"Just as I thought, this is what we went through at Herta Space Station before!"
"What!?"
March 7th and Himeko were both a little surprised. Dan Heng then looked at Himeko and said,
"If I'm not mistaken, you should be the one appearing in the next part of the story."
"N-No way... This game can see our past? That's kind of scary..."
"Uh, you can get scared?"
"Hey, this young lady is just a weak little girl, okay!"
"Enough. Let's get through the quest story first."
Back in Lao Mu's livestream.
He was controlling Kafka as she walked through the Space Station, while the sound of a communication call played as she moved.
"When did the Anti-Matter Legion become this weak?"
"This is all the manpower I could lure over. You don't want the Legion's main force setting its sights on this place, do you?"
Seeing that strangely familiar format, Lao Mu looked at the camera. His expression became oddly peculiar, caught somewhere between holding it in and not, as he desperately suppressed the corners of his mouth from rising.
"This game's writing has got something to it!"
Seeing Lao Mu's expression, as though he had been possessed by a bodybuilder, the barrage could no longer hold back.
"These plot lines... I feel like I've seen them in some kind of film before!"
"This game's writing has got something to it. Maybe the writers have a side hustle."
"Edo Star specialty, huh? Husband's boss's request, license plate number 114514!"
"Lao Mu, you don't want your livestream's popularity to drop, do you?"
"Damn, why did this suddenly turn into a high-speed ride? I'm getting off!"
"The guy above, your license plate number reeks too much. Sad."
"Huh? What are you talking about? What Edo Star specialty? I don't understand."
"It's nothing. Go do your homework."
"This is so gross. I love it!"
The livestream's popularity surged once more, and what came next ignited the audience's curiosity even further.
"Trash like this won't be enough to hold back the Star Rail Express lot."
"Don't worry. A Doomsday Beast has arrived too."
This was a game based on reality—even the Star Rail Express had appeared!
The barrage immediately shifted into discussions of the game's plot. However, the next moment, the game entered a CG cutscene.
Kafka stood where she was when a Voidranger from the Anti-Matter Legion suddenly appeared behind her and launched a sneak attack. Yet Kafka calmly adjusted her sleeve.
Just as the ambush was about to succeed, the Voidranger's body began transforming into a string of virtual code data before vanishing from the spot in a bizarre fashion.
The camera pulled back to reveal Silver Wolf tapping away at a virtual code program with one hand.
"Cleaning up someone else's mess isn't my job, right, Kafka?"
Stellaron Hunter—Silver Wolf!
Official Intervention
"Another Stellaron Hunter appeared, just as expected!"
"It's her—the Genius Hacker Silver Wolf, with a company bounty of 5.1 billion!"
"She's so tiny! I thought all Stellaron Hunters would be muscular, hairy-chested brutes!"
"So cute! Silver Wolf should be playable too, right?"
Silver Wolf herself had already guessed how the plot would develop next. Still, seeing herself on screen gave her a rather unique feeling.
The story continued as Kafka asked the suddenly appearing Silver Wolf,
"Okay, okay. Where did you toss it, Silver Wolf?"
"I just typed in some random coordinates. Nothing special. Do you really care where that Voidranger ended up?"
"Not really~ It's just that no matter how many times I see it, I always think your methods are truly incredible~"
As a Genius Hacker in the universe, Silver Wolf could directly affect reality by writing Aether Codes. That was how she had teleported the Voidranger away earlier.
"Just modifying reality data. It's a trivial little trick."
"What were you looking at so intently just now? Let me see too."
"Herta's toy—the catalog of Curios collected by the Space Station. There are lots of interesting things in it."
Upon seeing the name Herta, the Herta Space Station staff member who had been slacking off and watching the stream widened his eyes.
No wonder he had kept feeling that the game's settings looked so familiar. Combined with the Stellaron Hunters and the Anti-Matter Legion from before, wasn't this what had happened a while ago?!
Realizing this, the staff member hurriedly ran to find Arlan, the head of the Security Department, intending to report this game.
The livestream viewers also realized it.
"Herta? This can't be Herta Space Station, right?!"
"It looks like the current map really is Herta Space Station. No wonder it felt familiar earlier!"
"I wonder whether Silver Wolf will get a trial later."
"Silver Wolf... Hehe, my Silver Wolf!"
"Don't be horny in the barbershop!"
The story continued as Silver Wolf spoke about the Curio introduction she had seen.
"There's a gun that scores any creature appearing in its crosshairs, from zero to one hundred."
