After the proposal, the Valkyrie came to the door

In his previous life, the captain used his spare time to practice drawing and sought out many female warriors as models.

He lured Kiana into the art studio with a meal, got Himeko-sensei drunk with fine wine and secretly copied her, and gave her a limited edition Houmu comic to make Principal Theresa pose obediently...

However, after Bronya won over the captain, she became the captain's only human model.

Bronya, now a giant duck, felt her ears burning as she recalled the time she spent studying art with the captain.

Fortunately, the girl had good control over her expression. She took a deep breath and regained her composure, though her light gray eyes still held a hint of resentment.

In his past life, the captain practiced drawing on her body, but in this life, who did the captain find as a human model to hone such excellent drawing skills?

Needless to say, he's probably looking for his fiancée...

Bronya's delicate hands clenched unconsciously.

The feeling of having your privileges taken away by others is like drinking a bitter cup of wine, leaving you feeling suffocated.

But Bronya couldn't vent her anger. After all, the captain didn't have the memories of her previous life, and she couldn't very well use the sword of the previous dynasty to kill the officials of the current one.

Tsk, I wonder what the captain's fiancée looks like.

The captain said they proposed to each other after knowing each other for only six months. That's progressing way too fast. Even Bronya didn't win over the captain that quickly back then...

The girl muttered to herself, unable to help but think in a darker direction.

Could the captain have been deceived by some wicked woman?

These days, there are many bad women who cheat you out of money, heart, and emotions. For the captain's safety, it is indeed time to let the captain return to Bronya's embrace as soon as possible.

"Bronya? Which character do you think is more suitable for the female lead?!"

Anliang looked at the somewhat absent-minded girl and waved his hand in front of her eyes.

He called Bronya's name several times, but the girl didn't respond, seemingly lost in thought about something important.

"Sorry, I was so engrossed in looking at them. Every female character you drew is so good, it was a bit difficult to choose..."

Bronya snapped out of her daze, smiled apologetically, and then focused her attention on the computer screen in front of Anliang.

That's a drawing skill honed by using numerous Valkyries as models...

Even if An Liang only drew a simple sketch, the beautiful girls with bright eyes and white teeth on the screen were enough to dazzle anyone.

Bronya scrutinized her for a while, then extended her delicate, slender fingers and placed them on a small, thin girl with black hair and gray eyes.

"Is it just my imagination that the female lead you drew? Why do her eyes look a bit like mine?"

"Well, I don't think it's just my imagination..."

An Liang scratched his cheek and explained, "Because in my design, the female lead's pupils are gray, so to save time I just drew them based on your eyebrows and eyes. If you don't like it, I'll change it right away."

"No, I love it."

Bronya stared at the little girl's incredibly lifelike grey eyes on the screen, remained silent for a few seconds, and then smiled.

"Let's choose this as the female lead for the game. I feel like this kind of little girl would be a good match for An Liang!"

PS: It still has to be Honkai Impact 3. I forced myself to play Zone Zero again today, and now when I play Honkai Impact 3 again, all the characters look better, and even grinding in the Abyss has become more interesting.

I was originally thinking of having the protagonist create Zone Zero later, but now I'll choose another action game instead.

Chapter 40 Alicia's Cooking

Time always flies when you're busy.

Anliang sat at his workstation and drew about ten sketches. He finalized the initial drafts of the male and female protagonists' images with the other two people in the Yuanli Studio, and then it was time to leave work.

But Bronya seemed to be engrossed in the discussion and was unwilling to let him go, so she dragged him and Qingque to work overtime for a while longer.

By the time Anliang returned to the Golden Courtyard in Sky City, it was already very late at night.

"It's almost eight o'clock. Although working overtime is the norm in internet companies, I really didn't expect to have to work overtime on my first day."

Anliang sighed and looked up at the sky.

The moonlight was as clear as water, as bright as a silver plate, and its cool, soft light shone on his thoughtful face.

