The last day of July.
This week, the entire miHoYo Studio felt like it had been crammed into a pressure cooker.
The PV going viral brought not only a surge in pre-registrations, but also an avalanche of work.
Kevin's desk was piled high with emails from partner companies, Lin Zhaoyu's recruitment phone rang from morning till night, and even Bronie had gone through two sets of keycaps because of the high-intensity server maintenance.
Su Yu leaned back in his office chair, the iced tea in his hand already reduced to nothing but ice cubes rattling around the bottom of the plastic bottle.
Spread across his desk was the graphics card Kiana had given him, and beside it a stack of game design documents thick enough to use as a pillow.
Then, that familiar semi-transparent light screen popped up without any warning.
[Ding! Congratulations, Host! Your first PV's global traffic rating: S+ (This isn't game development, this is raising waifus across the entire internet)!]
[Foster father knew you had it in you—sure, you nearly crashed and burned in the middle, but the result turned out gorgeous! Come, take a look at your rewards——]
[Since the Host performed above expectations using the "plagiarist" talent of The Devil, the settlement rewards are hereby issued:]
[1. Reality Anchor range expansion: 2 meters -> 5 meters! (Congratulations, you can finally keep a proper social distance from Kiana outside too, instead of sniffing her shampoo scent outside the bathroom door)]
[2. Absolute Freedom Time: daily allowance raised to 2 hours, savings cap increased to 100 hours! (Since you performed so well, I've decided to give your "cat" a longer walk)]
Before Su Yu could even breathe a sigh of relief, the System immediately threw out another row of text dripping with mockery.
[Version Main Mission unlocked: "Honkai Impact 3rd: You're Not a True Skyborn If You Don't Play" official server launch!]
[Host, please note that this mission uses tiered rewards. It not only determines how long you get to strut around this world, but more crucially——it will unlock the "Valkyrie Cultivation System."]
[Key point: if you don't want Kiana to get her "license revoked" by Teacher Kevin the moment she returns to that cruel world, then bring me one hundred percent of your focus! This is an essential feature that decides whether she lives to see the finale, got it? Good luck, future Gacha Demon Lord.]
Su Yu rubbed his throbbing temple, and before he could even finish complaining about the mission name, a new dense row of side quest prompts had already filled his entire field of vision.
[Side Quest: The Best Actor's Self-Cultivation.]
[Quest Details: Complete the Honkai Impact 3rd main storyline up to the full memory extraction of the "The Queen's Descent" chapter, and complete the motion capture for the following core characters:]
[Theresa Apocalypse → Suggested actor: this world's Theresa (Magic Girl Teriri)]
[Bronya Zaychik → Suggested actor: this world's Haxxor Bunny, Bronie]
[Murata Himeko → Suggested actor: this world's Murata Himeko]
[Raiden Mei → Suggested actor: ???]
[Herrscher of the Void → Suggested actor: heh heh, take a guess?]
[Note: although Theresa and Himeko don't know martial arts, the System's specially-supplied black-tech mocap suits can automatically reconstruct the character's motion data based on the wearer's emotional resonance. As long as their feelings are in the right place, their bodies will move on their own! Trust foster father, no issues at all!]
Su Yu stared at the three question marks on the fourth line, his brow furrowing.
Raiden Mei.
This world's Counterpart of Mei was Mei.
Dr. Mei.
Kevin's... remote control, in a certain sense.
But Mei's temperament was a hundred and eight thousand miles away from Mei's—er, Raiden Mei's.
Raiden Mei was a gentle, tenacious Yamato Nadeshiko-type swordswoman, while Mei was a scientific fanatic cold to the very bone.
Having Mei play Raiden Mei—the mere image of it made Su Yu's scalp tingle with wrongness.
What's more, Mei knew nothing about Raiden Mei's story, so where would the resonance even come from?
"What am I supposed to do..." Su Yu massaged his temples.
Just then, as if reading his mind, the System popped out another line of text.
This line was a size larger than all the previous ones, flashing with an eerie golden glow.
[Hey, foster father here has a brilliant idea!]
A chill suddenly shot up Su Yu's spine.
Every time this broken System said it had a "brilliant idea," whatever followed was definitely nothing good.
