The takeout hadn't arrived yet, so Su Yu decided to use this waiting time to push the work progress forward a bit further.
"Aside from the plot."
Like performing a magic trick, Su Yu pulled several freshly printed full-color design schematics from the document bag beside him with a swish, spreading them out on the coffee table and pinning them down next to Kiana's phone.
"Since we're making a holographic game, the character designs are the face of the operation. Especially your Valkyrie armor—it has to be handsome, it has to be cool, it has to be something that makes people want to 'whale' the moment they see it."
Kiana's attention was instantly captured. She leaned in like a curious cat, her head almost bumping into Su Yu's.
When her gaze landed on those familiar drawings, her eyes instantly went a bit unfocused, as if she had traveled through time.
"This is..."
"These are a few preliminary schemes I restored based on the System... cough, based on my inspiration."
Su Yu pointed to the first drawing. It depicted a tight-fitting combat suit with a white base and orange lines, complete with star-shaped hair clips.
"Domain Unit: White Comet."
"White Comet?"
Kiana blurted out, her voice carrying a sense of nostalgia.
What was drawn on the paper was the armor she was most familiar with.
The white main body, the orange-red energy veins, the form-fitting combat suit design.
Su Yu had even labeled the details of the shoulder armor, wrist guards, and combat boots, with the margins densely packed with notes.
"B-Rank Valkyrie Armor: Domain Unit: White Comet," Su Yu said, pointing at the blueprint. "This is the first set of armor issued to you after becoming a Valkyrie, the so-called default skin, right?"
Kiana nodded, her gaze wandering over the drawing.
"I looked up some materials and made conjectures based on the scenes you described before."
Su Yu spread out the other drawings as well.
"But after all, I haven't seen the real thing with my own eyes. Many details might still rely on my 'brain patch' (imagination). You're the original owner, so you review the draft. See if anything is wrong?"
He wasn't entirely talking nonsense. After all, there was still a big difference between viewing a Valkyrie armor through a game and seeing the real deal.
Honkai Impact 3rd had to consider mobile phone specs, so many aspects of the details could only be simplified.
Kiana picked up a drawing and examined it carefully.
"Here," she pointed to the position of the shoulder armor, her tone becoming professional. "The angle is wrong. It will jam the shoulder like this, affecting the height the arms can be raised when shooting with dual guns."
"And this pattern..." She pointed to the energy lines on the chest. "It's not this kind of stiff straight line. It's like biological blood vessels, like this—"
She gestured with her hands, and Su Yu immediately sketched a rough draft in the blank space nearby.
"Right, right, right, that's the feeling. I didn't expect you to understand ergonomics so well!"
Kiana's tone unwittingly became lighthearted again. The heavy self-dissection from earlier was thrown to the back of her mind. She had now completely entered the role of "Technical Consultant."
She flipped through the drawings, offering suggestions for revision every now and then.
Su Yu recorded rapidly on the side, occasionally asking a few follow-up questions about the details.
"The seam for the leg armor is here, not there. That part is a soft connection."
"The color of the visor is too dark. It should be more blue, like the sky."
"And this! The thrusters on the back, you drew them too stingily! In reality, they need to be a size bigger. It's only powerful when they blast off..."
Unknowingly, the sunlight moved across the coffee table, casting shadows that gradually lengthened.
Kiana lay on the edge of the coffee table, her chin resting on her crossed arms, staring at the rough drafts that had been changed beyond recognition.
"You draw pretty well," she muttered. "Did you learn painting before?"
"Self-taught." Su Yu rotated his sore wrist and twisted his neck with a grimace. "As an indie game producer, a programmer who can't draw isn't a good planner."
He couldn't exactly say he had a cheat, could he? He was a bit afraid of getting banned.
"Oh, an all-rounder." She paused, then asked, "Then why didn't you draw The Three-Year Sakura yourself before?"
"Uh." Su Yu's gaze drifted a bit. "You know, I'm a lazy dog."
"Tell the truth."
After spending these few days together, Kiana had roughly figured out some of this man's quirks.
"I just felt that you needed to meet different people in this world and make new friends," Su Yu said. "I wanted you and Griseo to meet."
Kiana was silent for a while.
"Idiot."
She whispered a single word, as if to divert that trace of sweetness in her heart, and looked down again at the White Comet design that she had revised countless times.
