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Most people who read my translations before they met me were surprised to find out I was a woman. My name, Haruka, wasn't gender specific, and my translations tended to sound masculine, and, since most of the original authors I've trans lated were male, I was often mistaken for a man.
It was actually quite a compliment and, I think, one of the reasons I was selected as a test player for Fragment, the beta version.
It was this mistake that helped turn my life around. Shortly after T began playing, I joined a party that discussed foreign novels. We exchanged member addresses and became friends. When I told one of them that I had been attending translation school, she wanted to meet me in real life. When we met, I found out that she was the editor of a large publishing company. She gave me my first translation job.
I immediately quit my temp job and began freelancing. Unfortunately, it didn't pay well and it wasn't long afterward mat the publishing industry hit a recession. But working from home was still better than waking up early and going into an office every day. Plus, it left me the freedom I craved to wander The World whenever I felt like it.
Of course, my boss played in The World as well, which caused difficulties when I was behind on a deadline. In fact, that's why I created Hokuto, so I could play in The World without being recognized by my editor. I've spent countless hours playing online since then.
But I still didn't give up on my big dream of someday translating a best seller. That's why I searched for stories in The World. I was looking for Emma Wielant. I made it my life's work.
Hidden, Forbidden, Sacred
The setting sun shone weakly over The World. The lake rippled with a gentle breeze. Clouds hovered on the edge of twilight...
"Where are we, AI?" I asked.
"It's the Hidden, Forbidden, Sacred Zone." His words felt as cold as the darkening sky.
We walked across a bridge and approached an old church made of gray stone and stained glass. The eerie silence was broken occasionally by the melody of pipe organs that bellowed deep within.
"This is a sacred place in The World."
"Why is it sacred?" I asked, curious.
"Because it's taken from the book. Have you heard of Epitaph of the Twilight?"
"Um ... the what?" I feigned ignorance.
"It's an epic that was used as the basis for the background of the game world. It is the foundation of the story." Albireo's eyes swept the horizon.
Over the course of our many adventures, Albireo had recovered Lycoris' eyesight, and systematically set about unlocking the secrets of The World. Thirsty for more knowledge, I stuck close by him, continually asking him questions. "Who wrote it?"
"A German woman named Emma Wielant. She posted it on her website."
So Albireo knew as much as I did. I figured that if he was working for CC Corp., he might know more than me, but if he did, he didn't show it.
I tried to dig deeper. "So what happened to it?"
Albireo rook a deep breath. "The original version is lost. The beta vetsion of The World was released in May 2007. By the time the test on the beta version was completed in July, the rumors had already begun to spread that me game was based on the web novel."
"Emma's book."
"Right."
"You've been playing this game since it was a beta version," I said.
"Maybe I'm a cripple after am" he joked.
I laughed.
"Emma's site had been shut down long before the rumor started." Albireo continued.
"Why was it shut down?"
"Emma Wielant had passed away by then."
So far, his explanation was everything you could get off the Internet. I needed more. "Go on." I urged.
"I gathered everything I could get my hands on about her or her book. From what I learned, Emma disappeared from the online world around 2004 or 2005. At the very latest, she was gone by December 24th, 2005. Do you know the significance of that date?"
"That's when something destroyed the Internet, right?"
He nodded. "Right. The Pluto Kiss virus. For seventy-seven minutes, around the globe, all commercial activities that relied on the Internet ceased. Ie was a huge blow to the world's economy. Governments, financial institu tions, transportation, businesses-everything stopped working. Data was corrupted and released, trains collided, airplanes crashed ... it was apocalyptic.
"Even the Pentagon computers, which were thought to maintain perfect security, fell victim to the virus. Once they went offline, the military's automatic retaliation system began to countdown because the computers thought Washington had been destroyed. If the network hadn't restarted when it did, the world would have been destroyed in a nuclear holocaust. And do you know who the perpetrator of this evil virus turned out to be?"
"A ten-year-old kid."
"That's right. It just figures that he lived in Los Angeles. Nothing good ever comes from that city."
