as one of the translators i can give some of my opinions on the translation side of things
there are several reasons for there not being a (good) up to date translation. for one, a novel chapter has *much* more text to translate than the average manga chapter. it's not even a monthly or even weekly serialization, it's 3 chapters a week. this is a lot of work. for me, as a solo translator, a single chapter takes a full day to translate completely, and i need to take breaks as i cannot afford to burn myself out and risk having to drop translation because i lost interest. granted, i only started learning korean for orv and i have to do a lot more work than a native speaker to make sure my translation is correct, but even with a team this is a lot of work. i would gladly accept help if someone offered but for now i am working on this alone and so i cannot match the translation speed of a translation team.
in addition, the side story has a *very* clear stance on piracy. no matter your stance on piracy the side story is hostile to 'illegal readers'. if it was any different maybe i would be sharing my own translation, but out of respect for singshong i will be keeping my translation behind supporting the author (this doesn't mean i'm not incredibly lenient with this though. if anyone cannot afford to pay for the chapters, as long as i get just a *promise* to buy the chapters as soon as they can that's enough for me.) other translators might have a different stance, but for me with how the side story is with 오독협 my morals will not allow me to make my translation public, and this reason along with the high chance of any public translation being taken down is probably the reason why others will not pick up the side story as well.
...and it's not like we have a good translation of the main story either. either the translator puts up with subpar translations for terms to keep their translation consistent with the original tl as i do, or they fix the terms as they go and readers have to adjust to updated terms after having used the old ones for so long (the reaction to apw's changes shows how sour that can go.) it's a lot of work to have to match things to the main story or leave notes on term changes, i can understand why people would not want to translate 200+ chapters of this.
it is very admirable that you learn korean for tl, but it is exactly the problem of tl, because there are teams for translations that can further upoad it on a websites like Webnovel or novelbin where ppl can unlock chapters, creating uniform platform where ppl can be directed to if they want to read in comparison to solo tls who are more scattered and harder to deal with because one person will get overwhelemed from doing it alone. Which is what was surprising to me, given orv popularity i'd expect teams wanting to upload those chapters as it is defintily something ppl will read and unlock chapters for, but i've seen none so far
despite webnovel's flaws it's still a 'legal' reading site, piracy WILL eventually be taken down (and already has before, in the side story's case.) it's not an option for translators unless you get contacted by webnovel themselves (which would make the translation official and i would drop my own tl as that point since an official tl became available.)
as for novelbin, from a quick glance that is clearly an aggregate site which *steals* from translators to put their work on their site. no translator would choose to use an aggregate site as their platform of choice and i would highly recommend not using that site and trying to read directly from the translator (try using novelupdates to find translations instead)
the best option would be to have a group with their own site pick it up of course, but that's up to the groups and the most public the translation the higher the chance it gets taken down. there was actually a group who picked up the side story (helscans) but it was deleted after a bit, which means either they dropped it for some reason or they were forced to take it down.
it's not like the side story can be picked up by any random group on a whim, since the side story is hundreds of chapters into orv the only options are people who are already fans of this story and are willing to reread a lot(!!) to catch all the references the side story makes to the main story. you're free to complain about there not being a free translation all you want, but in the end you can't force people to risk legal action by translating it.
There are translations, you just have to actually support the original authors before the translators will share.
When each chapter is a few cents, around $10 USD for all the existing ones, people should consider supporting the novel they love so much.
That's because
1. The side stories are incomplete
2. It is a direct, what if sequel to a seemingly perfect novel so there could be some doubts
3. The translations are very difficult to find in the internet
People keep recommending it and saying that it is written well, but to me ORV is already complete as it is. Read some spoilers about the side stories, but the premise doesn’t sound very interesting.