[Since we can't find a suitable actor to play Raiden Mei——]
[Then Host, you'll just have to step up and do it yourself!]
[The reasons are as follows:]
[First, through Kiana's memory extraction, you are the person in this world who understands Raiden Mei best—no one else even comes close.]
[Second, your body, modified by three doses of enhancer, has more than enough physical prowess to support Raiden Mei's swordsmanship.]
[Third, the mocap suit only collects skeletal and muscle movement data—it doesn't film your face. No one will ever know there's a big burly man inside.]
[Fourth, don't you think this is downright sacred?]
[After all, no one understands that "gentle yet powerful" married-woman aura better than you, right? Kept by Eden, toyed with body and soul by the Herrscher of the Void, and endlessly pined after by your own "adopted daughter" Kiana—Mr. Su Yu, the housewife who possesses nothing but gentleness~]
"No way, dude, are you serious? You've got to be kidding me?!" Su Yu shot up from his chair, his voice echoing through the empty office.
Seated on a single-seat sofa not far away, Sirin was biting on a lollipop, flipping through a manga that Nuwa had forced upon her.
Hearing the commotion, she lazily lifted her eyelids, her pupils brimming with contempt.
"Who are you talking to? The air?" Sirin let out a cold snort and casually tossed the manga aside. "Also, the expression on your face right now looks like you just swallowed a whole bitter melon. Human facial muscles really are marvelously varied in their expressions."
"I'm just... pondering a question that concerns my dignity."
Su Yu's lips twitched.
[Foster father has done the math. Given the studio's current staffing, you're the only one who can do Raiden Mei's mocap.]
[Unless you can find, within three days, a woman who is skilled in Japanese kendo, gentle in temperament, over 168 cm tall, and willing to wear a skintight mocap suit——]
[Hm? Can't find one, right? Then it's settled!]
Su Yu slowly sank back into his chair.
He felt that every absurd thing he'd experienced in his entire life, all added together, couldn't match the ridiculousness of this single moment.
The office door was pushed open.
Nuwa poked half her head in: "Boss, Sister Lin Zhaoyu says the three newly-hired concept artists start the day after tomorrow, so she wants you to sign a——"
She caught sight of Su Yu's face, more contorted than if he'd seen a ghost, and her words jammed to a halt halfway.
"Boss? What's wrong with you? You look awful—did you eat something bad?"
Su Yu opened his mouth, then closed it again.
What could he possibly say? That the System wanted him to play Raiden Mei? That he, a full-grown adult man, was about to become Raiden Mei's mocap actor?
"...It's nothing." Su Yu's voice was as dry as if he'd chewed a mouthful of sand. "Nuwa, step outside for now. Let me be alone for a bit."
Nuwa gave him a puzzled look, withdrew her head, and pulled the door shut on her way out.
The office fell silent once more.
A final line of small text popped up on the light screen, carrying a teasing tone that made your teeth itch——
[Good luck out there, "Miss Raiden Mei"~]
Su Yu buried his face in his hands.
Two in the afternoon on July the thirtieth.
Inch Heart Dojo, the mocap studio.
The air conditioner was cranked to maximum, cold wind gusting down from the vents in the ceiling.
Himeko was the first to arrive.
She came wearing a loose white T-shirt and athletic shorts, shuffling in on flip-flops, an unfinished iced Americano in hand.
Her whole being radiated the decadent air of someone who'd "spent half a month lying around at home over summer break."
"Mocap? Sure, fine." She set the iced Americano on the control console and picked up the skintight mocap suit hanging on the rack beside it, giving it a couple of glances. "I'm bored out of my mind on vacation anyway. I still haven't properly thanked you for last time, so consider this repaying the favor."
"That's more than just one favor," Su Yu said, flipping through the storyboard drafts without looking up.
"I know, I know. I can still count exactly how many favors my dad's life is worth." Himeko slung the mocap suit over her shoulder and turned toward the changing room. "But first, spell it out for me—who am I playing?"
"Murata Himeko."
Himeko stopped in her tracks and turned back.
"...You mean that redheaded big sister who wields the Greatsword?"
"Correct."
"Shares a surname with my dad?"