Unlike when she was still a duck, Bronya has become much more emotionally complex after growing into a big duck, but this has also made her more career-oriented.

"Girls really do change a lot as they grow up. In my memory, Bronya was a cute, emotionless loli with a soft, babyish voice. But in this timeline, she not only has a figure that rivals Kiana's, but her personality has also become somewhat as assertive as Mei's."

"Although I have mixed feelings, I feel good."

As Anliang listened to the cicadas chirping in the treetops, a trace of vicissitude flashed in his deep eyes.

In the cycle controlled by the Cocoon of the End, no matter what changes the Valkyries undergo, they will be reset to their original state in the next cycle. He, on the other hand, has to repeat the process of meeting again and again, leading the Valkyries to fight against the Honkai that has almost no hope of victory.

Once or twice is fine, but if the cycle repeats too many times, people inevitably become numb.

Even though Anliang can maintain his composure with the help of the Valkyries, he sometimes feels lost and confused, feeling like Sisyphus in Greek mythology, alive but seemingly worse off than dead.

Moreover, can someone who is trapped in a time loop and unable to reach the end truly be considered alive?

An Liang recalled the philosophical question that had troubled him for so long, and then smiled freely at the starry sky.

He no longer needed to think about this question. If the cycle of reincarnation woven by the cocoon of the end was considered a dream, he had now awakened from the dream and returned to the clear reality.

Although time will only flow towards the future from now on, and life can never be relived...

But Anliang can finally live like an ordinary person, fulfill his promise to grow old with his loved one, and no longer have to experience the pain of being forgotten.

"Speaking of which, Bronya is even more charming after turning into a big duck..."

"If I hadn't met Alicia first, I would definitely have been attracted to Bronya after joining the Principles Studio and would have had the idea of ​​going against my boss."

After all, he had tasted the flavor of salted duck in his reincarnation. If he could get together with Big Duck, he would be fortunate enough to experience the transformation of a girl from a loli to a mature woman...

Flirting with the big duck while thinking about what the girl looked like when she was a child must be a very exciting feeling.

Unfortunately, he's already taken!

An Liang touched the ring on his left hand, a slight smile appearing on his lips.

Given his past ambiguous relationship with Bronya, it would be a lie to say he wasn't attracted to Big Duck at all.

As the sages have said, food and sex are human nature.

It's perfectly natural for men to like beautiful young women; there's nothing wrong with admitting it.

But his affection for Bronya will remain purely appreciative; it will never cross that line...

Because Anliang has already proposed to Alicia, that pink fairy is his true love in this timeline, and the partner he will spend the rest of his life with.

"As a gentleman who believes in pure love, I would never do anything to betray Alicia!"

Anliang thought firmly to himself and reached out to open the door.

Although he had secretly drawn doujinshi about minotaurs, it was only to infiltrate the enemy and did not affect his identity as a pure-love war god.

"Alicia, I'm back."

After changing his shoes in the entryway, Anliang looked around the empty living room and finally fixed his gaze on the kitchen with the lights on.

The girl seemed to hear the sound, and poked her slightly chubby head out of the kitchen, her pink and blue eyes flashing with surprise.

"Oh, Anliang, you're back just in time!"

"The fairy's carefully prepared dinner is just out of the oven, come and have a taste!"

"Oh? Then I'll have to give it a good taste."

An Liang raised an eyebrow and walked towards the girl with a hint of curiosity.

Because Anliang is a good cook, he usually does the cooking. However, if he comes home late from work, Alicia will cook for him.

Although Alicia's cooking skills are nowhere near his...

But the moment the girl was willing to cook for him, Anliang had already won!

"I wonder what Miss Pink Fairy cooked tonight?"

An Liang walked into the kitchen with a smile, sniffed the air, and then looked at the stew pot on the stove with some doubt.

