[Progressive manga] Canon of the Golden Rule - Chapter 10

Since it was my birthday this week (even though no one in the community seems to have remembered it this year...), I figured this called for something special. So, we saved up the final chapter of our favourite project for the occasion.

This is the final chapter of the short-lived Canon of the Golden Rule adaptation. The final chapter of the manga continues covering the slime battle, the retrieval of the Sacred Key, and ends with the trio's return to Castle Galey and the arrival of an unexpected party at the Dark Elven castle... and that's where the story abruptly cuts off, as the artist dropped the project due to harassment/negative feedback on Twitter... which is a horribly shitty way to lose one of the best manga adaptions SAO has ever had... Kizmel's original dialogue at the end, honestly, feels like the artist's personal message to his actual fans.

With this release, we bid our farewell to one of the best SAO manga adaptations we've ever seen, both in adaptation quality and art quality. I wish we could have seen this adaptation through to the end (and maybe even have the artist continue covering future Progressive content too), but things are what they are. You'll have to read the novel to find out how the story ends, unless someone on the Japanese side revives this project.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the release. If you have any suggestions/requests for what to work on, feel free to leave a comment or contact us through Twitter/Discord/Email.

-Gsimenas

Credits

Raws: SAO Scans
Translation: Gsimenas
Editing: Gsimenas
Redrawing: Nguyên Milk
Typesetting: Nguyên Milk
Quality Assurance: Mttblue2

Canon #010

Links for the translation files:

• PDF
• Zip Download

Canon #009

Index

N/A (this manga was axed)

Translation (choice/nuance) comments:

• Page 06: "…Sanks…" (あぃがと) - due to the slime in her mouth, Asuna wasn't able to pronounce "thanks" (ありがとう) correctly.
• Page 09: "…I presume that would be a strong no, ma'am…" - Kirito used teineigo (polite speech) register in this instance, so I tried to capture this nuance.
• Page 09: In her analogy, Asuna is referring to umeboshi (梅干し), which literally means "dried plums" that are then pickled. They are a highly-sour condiment.
• Page 10: "IRL Luck stat" - the original phrase was "リアルラック" (riaru rakku = real luck), but the English world "real" is usually used as a short hand for "real world" in terms of "not in-game", so I used "IRL" (in real life) as the English equivalent for the slang.
• Page 10: "a-OK for the job" - the original text used ＯＫ in Western alphabet letters in the original text.
• Page 11: "sword techniques" - Kizmel uses the word "剣技" (kengi = sword skills/techniques) rather than "ソードスキル" (sōdo sukiru = Ingurisshu version of the phrase "sword skill"). The difference is that "ソードスキル" is a formal term used specifically to refer to a game mechanic, while "剣技" is just a general way to refer to techniques with the sword. While Kizmel is referring to the game mechanic, she's not familiar with official game terminology (since she's not aware that this is all a game and it's a game mechanic), so she's using roundabout ways to refer to it.
• Page 11: "Off-System Skill" - the original phrase is システム外スキル (shisutemu-gai sukiru = lit. skill outside the system). It refers to actions that look like they would need a skill to pull off, but are actually pulled off through the player's own effort. Since it's a madeup term by SAO's characters, I decided to make up my own term as well by analogy based on the word off-line (if off-line means "not connected to the Internet, then "off-system" would refer to being not connected to the system). For reference, Yen Press doesn't maintain consistency in how they translated this phrase. In one instance they used "unofficial skill", in this part of the novel they used "extracurricular" trick".
• Page 12: "slowing down" - this phrase was marked with boutens (dots next to kanji used to emphasise a word or phrase), so we bolded it to account for this nuance.
• Page 12: "this art of yours" - the original text has used like three different words for "technique" up to this point and "art" was the only synonym in English that would work in this context. I used "technique" for "技術" (gijutsu) and "art" for "技" (waza).
• Page 14: "not heard tell of" (うかがっておらぬ) - since Kizmel is referring to the words of a noble in this sentence, she switched to humble (kenjougo) speech register (i.e., used fancy words), so I needed to make her sound fancy in the translation, too. "Hear tell of" is an old-fashioned idiom for "to be told about something".
• Page 14+: Elves refer to humans as 人族 (hitozoku, lit. human race/tribe), just like how all the fantasy creatures/people in games use the -zoku suffix when talking about the creature/people species/race. I decided to translate this term as "humankin(d)" to account for this nuance, as I could easily apply -kin(d) to any other race to maintain consistency. When the word "elf" comes with the -zoku suffix, I translate it as "elfkin" accordingly.
• Page 29: "Okie-dokie" - the original word was "オッケー" (Okkē), which is just the Japanese pronunciation of the English word "okay". Since Kirito's being a dork with his Ingurisshu-isms, I decided to make him sound more dorky in the translation too.
• Page 32: The word "beta" was written as the Greek letter β in the original text.
• Page 32: "Dark Elf Q'stline" (ダークエルフクエ) - Kirito shortens the word クエスト (kuesuto = quest) to just クエ (kue) because saying words in full is, apparently, a pain in the ass.
• Page 32: "hardcore gamer" - the original term was "廃人" (haijin). Usually, it's a derogatory word for a disabled person, but gamers tend to use it in the sense of "hardcore" or "addict". I decided to go with "hardcore" based on the context.
• Page 32: "gamefreak" - the original phrase was ゲームバカ (gēmu baka), which literally means "game idiot"... and less literally means "someone obsessed with games". I decided to use "freak" in the sense of "a person who is obsessed with a particular activity or interest", since it captured the intended nuance pretty well.

Adaptation notes:

• Manga doesn't show Kizmel fighting off against bats while Asuna was fighting against the slime.
• The jelly from a defeated slime is supposed to disappear within seconds of the monster being defeated, so Asuna wasn't supposed to remain drenched in slime for so long.
• The novel describes Kirito's slime killing technique as slowing down the skill, but the manga specifically uses terms that refer to the skill's activation, rather than slowing it down mid-swing.
• Manga skipped lunch break after the slime fights. Instead, it included Kirito's reaction to Kizmel learning his trick.
• In quite a few cases, an entire sentence was removed from a dialogue line without changing the other lines, so some of the transitions between lines became abrupt. In one instance, an entire sentence (殺されたパイサーグルスが、エルフの迷宮を呪う理由なんかないと思うんだけどね = I don't think Pythagrus had any reason to curse an elf labyrinth after being killed) got replaced with one word and a conjunction (とばっちりだけど = collateral damage, though).
• The final few pages were different from the novel's version of events. In the novel, Kizmel joined Asuna and Kirito for a bath, some relaxation in the bath's lounge, and then a meal at the dining hall before splitting off to return her cape. Kizmel's speech just before leaving was also entirely original to the manga. Finally, when Asuna and Kirito heard the gate bells ring in the novel, they weren't all cheery and carefree about it; instead, they were both worried that Morte had invaded the castle, so they dashed over to check things out... fully armed, just in case.
• Various dialogue trimming and rephrasings.