"Your ancestors have a story in another world."
Su Yu's answer was vague and perfunctory.
Himeko stared at him for a few seconds, shrugged, and pushed open the changing room door.
Theresa arrived fifteen minutes after Himeko.
She came bouncing in.
A girl of barely one meter forty-something, wearing a pink athletic jacket, her white twintails swinging back and forth behind her head.
The moment she stepped in she started looking all around, her eyes gleaming like two searchlights.
"Su Yu! Su Yu! Where's the mocap studio, where? Is it that big room with the green markers stuck on it? The machines inside are so cool! If I move around in there, will the little figure on the screen move along with me?"
"Miss Theresa, please change first," Nuwa said, poking half her head out from the control room, a stack of technical documents in her arms.
"Don't call me Miss! Call me teriri!" Theresa corrected her with righteous conviction.
Himeko emerged from the changing room, already dressed in her mocap suit.
The skintight suit, plastered all over with reflective markers, traced the curves of her mature figure.
The elastic fabric of the mocap suit hugged her two long, powerful legs tightly, forming a smooth, full line from the top of her thighs down to her ankles.
Because of the long stretch of inactivity at home over summer break, the muscle lines along her inner thighs were a touch softer than usual, quivering slightly with the shift of her weight each time she took a step.
"Well now, Lady Principal." Himeko waved at Theresa.
"Don't call me Principal! I'm not doing that anymore!" Theresa jumped up, her twintails bouncing twice along with her.
"Okay, okay, teriri." Himeko laughed and stepped aside to let her pass. "Go get changed. Your character is even harder to play than mine."
"Principal?" Su Yu looked at Himeko curiously.
"St. Freya Comprehensive University." Himeko shrugged. "Didn't you graduate from its Shenzhou branch campus? Back when I was in the Far East, Theresa and I were colleagues for a while. She was the principal then, and I was the teacher who got worked to the bone by her."
"And the school's founder was?"
"Cecilia Schariac." Himeko shot Su Yu a somewhat puzzled glance. "Aren't you and Kevin longtime buddies? You don't even know this?"
Su Yu choked. To be honest, back in his university days he'd holed up in his dorm being a slacker every single day, skipping every class he could possibly skip. After several years there were still plenty of classmates whose names he couldn't even call out.
Who the university president was, which people made up the school leadership, who the founder was—asking him that kind of question, you'd be better off asking which cafeteria window served the best food.
At least on that one he actually had authority to speak.
"Kevin's got a tight lip," Su Yu said, naturally shoving the blame onto Kevin. "He rarely talks to us about his parents."
That much was true—Kevin really hadn't talked much about his own parents. Whether there was some deeper reason, Su Yu had no idea, but he had vaguely heard Mei mention a few things.
Something about "if he didn't work hard," he'd have to "go back and inherit the Kaslana family fortune," about that "deadbeat old man who dumped his responsibilities and then sped off with Cecilia to travel the world at light speed"——
Those three short sentences made Su Yu grasp one truth: if he ever really got so poor he couldn't afford to eat, he'd discuss it with Mei and tie Kevin up, haul him back to Europe, and make him inherit the family fortune.
I beat up my bro for three hours, and he finally admitted he's a rich second-generation heir. jpg
Theresa dashed into the changing room and bounced back out in under three minutes.
The mocap suit looked a bit baggy on her, but her sheer spirit and energy more than made up for the difference in body size.
Su Yu stood up and took two prop weapons down from the rack.
He handed the proportionally-scaled model Greatsword to Himeko.
Made of a metal-and-carbon-fiber composite, its weight had been precisely calculated so that the inertia of a swing closely matched a real weapon.
Himeko took it, hefted it one-handed, then gripped the hilt with both hands and gave it a swing.
"Lighter than I imagined." She switched her grip and held it horizontally in front of her, testing it out. "Himeko's combat style is the power type, right? Big, sweeping strikes, no fussing over finesse?"
"More or less—more like the explosive type that concentrates all her strength into a single swing." Su Yu opened his tablet and pulled up reference footage of Himeko's combat moves. "Look at this part——"
Himeko leaned in and watched it a few times.
