With a shift of thought, Kamiyā Yuu's consciousness withdrew from the 'Consciousness Space'. In the real world, he had only closed his eyes to rest for less than a minute. After opening his eyes, he shook his head, and the aftereffects of having made contact with the data earlier came surging back like a tide. It felt as though, while still possessing the body of an ordinary person, he had gone several days without sleep. Both his mind and body had been pushed to their limits.
Normally, simply making contact with computer data would not produce such severe mental side effects. This time was different because it was the first time he had forcibly used his ability to allow Blake to clearly observe information from this world, effectively serving as a channel for information exchange between the two worlds. Maintaining such a state consumed an enormous amount of mental energy.
"That's enough for today. In this state, forget writing code—I couldn't even manage key-animation storyboards."
Kamiyā Yuu wearily rubbed the space between his brows. His trembling right hand felt utterly drained of strength. He forced himself up, unlocked the office door, then lay down on the sofa to sleep and recover. As he had grown more proficient at using his ability to alter data through thought, it had been a long time since he had experienced exhaustion this severe.
Blake estimated that modifying the code for 'Throne of Heroes' would take Kamiyā Yuu around ten hours. That amount of work was neither especially long nor especially short. Spending the whole of tomorrow modifying the game's code should be enough to finish this portion of the work. To avoid any unexpected problems, Kamiyā Yuu intended to make all the code changes manually this time.
Even after returning to the real world, as long as he thought about matters related to the game, the code information absorbed by the 'Matrix Space' would naturally surface in his mind.
In theory, Kamiyā Yuu was merely copying the information Blake had modified into this world. Even so, those ten hours of work would be roughly equivalent to what an ordinary person might accomplish in one or even several months.
······
"Crack~ Fsssh~!"
Mizuhara Raiko pulled the tab off a beer can, and the smell of beer immediately wafted out. She tilted her head back and gulped down a large mouthful, shut the refrigerator door with her foot, then comfortably sprawled across the living-room sofa.
If the employees of [Mirror Flower Water Moon] Game Studio saw her like this, their jaws would probably drop. Since when had that polished career woman who always seemed so sophisticated possessed such a casual side?
Her suit trousers had been tossed carelessly onto the floor, her golden hair hung loose and disheveled, and her voluptuous figure was covered only by a rumpled white shirt.
"Pure bliss~ Pure bliss!"
Mizuhara Raiko took another satisfying sip of beer and sighed contentedly. She lay sideways across the sofa, picked up the remote, and turned on the television, switching from a pointless variety show to a foreign film.
She set the beer can on the table and spun it around. After thinking for a moment, she muttered regretfully, "Misjudged that. I should've bought some snacks to go with the beer."
This was the apartment she had recently bought. It was relatively close to [Mirror Flower Water Moon] Game Studio, and she was very satisfied with the overall environment. The only drawback was that it had been a little expensive.
She was also one of the shareholders of [Mirror Flower Water Moon] Game Studio. Although she did not own the rights to 'Warship Girls Collection', her share of the game's operating profits was more than enough for her to purchase this upscale apartment.
After watching the film for a while, Mizuhara Raiko began to feel bored and yawned.
"Beep, beep, beep~!"
A faint notification sounded from the laptop on the table, indicating that someone had sent an email to her inbox.
Her laptop was generally used for work, and only a handful of people even knew her email address. Moreover, it was unlikely that anyone from [Mirror Flower Water Moon] Game Studio would be emailing her after work hours.
She hardly needed to guess who would send her an email at night.
The previous week, she had followed instructions and sent Kamiyā Yuu the 'Throne of Heroes' game build together with the development report. Receiving a reply after only one week was somewhat unexpected.
During their previous meeting about the project, Kamiyā Yuu had mentioned that he had his own software development team. Mizuhara Raiko had never doubted that claim. In fact, she believed it with certainty.
Ultimately, the reason was 'Warship Girls Collection'.
If Kamiyā Yuu really possessed his own software or game development team, then it would not be impossible for a groundbreaking work like 'Warship Girls Collection' to have come from his hands.
A major reason she had ordered the development department at [Mirror Flower Water Moon] Game Studio to accelerate production was precisely this. She wanted to confirm just what cards Kamiyā Yuu held, as well as what value she and [Mirror Flower Water Moon] Game Studio had to him and what position they occupied in his plans.
"A reply after only one week? Isn't that a little too fast?"
Mizuhara Raiko was inwardly astonished.
The 'Throne of Heroes' game client she had sent Kamiyā Yuu represented several months of work by the development department at [Mirror Flower Water Moon]. Neither the department's technology nor its members could yet be considered mature, but it had already begun to resemble the development department of a large-scale game company.
After going through the production pipeline, the PC client naturally contained no small amount of game data. Although 'Throne of Heroes' was merely an ordinary card-battle game, the unfinished PC client package had already approached 2GB.
If a mature game operations team wanted to run complete data testing on such a game client and make modifications, it would inevitably take more than a month.
Mizuhara Raiko clicked to receive the email. There were only two files attached—
'Guidelines for the Game's Subsequent Design Plan'
'Prototype No. 1'
'Guidelines for the Game's Subsequent Design Plan' — 187MB
'Prototype No. 1' — 2.02GB
Mizuhara Raiko's attention was mainly drawn to the first file.
An 187MB design-guidance document?
What was that supposed to be?
"What's going on?"
A strange feeling arose in her heart. She moved the mouse to accept the files, and they quickly finished downloading. She opened the first file and began carefully browsing through its contents.
The amount of material inside was enormous, and she could not understand most of it.
It covered the game framework, code implementation, art design, optimization of gameplay systems, and many other areas. In addition to large quantities of written explanation, there were also reference images drawn with a digital tablet to demonstrate the intended effects.
Kamiyā Yuu could type extraordinarily quickly on a computer by using his thoughts. By now, even copying more than a million characters in a single day would not be a problem for him. As a result, most of this game report consisted of extremely detailed written explanations, interspersed with code data and illustrative concept images he had personally drawn.
Mizuhara Raiko could barely understand the guidance document, much less the specific modifications contained in the later 'Prototype No. 1'.
However, the sheer level of detail in the document gave her the faint feeling that this was anything but simple.
"All of these modifications were completed within a single week. Even judging roughly, this could already be classified as a complete game evaluation report. As expected of the game-development team behind 'Warship Girls Collection'."
"In any case, I'll send it to the development department first and have them take a look."
After pondering briefly, Mizuhara Raiko sat up and used her laptop to package the downloaded files and forward them to the email inbox of the development team at [Mirror Flower Water Moon] Game Studio.