That was her starting point. The nervousness of wearing it for the first time, the panic of activating the thrusters in actual combat for the first time, then gradually becoming handy with it, and later... it became her most trusted partner.
"There are roughly no more problems with the structure," Su Yu put the revised draft aside. "Then let's talk about the armor itself. Are there any special settings or stories? Like hidden skills or something?"
Kiana propped her chin up and thought for a moment.
"White Comet is a third-generation Valkyrie armor. The design concept is... uh, it seems to be called something like 'General Purpose All-Domain Combat Armor'." She scratched her head. "Anyway, it means it can be used in any situation."
"Sounds very practical. Suitable for newbies."
"It is indeed quite practical." Kiana nodded. "Only Valkyries of B-rank or above can wear it. It's equipped with jet thrusters and military visors, these kinds of enhanced armaments."
"Although it can't compare to those black-tech level Godslayer weapons, it's considered quite advanced among the third-generation armors."
As she spoke, she tapped the back position on the drawing.
"There's a power furnace here. White Comet has a special system called... the Burst System."
"Burst System?" Su Yu's eyes lit up. Of course he knew what the Burst System was; he could recite it backward.
But he had no choice. Who told this damn System that he and Kiana had to play along with each other?
Besides, his knowledge came from the game, which indeed couldn't compare to Kiana's serious experience.
"Right, in English it's called Burst Mode."
Kiana gestured as she explained.
"It overloads and releases the Honkai energy in the back power furnace at several times the rate, causing the armor's various performance metrics to skyrocket for a short time."
"After activation, the thrusters will spray continuously, and golden light patterns will appear at the armor's connection points. The whole person looks like they're burning. It's super cool!"
Su Yu recorded rapidly.
"How do you activate it?"
"The activation button is here." Kiana pointed to her own neck. "There's a V-shaped crystal structure at the neck. Just press it. But you can also unlock it with a voiceprint command."
"Voiceprint command? You mean you can activate it just by shouting a phrase? Magical Girl?"
"Yeah."
"What did you set it as?"
Kiana's movements paused.
She looked away, the tips of her ears quietly turning a bit red.
"...Neko Charm."
"What?"
"Neko Charm!" She raised her volume, her tone carrying a mix of embarrassment and anger. "Cat Magic!"
Su Yu froze for two seconds, then couldn't hold back and laughed out loud.
"What are you laughing at!" Kiana glared at him, the blush on her cheeks becoming more obvious. "I was young back then! Chuunibyou phase, understand?! Is it wrong to think the phrase sounded cute and imposing?!"
"I didn't say anything." Su Yu coughed, trying hard to suppress his smile. "It's... quite full of personality. And very moe."
Kiana huffed and turned her face to the side, ignoring this tasteless guy.
Su Yu wrote down "Burst System Activation Command: Neko Charm" in the remarks column. He deliberated for a moment, then added a parenthetical note with immense soul behind it—
(Milk Perky Enough).
It belonged to the memories of veteran captains.
"By the way," he continued asking. "I see a lot of cat and pentagram patterns on your armor. Did you add them yourself? Or is it a default skin from the factory?"
Kiana's expression became somewhat subtle, as if recalling a past she couldn't bear to look back on.
"...You could say it was forced."
"How so?"
"Before receiving new armor, Valkyries of the Far East Branch have to fill out a form called the 'Personalization Customization Details'."
Kiana's tone revealed deep helplessness.
"My mind was blank at the time. I didn't know what to write at all, so I just casually filled in two patterns to turn it in... As a result, Teacher Himeko said no, it was too perfunctory, and forced me to fill out the entire form."
She sighed a long sigh, looking like she had nothing left to live for.
"Do you know how long that form was? A whole three pages!"
"So you filled three pages with cats and pentagrams?" Su Yu imagined the scene and wanted to laugh a little.
"What could I do!" Kiana spread her hands righteously. "It's not like I wanted to fill in so many. It was Teacher Himeko who insisted I finish filling it out!"
She recalled the scene from back then, and the corners of her mouth unconsciously curled up.
"Teacher Himeko stood right next to me, arms crossed, watching me write. I wrote a line, she checked a line. If I wrote 'None', she sent it back for me to rewrite. If I drew a circle to be perfunctory, she also sent it back... In the end, I was forced into a corner and had no choice but to add cat paw prints and little stars everywhere, filling the form to the brim."
