Orchis watched the Astral Express depart, remaining where she was without taking any further action.
She had no intention of following the main storyline to Jarilo-VI and the Xianzhou, choosing instead to stay on the Herta Space Station.
(Although, as a guide character, it would be a good choice to spoil some local intel for the little gray-haired girl during the early stages on each planet...)
But considering that doing more could easily lead to more mistakes, Orchis was being very cautious. Before receiving any specific feedback from the player, and before Aha's next appearance, she was not prepared to act rashly.
Besides, her production points weren't looking too optimistic, to be honest.
Orchis had used a massive number of points to create this beautiful girl's avatar. As such, during the game's opening story, she didn't just make a brief appearance to get acquainted with the little gray-haired girl; she had actually, tangibly, almost swayed the Stellaron-infused girl from her Trailblazing journey.
Although the final outcome managed to connect back to the original script without any major mishaps, it had still briefly deviated from its trajectory.
Orchis needed production points to live and to act. Participating in and modifying the plot required an even greater amount.
It felt like she was in prison, where even breathing was a crime. Just how hard was it to be this "little girlfriend" character?
The girl let out a breath of turbid air and shook her head.
She watched as her body gradually became transparent—a sign that she was being rejected by the world. She couldn't withstand any more turmoil.
(I'll just find a place to settle down and wait for the version update.)
If she could successfully survive this time... Orchis began to think about the setting for the next script.
Getting up, the doll-like girl made her way to a hidden and remote section of the Herta Space Station.
It was incredibly dim here, the scene awash in a blue-green glow, filled with all sorts of sinister and cold cultivation pods and bio-chambers.
If one listened quietly, they could faintly hear the hoarse roars of various strange lifeforms.
[Seclusion Zone]
Orchis knew that in a future main story quest, one of the collaborators of the Simulated Universe, Ms. Ruan Mei, would visit the Herta Space Station and use this place as a site for her biological experiments.
Ruan Mei had abandoned many cat cakes here and even created a replica of something as absurd as an Emanator of Propagation. Because she didn't clean up after herself properly, she left the task to the little gray-haired girl, a mere substitute, which resulted in the poor Trailblazer nearly getting skewered into a hedgehog by the Star-Crushing Swarm King.
It was also one of the few major crises in the main story where the little gray-haired girl almost lost her life.
And the protagonist's crisis is the heroine's opportunity... A hero saving a damsel in distress is always a beautiful thing.
With that thought, Orchis's face appeared extremely pale and weak. She curled up in a small corner of the lab like a freezing little animal, on the verge of death. She closed her eyes and fell into a deep sleep, resisting the world's forced expulsion.
She had to conserve her energy as much as possible, waiting alone for this difficult time to pass, hoping that when she woke up again, it would be to good news from Aha.
Or perhaps, she might never wake up at all.
(Thinking about it that way, it's strangely melancholic.)
To disappear in a corner no one knows about, without troubling anyone—to depart all alone is a bit too lonely.
If she had just accepted her fate from the start and approached this transmigration with the mindset of living out her remaining days, she might have been able to become friends with the characters she liked.
She could even have used her production points to splurge on some good food before she died.
Well, I don't like such overly pessimistic thoughts.
Before I become timid, I choose to take the leap. I firmly believe that good fortune favors the brave who strive to welcome their destiny.
[Game Production Capacity: 22]
Will this unknown ghost die unremembered? Or will she gain the recognition of the player and the world, and be reborn?
"I shall wait and see."
The solitary doll-like girl's eyes dimmed, and like an empty shell, she slumped against the wall, completely still.
-----------------
A script needs actors, and actors need an audience.
When it comes to the audience of a game world, it has to be the player base!
The scene shifts to the real world.
The launch of Honkai: Star Rail first closed beta sparked heated discussions among the vast player community.
