The Soulless Duchess - Vol. 1 Ch. 18

[IceCubed]

Welp, there goes any support I had for D&A..
Who cares if someone tries to snipe you, any competent reader will side with the better quality releases. Giving up and throwing a tantrum like this with the spoiler only shows your immaturity and unprofessionalism as a scanlation group.

 

[dekay]

To @broadsword80 and everyone who complained that the other group deleted all their chapter, if you blocked NNG, you can't see their releases smh

 

[Freija]

I'm also going to add that I went and looked at the other projects D&A were doing, out of curiosity:

The Golden Elementalist - picked up 3 months ago, last chapter release 2 months ago with ch3, another unrelated group translated the 4th chapter. would be interesting if they claim this group is sniping them too.
Emperor and Female Knight - picked up 3 months ago, latest update was 4 days ago with chapter 20. Officially released by tappy shortly after they started scanlating, and the official release is actually ahead of them. Would be interested if they call out tappytoons for sniping them too.
Valentine Kiss - picked up three months ago... then ignored for 2 months until they released the 2nd chapter a month ago and then quickly released chapters 3-5 in the past two 1/2 weeks.
The Duchess with an Empty Soul - picked up two months ago. chapters 3 & 4 were released nearly a month and a half after chapters 1 & 2. when NNG started scanlating, you could definitely see an uptick in uploads because it went from glacial pace to suddenly trying to match NNG's scans. In the past two weeks, they've suddenly released 13 chapters for this title. Eleven of those chapters were released in the past 24 hours as this writing.
Bouquet for an Ugly Girl - picked up two months ago, left untouched with just the first chapter since.
The Problem with my Love Affair - this one is interesting. They picked it up from a previous group, but I don't know if it's a collaboration or not, since I can see that one member of the group that was originally translating it is also part of D&A. Anyways, whether or not if they sniped it from a previous group or if the other group has abandoned it, they picked up with chapter 17 two months ago and released chapter 18 three days ago as of today.
Priscilla's Marriage Request, Vanguard - both of these are fairly new projects that D&A picked up within the past few days, but I'm going to include them here because of something I noticed while listing all of these.

According to their MD profile, D&A started translating about three months ago and they're already 'claiming' seven titles as their own and released 54 chapters. This sounds impressive for a small scanlation group over three months, but when you break down their work, it turns out that 37% of their scans is Emperor and Female Knight, 33% of their scans is Duchess with an Empty Soul (20% of it being released in the mass dump), Valentine Kiss is 10% and the remain four other projects they're working on all make up the remain 20%.

I also don't think it's any coincidence that Emperor and Female Knight and Duchess with an Empty Soul are the ones they focus on the most, and how badly they reacted to NNG's scans, because those two titles are the ones that they receive over 20,000 views on for the first few chapters. Duchess with an Empty Soul received over 35,000 views for the first chapter alone. Compare to The Golden Haired Elementist, their first project, where it's under 15k views and they seemed to have abandoned it. And as I said earlier, it's really strange they made such a big fuss about being sniped when they're the ones who are scanlating Emperor and Female Knight, which has an official english release that's also ahead of D&A.

Before people say that they're offering a service for free and they don't have to scanlate things: yes, I agree. They are fully in their rights to quit a project because they feel frustrated that they aren't being appreciated for their work. It's fine to say that. But they're not saying that; instead, they're insisting that they deserve to have complete control over a title, and I can't help but feel that they have ulterior motives. I would not be surprised if they were running a patreon or asking for donations on their Discord, which is understandable since it would be nice to make money on the side... But the fact that they're so defensive over the project that is clearly their most popular, along with the fact that they were able to drop 11 scanlated chapters at once, make me think they were deliberately trying to stretch out their releases and were withholding them for... why? I can't imagine what for, aside to make people beg them for more.

The more I think and look at this, the more the people behind D&A seem rather egoistical and arrogant. It comes across to me that they not scanlating things because they love it, but because they scanlate to be popular and liked. But they're welcome to come and explain themselves if I'm misunderstanding their intentions.

 

[broadsword80]

@dekay

Oh yeah, I totally forgot that. Whoops.

