The conqueror from a dyi.., p.30
The Conqueror from a Dying Kingdom: Volume 2, page 30
“I suppose so... And unlike me, you’ve got a kingeagle you can ride.”
I’d definitely come from a place out in the sticks, but Lilly was on a different level.
It’d take about a fortnight to reach her village from here if she traveled by boat. It was a much shorter route if she were to cross over the mountains, but that involved traversing tall, treacherous trails. Where she was from, a simple visit to the royal capital was like a once-in-a-lifetime outing. It would be an easy trip there and back if she could ride a kingeagle, but she was already too old to start training.
“The sun’s about to set. I’m almost finished with my work for today. If you’re not busy, we could get dinner together—my treat. Then I’ll escort you back to your dorm.”
“Heh heh. I like the sound of that. I’ll accept your offer.”
Lilly smiled happily. The sun had sunk even lower on the horizon, and the light it cast on her face was soft and gentle.
Ms. Ether’s Office
I was visiting Ms. Ether in her office with Myalo that day.
“I don’t really understand the grammar in this part...”
Ms. Ether quickly realized what Myalo needed help with.
“You’ve gotten very good at Terolish, but I see you’re still struggling with oral examples.”
“Yes...”
“The subject and pronouns have been omitted, haven’t they? See how much easier it is to understand if I add them back in?”
Ms. Ether wrote the sentence down on a scrap of Ho paper that I’d given her. She added several new words into the sentence that Myalo had been struggling with.
“But why were they omitted at all?” I asked. “The subject is clear enough from context, but removing the others just makes it difficult to understand.”
“Omitting those words is a literary consideration that makes the sentence more poetic in nature. It flows better with those words removed and, well... The words alta and sonala have an idiomatic meaning, don’t they? They turn the sentence into an instruction to face reality, and that’s where the emphasis is. But see how that sense gets diluted if we add too many other words between them?”
Now that she’d pointed it out, I could see what she meant. Cutting the words in between made that impression as sharp as a slap in the face.
“But this sentence has a very literary tone. Unless you’re planning on writing books or poems of your own, you only need to be able to grasp the meaning,” she continued.
“I see...”
“Speaking of poetic language... I think it’s this one here.”
Ms. Ether took a book that was resting on a shelf just above her desk and then flicked through the pages, looking for something in particular.
“This passage is a famous example of poetic prose. See if you can translate it,” she told Myalo.
“Um... The tiger that crawls on the ground looks enviously upon the hawk that rules the sky. But the hawk that rests upon a branch envies the tiger that runs across the firm ground... I think.”
Myalo had translated it skillfully.
“You try the next part, Yuri.”
“But the tiger cannot catch the hawk, and the hawk preys on rats. Though they live in the same place, their two worlds do not overlap.”
“You’re both very good,” Ms. Ether praised us. “The grammar in these sentences is somewhat irregular because they prioritize the rhythm. Listen to how they sound when spoken.”
Ms. Ether began to read the original Terolish aloud. When she read it with a touch of expressiveness, the sentences did indeed have a pleasing rhythm that made them sound like song lyrics.
“I see what you mean. There’s quite an elegance to the wording,” Myalo said.
Myalo, being highly cultured, must’ve felt something when hearing it.
“Normally, I’d recommend reading novels and poetry as a means of getting accustomed to text like this, but unfortunately, all I brought with me were these difficult books on history and religion. Works like these tend to shy away from that sort of descriptive prose.”
“You could ask Harol Harrell for some help with that,” I suggested. “It might make it easier for your students if they have some interesting novels to learn from.”
Harol would have no trouble getting hold of books now that he’d started trading with the Albio Republic. Parchment books were a little pricey, but not excessively so if they were old copies.
“Oh, you’re right. I’ll make a request next time I see him.”
The idea had pleased Ms. Ether, and it would surely please Harol too if he could do something for her.
Table of Contents
Cover
Chapter 1 — The First Lecture
Chapter 2 — Sham Enters the Academy
Chapter 3 — Starting a Business
Chapter 4 — Publishing
Chapter 5 — The World’s Secrets
Chapter 6 — The Melancholy of Myalo
Chapter 7 — Carol’s Adventure
Afterword
Color Illustrations
Bonus Short Stories
About J-Novel Club
Copyright
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Copyright
The Conqueror from a Dying Kingdom: Volume 2
by Fudeorca
Translated by Shaun Cook
Edited by Maral RahmanPour
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2020 Fudeorca
Illustrations by toi8
Cover illustration by toi8
All rights reserved.
Original Japanese edition published in 2020 by OVERLAP, Inc.
This English edition is published by arrangement with OVERLAP, Inc., Tokyo
English translation © 2022 J-Novel Club LLC
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property.
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The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
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