New games, under the deluge of marketing from their publishers, are never short on hype. And Star Rail was a flagship product developed by the domestic internet-famous company, miHoYo. With the gems of Honkai Impact 3rd and Genshin Impact preceding it, it was no exaggeration to say Star Rail was born with a silver spoon in its mouth. Many players came to check it out with curiosity, ready to give it a sharp critique even if it turned out to be trash. But as it turned out, after playing, it seemed... surprisingly decent?
Although the UI was heavily "marinated" in Genshin Impact's flavor, the graphics were indeed an iterative upgrade, and the space travel aspect felt very sci-fi!
Streamers on major platforms began broadcasting Star Rail, building up massive momentum. At this moment, the game seemed to be brimming with vibrant life.
Everything was flourishing. miHoYo was on the up and up!
[Jie jie jie...]
Aha left the world of Star Rail and climbed the Imaginary Tree to arrive in reality.
It now transformed into a meme, a data entity, a digital pet parasitizing the internet.
The passage of time in the game and in the real world were completely different.
For Aha, rather than following Orchis, it could enjoy the fruits of her labor much faster by simply playing the game and experiencing the story from the outside.
This was truly skipping ahead in life.
From a player's perspective, let's see how Mister Baimo plans to perform her role as the heroine.
[First, find a livestream to parasitize.]
The Aeon of Elation browsed through Bilibili's streaming section and quickly locked onto its target.
It was a VTuber with long, straight pink hair and red eyes, very much to its taste.
She wore a quirky penguin pajama set with a mask on her head. An uploader named [Kisaragi] and often called Miss Geng, the mask known as Miss Geng child.
Why did Aha pinpoint this girl from the vast sea of people?
You see, Shaoji, the person in charge of our Honkai IP, loves to kill off characters at the moment of their greatest beauty.
At his core, he loves to feed the audience something a little bloodthirsty, a little tragic.
And this pink-haired girl was the very source of evil that had worsened Shaoji's condition.
During a previous Honkai Impact 3rd preview program, this uploader was invited as a guest to chat with Shaoji. At that time, Kisaragi had proposed her idea for Mei's QTE during Elysia's final dance. She suggested letting the player control Mei, holding a sword and repeatedly stabbing it into Elysia's body—a tragic love-and-kill scenario. The emotionally charged performance would surely be delicious.
While the other hosts chuckled and said that was a bit too inhuman, Shaoji's response was shocking.
"That's so, so cool!"
And so, the scriptwriters, as if enlightened, strayed further and further down the path of inhumanity, serving up the utterly insane and romantic story of Amphoreus.
-----------------
[Notice: Aha has entered the livestream.]
The Aeon of Elation's entry into the livestream didn't cause much of a stir.
After all, Kisaragi was a major uploader in Bilibili's anime community; it was impossible for her to keep track of every single viewer.
At this moment, the pink-haired furball was bantering with her chat, telling little jokes.
"This streamer likes to be impartial, so there won't be any serious plot analysis. It's all just outrageous statements for entertainment, so please don't take it seriously."
"If someone attacks, I'll surrender immediately."
Hedging, hedging hard.
Aha took a look and found the chat in this stream to be quite peculiar.
Kisaragi had just finished fighting the Doomsday Beast. With a small segment of the story concluded, she began to review it.
Other streams were discussing how boring the 12+ rating was, or complaining about it being turn-based again, putting pressure on miHoYo.
But what was this stream doing? The streamer herself was leading the charge into lewd territory, analyzing just how delicious our Stellaron-infused girl was.
"I haven't seen anyone pick the male protagonist so far. I can only say this female protagonist is really something."
"I really want her to kabedon me. I want her to pin me against a wall and have her way with me, lifting my chin with a wicked smile and teasing me softly in my ear."
Such wild words came flying out.
"She has so many little details, you know? A dazed little expression paired with a more mature voice, like one of those cool, aloof, and frigid young ladies. A prim and proper, melancholic beauty who has these roguish, improper idle animations. When you want to protect her, you find she's a head taller than other female characters like March 7th, which creates a dramatic and cute contrast when she gets close to other characters."