"...What's interesting about that?"
"Aren't you curious what score you'd get?... I kind of want to know."
"Sure. If it's on the way, let's go play with it~ Where's the destination?"
"Keep going deeper along the corridor behind the door on the left. There's a room containing some sort of Curio."
"The Stellaron is there?"
"It can tell us where the Stellaron is."
As more and more information was revealed, Lao Mu confirmed that this game was not only based on reality, but had also turned past events into its plot—though currently from the Stellaron Hunters' perspective.
The screen changed, and the player could control the character again.
This time, just as the audience had expected, Silver Wolf indeed joined as a trial character.
"Streamer, can you try that again?"
"Yeah, we all want to take a closer look!"
"I want to see whether this game's character models are really accurate!"
"Why are all my esteemed ministers beating around the bush instead of speaking plainly?"
Lao Mu had initially been somewhat confused, but after reading a few barrage messages, he understood.
Damn it! You bunch of perverts!
He was a wholesome streamer!
He immediately cleared his throat and said,
"Ahem, my throat's a little dry. I'll go get some water first!"
As he spoke, he moved the mouse into a perfect position, and a sea of white scenery immediately filled the screen.
Elsewhere, Lin Guang looked at his System Panel. After this period of promotion, the game's various figures had begun to rise.
Game Name: Honkai: Star Rail Game Version: 1.0 Registered Users: 80,000 Current Online Users: 50,000 Discussion Heat: 360,000
His Game Points had also reached around 1.2 million. Once the promotional effects slowly took hold, the game's popularity would rise again.
Lin Guang shut off the system in satisfaction and prepared to visit some game livestreams to see how his game was being received.
He immediately noticed the most popular livestream carrying the Honkai: Star Rail tag. The streamer was named Lao Mu, and his viewership had already exceeded one million. It looked quite lively.
However, when Lin Guang entered the livestream, the sea of white scenery left him stunned.
"Seriously, bro? That's so gross."
It could only be said that no matter which world they were in, perverts all thought alike!
But this couldn't continue. He had made a wholesome mobile game, and the characters were all in this world too!
So Lin Guang quickly brought up the system and spent 200,000 Game Points on a small hotfix. He also added blur effects to the images for the characters' sixth Eidolons, lest those gross men pioneer some new avenue. At the same time, he forcibly kicked every player out to update the patch.
As for the remaining Game Points, keeping them in his hands would not make them multiply out of thin air. Lin Guang planned to continue investing them in promotional resources.
He checked the exchange rate between Game Points and Credits. It was exactly one to one, meaning one million Game Points could be exchanged for one million Credits.
There was even a special note stating that the system supplied them, with absolutely no after-sales issues.
So Lin Guang exchanged one million Game Points for Credits, then added another one million to Yan Shi's promotional budget.
Yan Shi was somewhat curious about which boss was spending so lavishly, but he also knew better than to ask questions he should not ask. He simply focused on arranging a one-million-Credit promotional campaign.
Meanwhile, the livestream viewers saw a message pop up in the game.
[Server Error]
There was only a confirm button below it. Clicking it would log them back into the game.
The barrage instantly erupted.
"What's going on? Did we get banned for being too gross?"
"Now he really is Lao Mu. Don't run!"
"Probably not. My game got the same pop-up. It was fine after I logged back in!"
The sudden message had given Lao Mu quite a fright. Seeing that it seemed to be just a hotfix, he finally relaxed, though a question surfaced in his mind. What needed updating so urgently that they had directly forced everyone offline?
But after updating the game and logging back in, he discovered the problem.
Whenever he moved the camera downward, the character in the shot would begin to blur until they disappeared entirely!
At the same time, Lin Guang posted the Official Game Account's first update.
[Fixed a bug where character models blocked the view from certain camera angles.]
The livestream viewers who saw the announcement were struck as if by lightning.
"Holy shit, the hotfix fixed this?"
"No, how was that blocking the view? That was exactly what I was looking at!"
"Waaaaah, my thighs!"
"How did the officials fix this so quickly? Were they watching Lao Mu's livestream too?!"
"There's a traitor among us!"
"Screen-watching rat! Get out here! Give back my premium ingredients!"
The comments beneath the official post were also filled with wailing and lamentation, leaving uninformed passersby utterly confused.
"Alright, alright. Since it's been fixed, let's just continue the story normally."
Lao Mu then controlled the newly added story character Silver Wolf deeper into the Space Station, where she soon encountered a battle scene.
Before you continue