In the period that followed, miHoYo entered a brief phase of stable growth.
Aside from rushing to complete Honkai Impact 3rd's main story, Hokuto also found time to co-author the Anti-Entropy novel with two "Doctors," and to draw a manga together with Mei.
Both were released on miHoYo's official website—and both were very well received.
Seele, the "ordinary" girl who used to know Bronya Zaychik when she was still the Ural Silver Wolf, also made an early debut in the players' field of view.
So when miHoYo announced that Seele would be entering the gacha pool in the next main story update, player response was overwhelmingly positive.
Hokuto, of course, accepted this praise with a clear conscience—after all, the following storyline really was quite healing.
Though... the process had its ups and downs.
Naturally, during this period, he also discovered some issues within miHoYo.
The biggest being: the team was severely understaffed.
At present, the reason Honkai Impact 3rd could continue at its current development pace was largely thanks to Hokuto multitasking across multiple roles, plus some outsourced help.
If they were to draw another game next… with only this few people at miHoYo, development would be impossible.
But hiring people casually didn't seem appropriate either.
It wasn't about gender—that the whole studio was girls—it was something deeper. He just felt that the average person working alongside them would probably see their blood pressure spike.
Severely impacting work efficiency.
As for solutions...
After discussing it with everyone, Hokuto came up with a rough idea: he could open a "branch studio."
However, clearly there was still a problem to solve before putting that into motion.
Since he couldn't be in two places at once, he needed someone trustworthy and professional to take charge of the branch—someone who could regularly report back progress so things didn't spiral out of control.
But for now… he hadn't found anyone suitable for the job.
That was Hokuto's brief summary of miHoYo's current situation.
At the moment, he was in the studio, waiting for the latest update of Honkai Impact 3rd to go live, and preparing for a scheduled stream with the Fairy Lady from a few days ago.
Yes, this time he (Otto) would be watching the Fairy Lady play Honkai Impact 3rd.
And naturally, he had no objection to this kind of event that could boost the game's popularity.
After all...
[Current Honkai Impact 3rd User Count: 5,056,123]
Meanwhile, at Penguin Games—
Secretary Zhang, who had previously hinted to Li Yue that he should study Honkai Impact 3rd, once again visited the game development department.
The programmers were glued to their screens, occasionally searching a webpage or copy-pasting a block of code.
"How's it going?" Secretary Zhang walked up behind one of the programmers and asked.
"No good. The 3D engine you gave us can't compare to the one in Honkai Impact 3rd at all. The gap is too big. It's completely unusable." The programmer, thick-haired, shook his head.
Secretary Zhang frowned. "Aren't they both just 3D engines? Even if it's not great, can't you just tweak it a little?"
Programmer: "..."
That sentence nearly spiked the programmer's blood pressure. Tweak it? Are you serious?
Can you tweak a stone tool into iron?
"What? What's the issue? Just say it—we'll work through it together."
"This…" Like hell talking to you will help. You don't even understand any of this.
The programmer looked helpless. Still, he had some emotional intelligence, so he shifted the topic: "Our team lead hasn't come in for days now. Do you know what's going on? If he were here, maybe he'd have an idea."
"Your team lead… hasn't come in these past few days?" Secretary Zhang looked surprised. He had too much on his plate to track every single employee's status.
"You really didn't know?" the programmer asked.
"No, I didn't."
At this point, Secretary Zhang lost interest in the technical talk. He reached into his pocket, pulled out his phone, and started walking toward the door.
Click—
Just as he reached the office door—
Someone pushed it open from the other side. It was Li Yue—the very person Secretary Zhang had been about to contact.
"Old Li! I was just about to call you."
Secretary Zhang paused, then asked tentatively, "What happened? Some emergency at home?"
"As for skipping work these last few days, I'm willing to accept whatever punishment the company sees fit," Li Yue replied calmly.
"Eh~ if it really was an emergency, I can help smooth things over with upper management. No big deal." Secretary Zhang was clearly a smooth talker.
"Yeah… if I had to say, I did have something urgent come up."
Li Yue glanced around the office and, in a casual tone, dropped a bombshell: "I'm planning to submit my resignation."
"Psh, I thought you were gonna say— Wait, what?! You're resigning?!"
Secretary Zhang nearly shouted.
His eyes went wide like brass bells.
Li Yue remained calm, nodded slowly. "That's right."
"This…"
Secretary Zhang was stunned.
After a while, he came to his senses. "Why the sudden resignation?"
"Well… it's complicated. You can think of it as a moment of insanity," Li Yue said with self-deprecation.
"I really don't get it," Secretary Zhang frowned.
Li Yue patted him on the shoulder. "Don't worry about it, Old Zhang. I'll handle things myself from here. It's got nothing to do with you."
"...Fine. Take care of yourself."
Since Li Yue said as much, there was nothing more for Secretary Zhang to add.
He stayed a bit longer, then left the department.
Afterward, Li Yue checked on the programmers, gave them some reminders, and even helped fix a few issues in the code.
He originally intended to report his resignation to upper management right away—but one look at the time showed it was nearly lunch break.
So he decided to wait.
While waiting, he opened a certain pink app to check out the hottest game lately.
He wanted to see what kind of new tricks Honkai Impact 3rd had pulled this time.
...
...
On the dot.
As soon as maintenance ended, Honkai Impact 3rd servers went live again.
These days were nothing like before. With the game's booming popularity, more and more streamers had begun livestreaming it.
Titles like "Newbie Starting Out: Today We Try Honkai Impact 3rd," "Helping Viewers Pull Gacha/Train Accounts/Clear Abyss," and so on flooded the scene.
But none of it diminished the Fairy Lady's popularity.
In fact, being the first to take the plunge, her popularity had only surged.
Right now, Elysia's stream was in full swing.
"Dearest mountain sparrow~♪"
As that soft, familiar voice echoed—
The stream displayed a stretch of deep blue sky. A pink streak of light arced across it, gliding gently toward verdant, lofty mountains.
Between the peaks, a beautiful garden—like a fairy's sanctuary—gradually came into view.
"Please bring my arrows, my flowers, and my love~~"
The pink light neared the garden. Petals swirled gently in the wind.
"To that lone traveler walking in silence~♪"
The pink light burst into bloom. Petals scattered in all directions.
As always, pure and flawless, the Fairy Lady gracefully floated at the center of the screen.
"Hi~~ Did you miss me?"
"No matter where or when, Elysia will always answer your call~♪"