"And you know what the key is? The key is that this character archetype *is* the protagonist! If she were a character you had to pull from the gacha, she might not be as prominent. But once you step into her shoes, once she's the character we can control, the feeling just hits different, you know? Many of her traits become incredibly cute because she's in the protagonist's position."
Looking left and right, staring at that foolish yet innocent little expression.
Kisaragi was really into it, constantly tapping on the screen, enjoying the protagonist's long legs and the thigh ring that looked like you could pinch the flesh.
"Beneath that cold exterior, she must be really repressed when she lets loose in battle. A cool beauty paired with moral decay and a childish mental age. Whether she's pinning down a smaller girl or being on the receiving end of a 'big-tiddy onee-san,' oh my, that height difference is just so shippable."
[???"
[Are there any humans left here?]
[The streamer is a connoisseur.]
[I think it's the streamer who's repressed.]
[Miss Geng, don't get your stream banned.]
Discussing character strength leads to arguments. Discussing the plot leads to differing opinions.
But when talking about some delightful, lewd topics, humanity becomes a community with a shared destiny.
A world where no one gets hurt is achieved by occasionally going a little crazy.
Lewdness is a great invention that can bridge any generation gap!
The point of playing games is to have fun, after all.
In her small bedroom, Miss Geng, whose real appearance was almost identical to her virtual avatar, nodded in satisfaction. The girl twirled a strand of her hair, enjoying the harmonious atmosphere of her stream. Humming a little tune, she felt quite content getting paid by miHoYo to promote their game.
To be honest, though, she herself wasn't very excited about the opening story.
It wasn't that the plot was particularly good or bad, but she had already run through the opening several times during the closed beta. She had even made a world-building guide video for newcomers to get into the game. Now she had to stream the main story again and watch the details closely. From her personal experience, the only difference between the official launch and the final beta version was that the protagonist was given a name.
Next, she could recall with her eyes closed the official prank choice of whether the little gray-haired girl would get on the train or stay at the space station. Then she'd run around the Overworld and Underworld of the ice planet, and finally, the protagonist would raise the Lance of Preservation, the "Wildfire" BGM would kick in, and she'd point her weapon at Cocolia. This was pretty much the fourth time around!
Four whole times!!!
Who wouldn't yawn going through this plot again?
"Hm?"
Just as Kisaragi rubbed her eyes, a tear welling up in the corner, she suddenly saw the little gray-haired girl on screen, who was supposed to be collapsed in March 7th's arms, stand up and follow behind the main group.
Huh? What's with this cutscene?
If I remember correctly, shouldn't the little gray-haired girl have remained unconscious until the next day, then start interacting with everyone to get acquainted?
Why would they specifically change the plot to have the protagonist stay conscious here?
Oh, wait, impartiality, right.
miHoYo, you little rascals, I've figured out your little scheme.
Kisaragi saw through it all, a sly, teasing smile appearing on her face.
There is only one truth!
Our Star Rail is meant to be a mainstream game that grows big and strong, attracting a wide audience of casual players. miHoYo tasted success with Genshin Impact and Tears of Themis and saw that the spending power of the female player base is quite impressive. We have to be more female-friendly, balance the audience, and not write overly intimate physical interactions. Otherwise, it'll be hard to sell future characters. So, it's not appropriate for the protagonist to collapse into either Dan Heng's or little March's arms. She has to stand up and walk on her own!
Sigh, walking on thin ice. Stelle has had such a bitter life since birth, living under the interests of adults, never having it good.
miHoYo, think about your original intentions! Think about the bridge interaction system on the Hyperion that you killed off!
I want to see the protagonist become the Galactic Harem Queen and sleep her way across the universe!
Just as Miss Geng was feeling heartbroken, tapping her screen to quickly skip to the next part of the story, she was surprised to find something else was wrong. A small change for the sake of impartiality shouldn't be taking this long.
All they had to do was have the protagonist stand up, walk forward, and then pan the camera to the sky to end the scene. There was no reason for it to still be playing.
