The Game NPC Is Shaking My Resolve [Honkai: Star Rail]

(Short reviews are open, with no restrictions) (Second-person POV. Notes on the story are below.) (Enters paid serialization at chapter 31. Anti-piracy ratio: 60%.) (Extra chapters ongoing. Subscription ratio for bonus chapters: 50%.) As a player, one of the Fourth Disasters, you think you’re invincible in this game. That is, until you start a new world quest and realize the game’s style has gotten really weird. Some monsters keep switching back and forth between red and green names. One second, you’re pressing your weapon to their throat and threatening them viciously; the next, their name turns green and you can’t attack them. You: What are you doing, devs? Reporting the bug does nothing, so you decide to ignore it and return to Scalegorge Waterscape. There, you run into a male ghost NPC. The moment he sees you, he comes charging over, laughing wildly and spouting something about people being five generations apart. You teach him a harsh lesson, after which he watches you around the clock from every possible angle. You: If I remember correctly, this is an exploration game. The romance route hasn’t even been released yet. You can put up with some creepy guy staring at you. Worst case, you can head back to your home in another planetary region. But then you discover that the star map regions are locked, and during the quest you’re restricted to the Xianzhou. You: Wow, 666. You’re not even pretending anymore? You: All my resources went into combat power. I’m broke and forced to sleep on the ground, with the sky for a blanket, in Scalegorge Waterscape. Then, when you log in the next day, you hear someone right in front of you gossiping about using you for experiments before you’ve even opened your eyes. You type a question mark and can’t help asking, “Hey, do you guys not bother hiding it from the person you’re doing evil stuff to these days?” The exposed Vidyadhara NPCs aren’t flustered in the slightest. They even have the nerve to attack you. Negotiations fail. You have absurdly high combat damage, so you raise your weapon and skewer them one after another. You scoff. They’re this useless, and they still thought they could mess with you? Then you turn around and spot a tuft of white hair and the corner of someone’s clothes “accidentally” sticking out from beside a wall. You: So I’m the bait? You schemers are seriously nasty. At last, you complete the world quest and unlock part of the star map, letting you head to other regions and continue exploring. To celebrate your freedom, you eat and drink your fill. That night, the game’s NPCs invite you to a party. The result? With your satiety at 100%, you take one bite of the grilled fish an NPC made for you and promptly throw up. You: If I tell you I was full before I got here, will you believe me? The NPCs: You tell us. Notes: 1. Most important: The characters are wildly out of character, and there are mountains of personal headcanons. Best read as a brainless comedy. (I’m already writing fanfiction, so there’s no need to come at me about the characters being OOC!!! The OOC is the poor author’s fault, thanks. If you really can’t stand it, take the pen and write it yourself. Your Honor, please!) (The blurb’s order is not the same as the story’s order.) 2. The story focuses on the player’s perspective. NPC perspectives are mainly used to flesh out the characters and enrich the plot. The player may seem miserable from the NPCs’ perspectives, but in reality, they’re doing fine. This is a power fantasy about a game player. 3. The player prefers fighting and doesn’t like scheming, so the player’s POV won’t include much that requires brainpower. NPC perspectives mostly feature speculation and verification. (I’m bad at conspiracy theories, my thought process is a little unusual, and I stubbornly stick to my own logic. A no-brainpower player.) (I’m bad at fight scenes, too. I keep using the same handful of words to describe combat. [A Shuang with her hands together.jpg]) 4. Dan Heng and Dan Feng are two separate people. The Trailblazer is Caelus. He’s not particularly obnoxious, more cute and a little spacey, and he joins the player in their shenanigans (crossed out). 5. There may be a bit of everyone-has-a-one-sided-crush-on-the-player energy (probably not). Aside from the game plot, there’s a lot of everyday life, especially the player getting into trouble. (I personally love writing heartwarming interactions and a happy family.) 