, since it mostly bases itself in the spirit possessing an object, but it's possible that Mei was only able to do it because Banda powered them up.

Still, there needs to be a connection between the soul and the user, don't expect Rokudou nor Van to accidentaly turn their enemies into ghosts and get attacked by them.

However Rokudou and Mari do not have the Charm, they can't understand ghosts, we don't know if it can be learned, but the trio that Rokudou could see were exceptions simply because they were already his believers, all the other ghosts in the room from the scientists and stuff were all charmed by Banda/Van.

And Darcia taking the other unrelated jobs and finishing all of them in one swoop, one after another. :x

Doesn't seem to do as much in front of normal people. He does when next to others.

LOL, but considering how she was trying to prepare her heart, certainly it's a princess carry.

This is actually a really good point, and once Van makes his question, Randolph will understand that the one in the wrong is Alex. This would be quite the plot twist for Randolph, although at the same point, it means that he will properly witness Van in his serious form.

Most of those undead are technically related to their homes. Plus, we could say that he has another Silky now (Race of haunted mansion), although with a different name.

Edit:
@kari-no-sugata I just had a thought, if you don't mind helping me in this. I was thinking on the skill Root (根源), the name is... Unclear, and doesn't feel related to Abyss (深淵), so it just came to my mind... Could the name be somewhat related to the "Bottom of an Abyss"?

 

We beat you to the speculation a year ago:

Looking at wiktionary, it literally means "root source". As in, an origin/cause.

It could mean what we all think it means. But if Densuke is pushing his obscure religious references to the max, it could also mean this.

But since I'm not the expert here, imma stop hijacking the conversation and let kari speak up.

 

Whoa, you dudes are comparing his with real life conflicts then no world war is more fitting that the conflict to end all conflicts... THE WAIFU WAR!

Think about it, Alda is a normie who went against Vida because he refused to acknowledge the greatness and thiccness of monster girls, all his behavior can be explained from this and the fact that he is the uke to Bellwod's seme, Alda wants his husbando back but instead of joining the weeaboo faction he went to the other side and leads the normie faction in hopes of being accepted, is like those fujoshis who love to fantasize about dirty homo action but pretend is not sexual and is all about feelings and pureness

 

Hmm. Part of me feels like this is a brilliant idea and part of me is not so sure.

Certainly Kanako being there would have an impact on Randolph and the potential for Kanako to influence Randolph has been foreshadowed quite a bit. However, there is one very good reason for Van not to bring Kanako - he wouldn't want to leak her Venus ability. He can probably make sure the guy is telling the truth without her. He might bring in Kanako later to quietly verify things though.

If she has strong loyalty I'm pretty sure that'll trump any of Van's skills/titles. On the other hand, if she wants to change/evolve and has little loyalty then she'd likely be very susceptible. At this point, we don't know enough about her to predict her impact on the story.

Well, the appraisal knight guy got off with a warning, effectively. Alex is more dangerous but I'm not sure how dangerous he will be in Van's evaluation. This is perhaps where Towa will come in - if Van evaluates Alex as a decent guy due to Towa then he'll probably get off relatively lightly. But if he sees Towa as a victim and Alex as an abusive master then Van might evaluate him at the same level as bandits.

I'm not quite sure what you mean here.

In what regard?

I wonder how Van would judge such a thing. It's possible Rodcorte and co might be able to figure out that Van has 10s of billions of SP/mana but they might have a rough estimate of that anyway. It's quite possible that Rod and/or the angels were monitoring things in real time... unless Gufadogarn is blocking access.

Van and Randolph have had several near misses and are finally confronting each other directly. Either they become enemies or friends after this. Randolph very clearly doesn't want to fight Van and it's possible to resolve the incident without fighting (ie Alex talks) and Van respects the guy so I don't see this escalating. Randolph might ask Alex to appraise him for comparison. He might be surprised that from Alex's POV, Van is clearly a level above him... or maybe not. Either way, there's various ways this could allow them to find out much more about each other.

I wouldn't take this as canon unless Densuke authorised it.

根源 means things like source, origin, cradle/birthplace, foundation.

If you search for 深淵の根源 though you'll get a lot of references to an item in some game. Googling around it seems to turn up in mysticism and so on too. You might find it interesting how other series treat the term 根源 too:
https://fateuniverse.fandom.com/wiki/Akasha

Generally I see it as the sort of thing that can easily be turned into a lot of different concepts and it's largely up to the author to decide the precise definition what it means.