Still kind of funny seeing people who like ragging on D&A coming into these comments while at the same time telling us to ignore and block NNG because we don't want to support them. Bit hypocritical, eh?

 

[kavyna]

...Duchess with an Empty Soul received over 35,000 views for the first chapter alone

@Freija i remember the views on chapter 1 only have 15k when the first sniper (Nng) came and release chapter 5. Pretty sure the drama makes everyone read from chapter 1.

 

[Allexio]

Real shame, the quality was great.

 

[yardmonkey]

I'm pretty disappointed with how D&A chose to handle this as someone that's been following D&A's releases since Golden-Haired Elementalist. Also, with the exception of their first few releases, I really don't think NNG's English is that bad. People here keep talking about how D&A's releases are much better quality, but that's no longer true. I'm one of the people that hasn't been reading NNG's releases, but since D&A decided to drop it, I decided to do a line by line comparison of both versions of chapter 15 and honestly they're at about the same level now in terms of how good the English is. There are a number of places where I thought the writing was better in NNG's releases and there are a few where I thought it flowed better in D&A's releases. They both have numerous grammatical errors, but nothing as egregious as NNG's first few chapters. I did notice some places where the meaning was completely different, though, so I'd be curious to know whose releases are more accurate. I'm tempted to bug one of the KTLs I know to tell me whose translations are correct. Out of curiosity I skimmed the beginning of NNG's releases from chapter 7-11, and it looks like chapter 11 is where they got a much better PR lol.

The Golden Elementalist - picked up 3 months ago, last chapter release 2 months ago with ch3, another unrelated group translated the 4th chapter. would be interesting if they claim this group is sniping them too.

@Freija They officially announced dropping this title because their translator for it left or lost interest and they even supported the other group and linked their Discord when that other group decided to pick it up.

As for your analysis of their other titles and release dates, I feel like this would be pretty clear to anyone who's ever been in a scan group. How long a chapter release takes depends on many different factors. A lot of times, people are busy. I'm in three scan groups and in two of them chapters are being delayed because we have staff with exams or who are celebrating Chinese New Year. Sometimes there's only a small subset of staff interested in a series, so those tend to get slower releases than series that have staff members jumping to sign up for chapters. Some members are just slow. Scanlation is just one of a few hobbies I have so I generally take a week or two to typeset a chapter while some people do it in a few days or less.

But they're not saying that; instead, they're insisting that they deserve to have complete control over a title, and I can't help but feel that they have ulterior motives. I would not be surprised if they were running a patreon or asking for donations on their Discord,

I just checked their Discord, and I don't see any links to Patreon or Paypal or anything of the sort.

 

[KarrotKakes]

 

[Equilibrium]

Thank you for translating and a pity you dropped it.

 

[peccare]

Oh my dud. I shouldn’t have opened this chapter. Goddayyum, it’s been a while since I witnessed petty ass dickish vengeful move by spoiling anything.

 

[slytherinheiress]

TO ALL THE SALTY AND BITTER COMMENTORS HERE WHO ARE GETTING MAD WITH D&A SCANS' DECISION AND DOWNPLAYING THEIR EFFORTS AS LITTLE TO NOTHING NEXT TO THE ORIGINAL AUTHOR OF THE BOOK:

WHY DON'T YOU GET YOUR ASS TO LEARN KOREAN, TRANSLATE, PROOFREAD, CLEAN (among others) THE AVAILABLE MANHWA RAWS ONLINE THEN?

Y'all getting mad with their decision and calling them names about how the do not get to be mad and call them names like "merely thieves or pirates". Well guess what? At least they're the kind of thieves who've expended actual effort and getting ACTUAL JOBS done? What about you people? What have you contributed to the ACTUAL WORK NEEDED TO GET THESE CHAPTERS RELEASED ONLINE SO YOU (AND US) LEECHES CAN READ THEM IN ENGLISH? HUH? Procuring (elusive digital) raws, cleaning and redrawing them, translating them, proofreading them among others? NONE!

The way you all are acting shows how much you do not know about the effort needed to translate manga/manhwa (News Flash! This is not some download-directly-from-google-images-then-smack-the-texts-using-windows-paint shit) Acting like spoiled fucking brats when you've never even paid or donated a single cent for them to translate thus manhwa.