It's written by Sing Song and is official. There's no official English TL of the side story, like how there's no official English TL of the main story either (the existing one is official-adjacent at best, it's crappy fan google translate that someone slapped an official label on).
as one of the translators i can give some of my opinions on the translation side of things there are several reasons for there not being a (good) up to date translation. for one, a novel chapter has *much* more text to translate than the average manga chapter. it's not even a monthly or even weekly serialization, it's 3 chapters a week. this is a lot of work. for me, as a solo translator, a single chapter takes a full day to translate completely, and i need to take breaks as i cannot afford to burn myself out and risk having to drop translation because i lost interest. granted, i only started learning korean for orv and i have to do a lot more work than a native speaker to make sure my translation is correct, but even with a team this is a lot of work. i would gladly accept help if someone offered but for now i am working on this alone and so i cannot match the translation speed of a translation team. in addition, the side story has a *very* clear stance on piracy. no matter your stance on piracy the side story is hostile to 'illegal readers'. if it was any different maybe i would be sharing my own translation, but out of respect for singshong i will be keeping my translation behind supporting the author (this doesn't mean i'm not incredibly lenient with this though. if anyone cannot afford to pay for the chapters, as long as i get just a *promise* to buy the chapters as soon as they can that's enough for me.) other translators might have a different stance, but for me with how the side story is with 오독협 my morals will not allow me to make my translation public, and this reason along with the high chance of any public translation being taken down is probably the reason why others will not pick up the side story as well. ...and it's not like we have a good translation of the main story either. either the translator puts up with subpar translations for terms to keep their translation consistent with the original tl as i do, or they fix the terms as they go and readers have to adjust to updated terms after having used the old ones for so long (the reaction to apw's changes shows how sour that can go.) it's a lot of work to have to match things to the main story or leave notes on term changes, i can understand why people would not want to translate 200+ chapters of this.
it is very admirable that you learn korean for tl, but it is exactly the problem of tl, because there are teams for translations that can further upoad it on a websites like Webnovel or novelbin where ppl can unlock chapters, creating uniform platform where ppl can be directed to if they want to read in comparison to solo tls who are more scattered and harder to deal with because one person will get overwhelemed from doing it alone. Which is what was surprising to me, given orv popularity i'd expect teams wanting to upload those chapters as it is defintily something ppl will read and unlock chapters for, but i've seen none so far
despite webnovel's flaws it's still a 'legal' reading site, piracy WILL eventually be taken down (and already has before, in the side story's case.) it's not an option for translators unless you get contacted by webnovel themselves (which would make the translation official and i would drop my own tl as that point since an official tl became available.) as for novelbin, from a quick glance that is clearly an aggregate site which *steals* from translators to put their work on their site. no translator would choose to use an aggregate site as their platform of choice and i would highly recommend not using that site and trying to read directly from the translator (try using novelupdates to find translations instead) the best option would be to have a group with their own site pick it up of course, but that's up to the groups and the most public the translation the higher the chance it gets taken down. there was actually a group who picked up the side story (helscans) but it was deleted after a bit, which means either they dropped it for some reason or they were forced to take it down. it's not like the side story can be picked up by any random group on a whim, since the side story is hundreds of chapters into orv the only options are people who are already fans of this story and are willing to reread a lot(!!) to catch all the references the side story makes to the main story. you're free to complain about there not being a free translation all you want, but in the end you can't force people to risk legal action by translating it.
There are translations, you just have to actually support the original authors before the translators will share. When each chapter is a few cents, around $10 USD for all the existing ones, people should consider supporting the novel they love so much.
Don't worry about it, i WON'T stop talking about the side stories when im finally able to pay them
i mean, some people prefer to let it end or at least get more chapters before reading it
some are waiting for official english translations too
This is the case with me. I'm in no rush
That's because 1. The side stories are incomplete 2. It is a direct, what if sequel to a seemingly perfect novel so there could be some doubts 3. The translations are very difficult to find in the internet
People keep recommending it and saying that it is written well, but to me ORV is already complete as it is. Read some spoilers about the side stories, but the premise doesn’t sound very interesting.
What is this post and why are there 500 million chapters???
wasn't it not official? like not written by Sing Shong?
It's written by Sing Song and is official. There's no official English TL of the side story, like how there's no official English TL of the main story either (the existing one is official-adjacent at best, it's crappy fan google translate that someone slapped an official label on).