"Yup," I agreed.
"As you must know, most personal computers were also damaged. The amount of lost data is unfathomable. I was one of the victims."
"What happened?"
"I lost my nearly finished dissertation that I had spent months working on."
"Didn't you keep a backup?"
"I do now."
I laughed, but it was definitely not a laughing matter. The Pluto Kiss virus bankrupted the temporary suffing agency I had worked for. The entire thing was a disaster.
But if he was writing his college dissertation during Pluto Kiss, then he was probably in his late twenties, which would make him younger than me. I suddenly felt embarrassed role-playing a naive teenager.
"Anyhow, prior ro Plllto Kiss, people suffered viruses and worms all the time. Today that's unimaginable because of ALTIMIT OS."
"It sounds awful." I shrugged.
"That's why there aren't any copies of Epitaph of the Twilight. It was lost because of the virus, and probably Emma's disappearance."
"Weren't there any hard copies?" I asked.
Albireo sighed. "Apparently, Emma's site was set up to prevent people from saving, printing, or copying the pages. If there was a hard copy, she was the only one who ever saw it. The only other way would have been to transcribe every word of it by hand."
"That sounds tedious. No one would bother to do that. Especially when it was online all the time."
"Right. It was free to visit and read the site, so why bother?"
"So, it's lost?"
"Maybe not. Apparently. thete was a passionate fan, someone who actually ttanscribed and translared the text into English. Whoever tl was must've saved a hard copy because that's why we have Fragment, which we used in the beta tests."
"So who translated it?" Obviously, I had a professional as well as a personal interest in his answer to this question.
"Who knows. Someone online. Or maybe a group of people. Because we don't know, Fragment lacks authenticity. We're not sure if the English translation was based on the original work by Emma Wielant. And if it is, we don't even know how accurate the translation really is."
I'm one of the few rare people who collected the pieces of the Epitaph. My German was very basic, but I went through all the English, Japanese, and some German sites related to the story. I even had characters set up in foreign servers to collect data there.
"You mean it could be wrong?" I asked, probing.
"Translation is a very imprecise process." He definitely had my attention. "Inevitably, changes must be made to accommodate the audience and culture that the text is being translated for. Accuracy isn't always as important as relevancy and, in this case, storytelling."
He had such sensitivity regarding the subject. Could Albireo be a translator as well? He definitely sounded like he was in the business.
"But just because it's subjective;' he continued, "doesn't mean that its a mistake. For example, a joke in English might not translate because of the difference in culture at language. Some words solUld the same, yet they have two different meanings. But just because two words sound the same in one language, doesn't mean they will in another.
"Humor often plays with these subtleties that simply can't be captured in direct translation. So instead, the translator will try to keep the context of the scene, but change the way it's written to keep it intetesting for the new readers. Otherwise, if it was kept exactly the same, it might not even be readable."
"You're right," I said, try ing not to let on that I was starting to have feelings for him. For some reason, it was becoming ilion: alltl more difficult for me to continue role-playing my second character, Hokuto. I was starting to act more and more like my first character, Haruka.
"But if the translator goes too far, then the original intention gets wiped out. That's not good for either the reader or the original writer. Words are very delicate. Keep that in mind."
If only he knew how much I agreed with him. But I needed to learn what else he might know. "But you said The World is based on the Epitaph."
"Yes."
"So how did they read it?" Tasked.
"CC Corp. apparently receives thousands of emails each day asking that same question."
"And their answer is?"
"They never respond."
"Why not?"
"Well, we have to go back for a moment. The English version of the Epitaph begins with a scene at the 'Navel of Lake.' That's where we are now.
"Navel?" I asked, even though I knew exactly what he was talking about. I'd even visited the dlUrch in previous versions.
"It means center. 1 know it's odd phrasing, but that's how it was translated. Can't be helped. Anyway, the original story was so powerful, that even a snippet still drew people in. I know it worked on me. I was totally immersed in The World and wanted to visit it if it was at all possible. That's what inspired this place. Well, not just this place, but the entire game.