 

Yeah, I was thinking too much on one thing, but although I don't think he is trying to hide her ability, it's still dangerous to call her next to Dandolip. Then I noticed that Eleonora could be around, Van can call for her, she charms Alex, and of Dandolip attacks, she can easily defend herself.

And also from @sjmcc13 suggestion, it's quite likely that once Van asks his question, surely Randolph should understand who started the hostility. Van is a noble, and just like it has already been stated before, if someone finds out the status of another person, it's not uncommon for heavy penalties or death to be inflicted upon them.

Let me try to explain better, too many things in mind makes it hard to express oneself.

Up until now, I feel like Van has constantly progressed forward, his enemies were mostly some sort of evil, either because they were evil themselves, or because they were lead and believed in such evil.

• For example, the army from Mirg was pissed at him for "breaking Ice Age", they were all killed and sent back, but the ones with a good mind like Chezare were kept and are now helpers.
• The army from Hartner that attacked the cultivation villages, they were instructed to do so, but when the leader of the second army was caught and called Van crazy for starting such a war against the nobles, he was punished into turning into a senseless golem.
• The armies attacking the Scylla territory were soldiers fighting for their own countries, and with the exception of Alcrem, all the others were lead by duchies with some level of discrimination against Vida Races (Sauron being the exception in regards to population, but the Duke himself follows that)

And so on and so forth, so basically, Van never did something "bad" with someone that didn't deserve it to some extent.

However, what is good or bad is technically relative, and he is the best example of it. As the reader, our first impression of Elizabeth was that of an arrogant noble, while Alex was the commoner that didn't want that, and soon after we found out not only that Elizabeth is actually a good person, but Van was on her side, and Alex? Alex is an arrogant brat that was going to peep on Pauvina-chan.

This is the gray area that exists in this arc, and if Van does something against Alex, or almost does it, it will be the first time (I think) that he will do something bad against someone that certainly broke the rules, but is not evil, yet his actions, hiding himself and doing something like that out of nowhere now made the worst possible impression on Van to the point that he had no problems in calling for his death.

Ha ha, technically, no idea, but I think Zorna will be the big gear that will move things around. I don't think she will tell anyone what she saw, but she will be very clear in the info she will give the nobles: DO NOT MESS AROUND!

Well, I don't expect her to be in such despair, as I believe Van will smooth things over in a way that could cause a misunderstanding or something, at the same time, once she learns of the Alex's "Secret"...

Well, to many possibilities, point is, this girl is gonna move things around and I can't predict! YAY!

It may sound idiotic, but I do not think Rodcorte has any idea about Van's abilities, rather, any idea he would have would be based on his positivist position that "Surely this is enough, right?". The moment he sees the digits, this would allow for comparisons, for example: "Rokudou doesn't have enough power... I will have to give him the remaining Soul Fragment", or Alda could try to reinforce Heinz' training because Van is growing much faster than him. Besides, although it was not mentioned, he could have noticed that Van's name is bigger, the amount of titles and jobs too.

It's important to note that in between Arc 12 and 13, during that Week where he unlocked Qliphoth, Van finally reached 6 digits in one of his stats, this extra digit can already lead to a suggestion that the other status are just as high.

Code:

Arc 9/12 Heinz      Schneider   Van (Arc 12)        Van (Arc 13)
HP       86,800     175,470     801,690+            860,946+ (51,657) (69,668 UP)
MP       56,223+    119,163     14,022,168,571+     15,778,736,081+ (15,778,736,081) (3,513,135,020 UP!)
Str      10,800     27,525      74,785+             84,418+ (8,441) (10,586 UP!)
Agi      14,509     35,344      69,595+             78,260+ (7,826) (8,632 UP!)
Sta      14,960     30,092      80,024+             88,868+ (8,886) (9, 728 UP!)
Int      9,962      6,871       96,641+             114,878+ (11,487) (20,060 UP!)

I would expect the Mangaka to have asked such questions out of him?

I mean, surely he got some extra material from Densuke. As a reminder, although the manga showed Gordan and Riley first, the designs are still similar to the ones we had in the LN, so either the mangaka had access to Vol 5 illustrations ahead of time (And I think way ahead of time?), or Ban had to follow the manga design to make his own illustrations.

I wouldn't take it as real if it was just some random fanart on the internet. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Thank you very much, to think it would be related to such concepts, I can see how large and generic, yet "deep" (Excuse me for the pun) it can be.