It had a very strong spice smell, and even though he was familiar with many different cuisines, he couldn't tell what Alicia was cooking for a while.

"Hehe, this is a foreign dish that I made perfectly following the steps of a very popular food video. The finished product shouldn't be too bad."

Wearing an apron and a white headscarf, Alicia smiled smugly, looking every bit the adorable little cook.

"Foreign cuisine? Interesting, let me see which country's cuisine it is..."

Anliang eagerly opened the pot lid, peeked inside, and then abruptly stopped speaking.

Looking at the brownish-yellow paste churning in the stew pot, the diarrhea-like substance silenced him, and his facial expression gradually became tense.

"Ellie, you used to cook Indian food?"

"Yes, it's not easy to cook a bunch of ingredients into this thick paste, but since that food video is so popular, it must be because a lot of people like to eat this dish."

Alicia blinked her beautiful eyes, her innocent expression leaving Anliang speechless for a moment.

“I think that just because many people watch videos of Indian food doesn’t mean they actually want to eat Indian food.”

An Liang rubbed his temples, his tone somewhat helpless.

From his perspective, Indian cuisine is a very peculiar thing.

Chefs around the world are pursuing ways to make food taste better, but Indian chefs are taking a different approach, researching how to make food easier to digest, or even making food into the shape it would be after digestion, ensuring that what diners eat is what they excrete.

This is something that seems absolutely outrageous to people in other countries.

As a chef, An Liang frowned deeply in front of this pot of yellowish-brown, viscous stuff, somewhat reluctant to admit that it could even be considered a dish.

PS: After reading everyone's opinions, most of them support skipping the game development process. So, the author will only write about the key plot points from now on. Hehehe, you can all guess how Bronya is going to take advantage of the captain.

Chapter 41 Today's victory or defeat is Alicia's defeat.

"Um... Anliang, you don't like Indian food?"

Seeing her fiancé looking troubled, Alicia asked in a weak voice.

"It's not a matter of liking or disliking; the main thing is that Indian food isn't ordinary cuisine—it's truly one of those rare dishes!"

Anliang stared at the yellow porridge in the stew pot, unable to find the right words to describe his feelings.

What should I say...

The way Indian cuisine is prepared is considered an insult to food by most chefs, like making pineapple pizza in front of Italians, or a Sichuan chef discovering that Mapo Tofu is made with strawberries in the Far East.

Heresy, this is fucking heresy!

An Liang clicked his tongue and turned to look at Alicia beside him.

The girl looked at him with a worried expression, as if she had done something wrong. Her beautiful pink and blue eyes looked at him pitifully, as if she was waiting for him to deliver his final judgment.

"Never mind, let's taste it first before thinking about anything else..."

An Liang shrugged, enduring the visual discomfort, and scooped a spoonful of porridge from the stew pot.

"Maybe we shouldn't force ourselves. After all, Miss Fairy has failed at cooking before, so it's nothing."

Alicia tugged at Anliang's sleeve and said cautiously.

"It's not a big problem. I should be able to eat Indian food that I make at home. At least the food is safe, clean and hygienic."

Anliang closed his eyes and put the paste-like substance, which could barely be classified as curry, into his mouth.

Ignoring its appearance, Indian curry with so many seasonings still smells quite fragrant. It doesn't require much chewing; it just flows smoothly down the esophagus and into the stomach with a slight swallow, incredibly silky.

"The ingredients are roughly potatoes, carrots, onions, chickpeas, and chicken, but you can hardly taste the original flavors of the ingredients; you can only taste a strong masala and turmeric powder flavor."

Anliang took a moment to discern the situation, then opened his eyes with a slight surprise and smiled at the anxious Alicia.

"It's alright, not bad at all, better than those trendy dishes you used to make."

Because of Alicia's personality, she always likes to try new and interesting things, so she often recreates some trendy dishes that look fun and interesting.

However, these eye-catching dishes often have a less-than-ideal taste.