"Sounds like Teacher Himeko was very strict."
"More than just strict," Kiana muttered. "Simply a devil instructor. But if she hadn't forced me like that, I wouldn't have been able to wear this unique armor."
The sunlight outside the window softened. Orange-red light poured in, dyeing the entire room in a warm hue.
Su Yu added a few more lines to the document, then raised his head.
"So you don't actually like cats and pentagrams that much?"
"It's not that I don't like them..." Kiana cupped her chin. "I just don't care that much. But now when I see these two patterns, I always think of that afternoon, think of the day I filled out the form."
She paused.
"Thinking of Teacher Himeko frowning, calling me an idiot while earnestly teaching me how to fill out the form."
The room was quiet for a moment, save for the sound of a gentle breeze rustling the papers.
The design drafts on the coffee table were gently flipped by the wind, revealing the drawing labeled "White Comet."
It was covered in those cat paws and stars that once drove her crazy but were now regarded as treasures.
"Next set." Su Yu broke the silence, digging out another design draft. "Valkyrie Ranger."
Kiana glanced at the drawing and leaned back against the sofa.
"That one, strictly speaking, doesn't count as armor." She swung her legs. "It's just the Valkyrie uniform of the Far East Branch. The Ranger is my special model."
"Uniforms can be customized too?"
"Yes. Theresa said something about encouraging students to show their individuality, so the styles for me, Mei, and Bronya are all different." Kiana gestured. "Mei's is a modified military uniform style. Bronya's is about the same. Mine is... like this."
She pointed to the short jacket and cape styling on the drawing. The cape also featured a very conspicuous Schicksal emblem.
The Ranger, being a more casual style of attire, didn't require many corrections. Under Kiana's guidance, Su Yu quickly modified the basic areas.
He looked carefully at the details on the design draft—the bullets densely hung at the waist, the flowing cape. The overall style was completely different from White Comet's tight combat suit; it had a very dashing feel.
After all, the Ranger was once known as the "God Ranger."
In the initial Bleeding Abyss, the God Ranger equipped with Lier (later known as Xiao Yun Red) fought against the teleporting Titan Papa who started with zero-frame moves.
It truly ignited the Action Soul.
The difficulty of playing an Abyss round was no less than walking a tightrope.
"So much ammo hanging on the waist?"
"The uniform's defensive performance is very poor. Wearing it for combat means purely long-range shooting," Kiana explained. "Only by hanging more ammo can you fight for longer. Although it doesn't look very good, I guess."
"Who says? I think it looks great." Su Yu marked a few strokes on the design draft. "It has a kind of... capable, handsome feeling. Very dashing."
Kiana huffed and didn't reply, but her expression was clearly pleased.
"By the way, this cape." Su Yu tapped that piece of fabric with his pen tip. "Why choose a cape?"
Kiana's movements paused.
"...No special reason."
"Really?"
"Really." She turned her head away, her voice a bit muffled. "Just felt that a cape is more stylish. It catches the wind when moving."
Su Yu didn't pry further; he just waited quietly.
He knew there was definitely a story behind this.
"...I originally wanted to make it a trench coat."
Kiana's voice grew quieter, carrying a sense of awkwardness.
"A long trench coat like that stinky old dad's."
Su Yu looked up, a look of understanding flashing in his eyes.
"But a trench coat is too heavy and inconvenient for movement." Kiana tugged at the tips of her hair. "So in the end, it was changed to a cape."
She spoke very casually, as if she were merely stating an insignificant fact.
But Su Yu noticed her lowered eyelashes and her shoulders tightening slightly when she mentioned "stinky old dad."
"Siegfried?"
"Yeah."
"He wears a trench coat too?"
"He's always running around in that tattered gray trench coat, like a homeless person."
Kiana's tone held a few degrees of disdain, but also a few degrees of reliance.
"Even though it has several holes in it, he won't change into a new one. Saying things like 'this trench coat has been with me for many years, it's an old buddy'."
She curled her lips.
"And every time he comes back, he reeks of alcohol and doesn't shave. He's incredibly sloppy."
"Sounds like you despise him."
"Of course!" Kiana's voice pitched up a few degrees, as if covering up something. "He's just an irresponsible stinky old dad! When I was little, he often left me home alone, leaving behind a pile of messes—"
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