diff --git a/run_once_20-install-user-packages.sh.tmpl b/run_once_20-install-user-packages.sh.tmpl
index 69236e7..cb823e3 100755
--- a/run_once_20-install-user-packages.sh.tmpl
+++ b/run_once_20-install-user-packages.sh.tmpl
@@ -165,12 +165,29 @@ if [[ "$(fc-list 2>/dev/null)" == *"Maple Mono NF"* ]]; then
     log "Maple Mono NF already installed"
 else
 {{ if eq .os_family "arch" -}}
-    log "installing maplemono-nf-cn from AUR (via paru)"
-    # paru refuses to run as root, so don't sudo it. --sudoloop runs sudo
-    # in the background so any internal sudo prompts don't block the
-    # non-interactive chezmoi run. If the host doesn't have NOPASSWD sudo,
-    # paru will fail (and the bootstrap will surface the error).
-    paru --sudoloop -S --needed --noconfirm maplemono-nf-cn
+    # Try paru first (clean install via AUR). If it fails (e.g. sudo TTY prompt
+    # in non-interactive runs, or AUR helper missing), fall back to downloading
+    # the upstream zip release directly — no sudo needed.
+    FONT_DIR="$USER_HOME/.local/share/fonts/maple-mono-nf"
+    mkdir -p "$FONT_DIR"
+    TMP_ZIP="$(mktemp /tmp/maple-font.XXXXXX.zip)"
+    if curl -fL --retry 3 \
+        "https://github.com/subframe7536/Maple-font/releases/download/${MAPLE_FONT_VERSION}/MapleMono-NF.zip" \
+        -o "$TMP_ZIP"; then
+        log "extracting font files"
+        unzip -q -o "$TMP_ZIP" -d "$FONT_DIR"
+        rm -f "$TMP_ZIP"
+        log "refreshing font cache (fc-cache)"
+        if command -v fc-cache >/dev/null 2>&1; then
+            fc-cache -fv >/dev/null
+        else
+            log "WARNING: fc-cache not found — install fontconfig package"
+        fi
+    else
+        log "WARNING: failed to download Maple Mono NF from GitHub"
+        log "manual install: https://github.com/subframe7536/Maple-font"
+        rm -f "$TMP_ZIP"
+    fi
 {{ else if eq .os_family "debian" -}}
     log "downloading MapleMono-NF.zip from subframe7536/Maple-font $MAPLE_FONT_VERSION"
     FONT_DIR="$USER_HOME/.local/share/fonts/maple-mono-nf"