So shut up. If weren't there to support this scanlation group before with the whole snipping issue with your whole "you dOnT cArE wHiCh group rElEaSeS fIrSt sO lOnG aS I gEt tO rEaD tHeM" mentality (like a true, ungratefu leech), then you do not have the right to question and jab them with their decision. Just like what y'all are saying about how D&A scans do NOT have the right to stop that NNG scans from translating because they (D&A) do not own this manhwa, THEN YOU BITTER SNIPPING-SUPPORTING "FANS", DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT ALSO TO QUESTION THEIR DECISION AS THEY TO DO NOT OWE YOU ANY CHAPTERS.

BECAUSE AT THE END OF THE DAY, THE ONLY LOSERS HERE ARE US READERS BECAUSE WE NEED THEM (ALL SCANLATION GROUPS) FOR US TO FULLY ENJOY MANHWAS AND MANGAS WE DO NOT UNDERSTAND.

SO NEXT TIME, DO NOT BE UNGRATEFUL BTCHS AND ACTUALLY EXERT EFFORT BY SUPPORTING AND APPRECIATING THESE GROUPS.

To D&A Scans, really respecting your decision. And most definitely loved how you ended this drama. Totally loving the whole vibe. More power!

 

[tonie]

our hero @slytherinheiress

 

[cindaiimon]

Reading all ur comments while eating my

 

[Dunslax]

*dabs*

 

[marsbars]

Just one last thing.

That image at the bottom wasn’t a spoiler. At this point in the story, they are already engaged. The title is also “The Duchess...”

You’d have to be an idiot, an actual idiot, not to know they were going to get married.

 

[ThatOneJester]

What is the comment section?
Anyways~
Thanks for translating until now, and I can't wait for somebody to fully pick this up again.
It looks like the next chapter is already out from a "No Group" which had me concerned.
But the translation wasn't bad as I only saw maybe 2-3 typos throughout the entire chapter.
Although the font was kinda cringe-worthy It didn't bother me much.
I also plan to comment of the same effect on said chapter in a bit, I only came back to comment here after noticing it had over 200 comments when the previous one only had like 15.
What I find to be funny is that people only find the need to comment when drama like this happens.
The only reason I didn't comment every chapter is because I binge read this and planned to give thanks on the last chapter currently available.
I didn't even notice the translator comment in the chapter because I was enjoying myself so much?
People need to learn to relax and just enjoy was is given.
It's not like you are paying for these chapters and require rights to this crap you all are asking for.
I know I'm not...
I have no time to translate, and am too poor financially to support a translator with money for my hobby of reading.
I just don't understand people.
(My computer just started making a whining noise, I'm concerned) <- Random thought right after writing my comment.

Edit: @marsbars The spoiler- The 2 protagonists in a story where the female MC's title is duchess, marries the Duke in a romance tagged story, and it already had undertones of the duke falling for her.
Yeaaaaa, I don't understand them either... xD

 

[sambucety]

@slytherinheiress Is what I say in chapter 13-15 here on this page are a lots of bitchs and crybabes IF YOU CAN TRANSLATE, TRANSLATE ANYTHING WHAT YOU LIKE in the end of the day all of us are pirates (ecept guys who got permision) I only want my chapters of the manga I like thanks for the guys that bring them to me

 

[Hexxy]

Lol, I like the ending bit there. I mean, everyone was so thirsty for that instant gratification, to the point they would read and support machine translated gibberish to get their fix. So, what's all the complaining about? Ending's right there, is instant gratification not good enough now?

 

[SirCuddleschmidt]

Saw the massive comments numbers. Who the hell thought that bit at the end of the chapter is a spoiler? It amazes me that supposedly someone felt upset on seeing that.

Anyhow, with D&A dropping the series only one word come to mind: Fuck.

I blocked whoever nng or whatever last week or two ago. I just rechecked their work and still too poor to read. Guess I'm screwed. Damn. Nothing I can do but wait and hope.

 

[yardmonkey]

@SirCuddleschmidt NNG's releases got a lot better at around chapter 11.