Why was the little gray-haired girl now clutching her forehead, staggering forward, with the other two gently supporting her? Was this to provide the emotional value of her being the group's pampered pet? The adults of the Express Crew were walking further and further away, and the protagonist had actually fallen a long way behind the others, getting separated?!
Something's not right... there's a problem!
"——"
Kisaragi's gaze sharpened. We old-school anime fans are extremely sensitive to things like pacing in a scene.
This wasn't the end at all, but a special cutscene that was about to happen. The girl's expression became incredibly serious.
It was a script that wasn't in her memory, a sign of a coming storm.
Sure enough, the little gray-haired girl on screen stopped in her tracks, vaguely sensing something, and looked behind her.
In that instant, the camera pulled back into a super wide-angle perspective, encompassing the entire vista of the Herta Space Station.
Light, stars, and the whistling, falling fire of meteors made the scenery of heaven and earth infinitely romantic.
A girl appeared in the center of the frame, the absolute protagonist in the heart of it all.
She emerged through the light, yet she outshone the light, shadows, and iridescence themselves, as if everything paled in comparison to her.
But her face couldn't be seen clearly. It was hidden by a parasol, the faint glimpse of half a face leaving the audience to all sorts of wild speculation.
Immediately after, the screen went black. The little gray-haired girl blinked, and the mysterious girl was nowhere to be found in the space station. There was nothing.
It was as if it had all been an illusion.
But whether it was an illusion or not, the players could easily find out by replaying the video. Besides, there were so many pairs of eyes watching in the livestream; it was impossible for everyone to have made the same mistake.
"?"
Kisaragi was dumbfounded. Not only her, but the entire chat fell into a brief silence.
Everyone was experiencing this part of the story for the first time right at launch along with the streamer. Therefore, the streamer's progress was the fastest among the general public. Thus, the appearance of that mysterious girl was completely without warning, without the slightest preparation, a completely unexpected first encounter.
To experience the artistry of this scene without any spoilers was an incomparably exhilarating feeling!
There was no sound, no words, and the character's face was not truly revealed, yet with an appearance of less than a second, she had firmly captured everyone's hearts and minds.
The silence in the livestream was finally broken by a deafening uproar.
[This, this feeling is...!]
[Ugh, don't you dare touch my Stellaron!]
[Haven't all the launch characters already been announced? There are even tier lists out! Who is this girl?]
[The divine power of miHoYo's art team! A space station under a meteor shower, an encounter under the moonlight—it's drawn so romantically.]
[If a scene like this existed, shouldn't it have been promoted by all the video creators or even leaked as a wallpaper during the beta?]
[Checking the status of the beta testers. Can our NGA leaker friends do something? You datamined for nothing.]
[New content? Did miHoYo hide an update package and only add it on official launch?! Going this big? They even kept it from the test server?]
[I declare her my wife for this season]
A new white-haired wife has appeared, how can we stand still~~~
One image, one piece of art. As expected, beauty is the most direct entry ticket for an anime-style game.
Her debut immediately sparked heated discussions. No one knew the girl's true identity, and the audience's curiosity was thoroughly ignited.
Kisaragi, on the other hand, looked at the roaring crowd in her chat, quickly put on her headphones, and sat up straight. I have to sit up properly to play this!
To add a new character at the very beginning of the launch, especially when the script was already at a very high degree of completion, was completely unreasonable.
The first impression an anime-style game gives is extremely important, so the initial content is always reviewed over and over, polished for years.
Publishers usually prepare one or two major versions' worth of content in advance. From the inside information Kisaragi had, Penacony was almost finished. Under these circumstances, to modify the early story and push out a new character?
This character... what exactly was miHoYo planning?
The unknown would lead to anticipation. The level of discussion would be visibly high. Kisaragi braced herself, rapidly pushing the game's story forward.
_________
(TN: Pretty sure the Vtuber is a reference to Kisara from Engange Kiss)