The unwritten rule of St. Freya Comprehensive University proved its value in this very moment——that school, founded by Cecilia Schariac, required everyone from teachers to administrative staff to "keep fit and strong."
The official line was to set an example for the students, but in reality it was because a student who'd failed a course had once stabbed a professor in a vicious incident during the early years, and the school had enforced mandatory self-defense combat training for everyone ever since.
Himeko had trained with the combat instructor for several years.
The basic mechanics of generating power were nothing new to her.
"Got it."
She stepped back twice, planted herself in the center of the mocap area, and raised the Greatsword overhead.
A breath.
A downward slash.
The dull thud of the blade cleaving the air echoed through the empty mocap studio.
On the control room screen, the skeletal data model synchronously completed a flawless downward slash.
Nuwa murmured in awe: "So impressive..."
Su Yu stared at the data on the screen.
The System's specially-supplied black-tech mocap suit not only collected skeletal movement data, but could also automatically correct details based on the wearer's emotional resonance.
Although Himeko didn't know Himeko's story, that aura of "betting everything on a single strike" was a natural fit with her own personality.
Theresa's recording went even more smoothly.
This little white-haired shrimp was born for the stage.
She wielded her prop cross, vaulting and spinning through the mocap area, her movements so fluid that everyone present forgot she was only one meter forty-something.
And what really got them was her imagination—Su Yu showed her the reference footage just twice, and she added three flashy moves that weren't in the original, even solemnly assigning a line of dialogue to each.
"Divine Punishment——Descend!"
"teriri, that character doesn't shout that."
"But shouting it looks cooler!"
The two of them finished all their recordings before four in the afternoon.
Fu Hua's data had already been captured earlier during the joint recording with Kiana—an experience that had even caused a qualitative leap in Fu Hua's martial arts.
In her own words: "The me of now could beat the me from before the mocap in three moves."
Cheng Lingshuang and Ma Feima had also made great strides in the process of recording various monster combat movements; the studio's security force was already a world apart from what it had been.
In the control room, Nuwa was organizing the final batch of data.
Su Yu stood beside the director's chair, staring at a single blank name on the quest list.
Raiden Mei.
He drew a deep breath.
Then he opened the storage locker and took out the mocap suit the System had "thoughtfully" prepared.
The process of changing was pure torment.
With every snap he fastened, Su Yu felt another piece of his dignity shatter.
By the time he walked out of the changing room, his complexion had already turned about the same shade as the yogurt about to expire outside a convenience store.
Nuwa pulled up Raiden Mei's character illustration and projected it onto the large screen in the mocap studio.
Long purple-black hair cascading to her waist, an odachi in hand, her expression gentle yet resolute.
That was Raiden Mei—the Yamato Nadeshiko, the rice-cooking wife, and also the most important person to Kiana.
The glow of the screen reflected off Su Yu's stiff face.
Theresa was the first to lose it.
She looked at the Raiden Mei on the screen, then at Su Yu in the mocap suit with his soul-dead expression, her lips trembled twice, and then she let out a laugh worthy of the history books.
That sound was like someone had pumped helium into a goose's throat.
"Pff—BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Su—Su Yu, you're going to play——pff, you're going to play this—hahahaha!!"
Himeko sat in a folding chair beside her, both hands clamped over her mouth, her whole frame shaking violently. Her face flushed crimson, her abs braced into a slab of iron from holding in the laughter.
She struggled to maintain a last shred of composure, but tears had already welled at the corners of her eyes.
"Su—Su Yu..." Her voice came in broken fragments. "You've got this..."
The laughter packed into that "you've got this" was richer than any words she'd ever spoken in her entire life.
And over in the corner of the mocap studio, the "Kiana" leaning against the wall while hugging a blue-and-white dragon plushie was watching all of this with an extremely subtle look in her eyes.
Sirin looked at that purple-haired girl's illustration on the screen, then at Su Yu's face, as if he'd been stripped of his underwear in public.
That man who had faced her down with such composure in the consciousness space.
At this moment he was so mortified that even the base of his neck had flushed completely red.
Sirin lowered her head, burying her chin into the head of the plush dragon in her arms.
The corners of her mouth, beyond her control, curled upward little by little.
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