6. Last but most important, please add my upcoming works to your reading list! My next works might be (probably not) The All-Purpose Player for the Xianzhou Luofu and Starting on a Desolate Planet, but It’s Stardew Valley. Blurb for The All-Purpose Player for the Xianzhou Luofu: (Second-person POV) You’re an unremarkable casual player who one day accidentally stumbles into a game called Xianzhou Alliance. As a new player, you load into one of the nine Xianzhou ships while the game matches you to a location: the Xianzhou Luofu. Your character is a baby bird that has just hatched in a tree. You: Am I supposed to raise myself? This could be interesting. Step one to keeping yourself alive: mooch off someone. You’ve just hatched and can’t keep your balance, so you fall out of the tree and land right in the hair of a kid named Jing Yuan. The kid has a full head of hair, and it’s nice and warm in there. You cling to his hair and refuse to leave. Jing Yuan tries to put the bird back in its nest, only to find it clinging stubbornly to his hair: Is it attached to me now? Step two to keeping yourself alive: eat. Now that you have a caretaker, you stuff yourself with every meal, successfully eating until your belly is round. Over the course of a few weeks, you go from being tiny to being chubby. Jing Yuan, discovering that his pet bird has become a little fatty: Does it have that big an appetite? Step three to keeping yourself alive: evolve. By eating, you raise your stats to the level required for basic training and unlock the upgrade module. You begin evolving from an ordinary little bird into a colossal bird boss. Jing Yuan, suddenly discovering that his pet bird can change size: Wait, did my bird mutate? Step four to keeping yourself alive: study. After finally evolving into a bird immortal, able to take human form and enjoy delicious food, your caretaker sends you to school, supposedly to help you socialize. You, woken up by your caretaker at six in the morning and personally escorted to school: Is this right? Wasn’t I just a bird who needed to eat and drink? Step five to keeping yourself alive... You’ve been eating and drinking for free until you’ve genuinely become a boss. One day, when the Xianzhou Luofu faces a huge crisis, you open your mouth and eat the enemy leader. Then you get a new potted plant. You build a nest on it, and your stats shoot up. You stay there all day, and even your caretaker can’t coax you down. A certain Emanator of Abundance, forced to become a stat-upgrade machine: ...Thank you, I guess. Jing Yuan, discovering that his pet bird has fickle tastes and only likes enemies: ...Thank you, too. Blurb for Starting on a Desolate Planet, but It’s Stardew Valley: Dan Yi is a devoted farming-game player, currently obsessed with Stardew Valley, which a friend recommended. Stardew Valley is an all-purpose casual town-building game featuring farming, mining, fishing, fighting monsters, and so on. In the game, once your friendship level with a town resident is high enough, you can marry them. Marriage lets you buy a portrait of your spouse. After Dan Yi collected portraits and achieved the “Balenciaga” achievement, the residents’ resentment kicked him out of the real world and onto a planet. It’s a desolate planet, far from civilization. All Dan Yi has is a little house, an axe, a scythe, a pickaxe, a hoe, and a watering can. The standard starting setup for a new player. To become a proper farmer (and survive), Dan Yi starts working hard at farming and construction. Fortunately, he has the System, and he can trade for anything the town needs. Town requests become System requests. Town festivals become day trips to the real world. After asking the System how to get home, Dan Yi: To get home, I’ll turn my planet into an empire! (Not really.) Quest giver number one: A famous Wangsheng Funeral Parlor consultant who never carries money. [Good Deed: The Wangsheng Funeral Parlor’s consultant forgot his wallet again today. After running up too many tabs, he’s been detained at a tea stall. Bring 500 gold to rescue him. Reward: One Geo Vision] Dan Yi: What kind of joke is this? I have to pay out of pocket to do a quest??? TD! I said I want to unsubscribe. Did you hear me, System? But then he checks the catalog and sees that the Geo Vision can open up a huge amount of farmland without a hoe, and turn giant rocks into usable stone without a pickaxe... Dan Yi: You should have told me it was this useful! That freeloader of a consultant, here I come! Quest giver number two: A famous Xianzhou general who loves slacking off. [Good Deed: The Xianzhou general climbed over the wall and ran off to avoid work again today. Bring a rope, tie the general up, and return him to the Seat of Divine Foresight to work. Reward: One snow lion] Dan Yi: Catch someone and get a pet??? I’m on my way!!! Quest giver number three: Brother Mountain Wind. [Good Deed: Brother Mountain Wind can’t find the Lord of Longevity he’s been longing for. Bring a star chart and help him find the Lord of Longevity. Reward: One Ambrosial Arbor seed] Dan Yi: ??? Why are all the quests about finding people? System, can’t you give me some different kinds of quests? Quest giver number four: The Conductor of the Astral Express. [Good Deed: The beloved Conductor really hates a passenger surnamed A who calls himself “the greatest Nameless.” He’s boarded the train. Bring a broom and help the Conductor sweep him out the door.] Quest giver number... In the end, Dan Yi successfully turns the desolate planet and the one beside it into tourist destinations, becoming the greatest farmer in history. Dan “Grind King” Yi: Who knew I only wanted to go home!!!!!!!!!! Theme: Our friendship is unbreakable. We’ll keep moving forward.