"I know when I was younger, 1 would take the different story fragments and try to piece them together into a more coherent arc. I even cried to learn more about Erruna Wielant, so I might understand The World better than anyone else."
I felt as if he and I might be soul mates, we thought so much alike. I was hanging on his every word. "I wonder if I'd enjoy reading the Epitaph."
"I don't know."
"I thought you said it was fascinating."
"It is. But it's also very heavy."
"You mean it's thick?" 1 asked, for some reason still enjoying teasing him with my false ignorance.
"Not exactly. Well, it is, but that's not what I meant The content is very heavy. It's not ror everyone. I'm not sure it would sell very well if it was released. Even J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy was only read by a small number of devoted fans in Japan before they turned it into a movie."
I loved Tolkien, but I didn't want to let on how much of a nerd I was. "But hasn't the Epitaph become just as famous because of the game?"
"Sure. But you don't need ro be a fan of the story to be a fan of the game. The two are different. And yet, they're the same. I can't help but think that Emma would be gratified to know that her story lives on and changes daily."
"That is a rather sweet thought."
He nodded solemnly. "She's been immortalized, even if most of the players have never heard of her. The images from her imagination will live on."
I followed Albireo into the church. We walked toward the large window, under the four swinging pendulums, and down into the main hall.
We stopped in front of the altar.
"Please, Albireo," Lycoris said, suddenly standing behind Albireo.
"Hey, Lyco spoke," I said, surprised. That was the first time I had ever heard Lycoris say anything.
"You haven't noticed?" Albireo asked softly.
"Noticed what?"
"Voice chat automatically gets switched in any church from Parry Mode to Talk Mode."
My eyebrows shot up. "Why does it do that?"
"It's not permitted to hide anything before God."
Albireo turned and faced Lycoris. "I brought you here for a reason."
"AI, what's going on?" I was confused. I didn't know what he was talking about.
"Do you really want the item I obtained from the spring demon?" he asked.
What item? I had no idea what he was talking about. His avatar wasn't holding anything, but I couldn't look at his item list.
A beam of light from the upper story window fell squarely on Lycoris' face. She appeared almost angelic, otherwordly, ethereal, even, as she looked up in wide-eyed innocence and begged:
Lycoris: Please, Albireo. Please give me the yromem.cyl.
My part of the adven ture ended there. A moment later, Albireo and Lycoris disappeared in a blaze of light, once again breaking the rules of The World.
Their sudden disappearance left me yearning for some sort of closure. I decided to write Albireo an e-mail. If possible, I wanted to meet him in real life.
Albireo,
You and your words touched my heart. You have become special to me and I'd like to meet you. I hope, perhaps, that you feel the same way. I don't know where you and Lyco disappeared to, but I don't want to end our adventure like this. Please contact me.
My mouse hovered over the "send" icon, but instead, I clicked "delete." T was hoping for toO much.
I logged off as Hokuto and returned to the character selection menu. Moving my cursor past Hokuto, I chose the character below.
Instead of writing an e-mail, I composed a poem using words only he and I would know. Because, like me, he was obsessed with the game, I knew he would find the posting.
I signed it using the name of my other character.
Subject: The One Sin
Message by: W B. Yates
Damage done to the evil shaped one, too massive to compare. Balmung of Azure Sky, Orca of the Azure Sea, together they gallop at full speed. In the depth of my boom, your names shall remain. You are none other than the descendants of Fianna. Together with the warrior who wears the eyes of the stars.
W B. Yates
After I sem my poem to the BBS, I logged out.
I was tired. The torture of facing my mistranslations and the guilt of an upcoming deadline loomed, but for some reason I felt satisfied. The work could wait. It would have to; I was exhausted.
I pulled out a gift from my editor: Irish poteen. It was ninety proof and until ten years ago, illegal.
I took a giant swig and crawled into bed.
As I awaited Albireo's reply, I started to drift off. I felt happy. Even though I knew my editor waited impatiently for my translations, I didn't care.
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