"What?"
Ryo Shien blinked, his mouth slightly agape. He was a man used to the carefully orchestrated dance of corporate diplomacy, where rejection was usually wrapped in layers of polite euphemism. Aoyama's bluntness was like a bucket of ice water to the face.
"You heard me," Aoyama said, his voice flat. "Did you really think I'd just hand over my life's work with a 'thank you' and a handshake? Did you think I hadn't considered what my characters would look like on a screen?"
Ayumi and Saito Michio exchanged a look of pure, unadulterated terror. Saito's forehead was already glistening with a thin sheen of nervous sweat. He tried to catch Ayumi's eye, silently pleading with her to rein in her "eccentric" author before he tanked their biggest licensing deal of the year.
"Aoyama-sensei, please," Saito stammered, his voice straining for a conciliatory tone. "Mr. Ryo and his team have put a lot of work into their proposal..."
But Ryo Shien held up a hand, silencing his own team as well. He wasn't angry yet, but a flicker of defensive pride was starting to burn in his eyes. "No, it's fine. We have a plan, Sensei. Our development team has spent the last week hashing out a roadmap."
He gestured toward a man sitting at the end of the table whose receding hairline and thick, square-rimmed glasses screamed 'Senior Developer.' "This is Watanabe Keisuke, our Technical Director. He can walk you through the vision."
But Aoyama didn't wait for the technical walkthrough. "Let me guess. A 2D side-scrolling action game. Heavy on the combat, light on the environment. Something like Heavenly Kingdom, but with neon lights and cybernetic arms instead of swords and sorcery, right?"
The silence that followed was deafening. Watanabe's mouth clamped shut. That was exactly what they'd planned: a high-octane 2D brawler that would be relatively cheap to produce and appeal to the established market for arcade-style action.
"The world of Edgerunners is about verticality," Aoyama continued, his voice gainful and resonant. He stood up, pacing the small space behind his chair. "It's about the scale of the skyscrapers blocking out the sun. It's about the density of the urban sprawl. A 2D game... it's just a skin. It lacks the soul of the setting. It lacks the 'Cyber' and the 'Punk'."
"Aoyama-sensei!" Saito Michio was nearly out of his chair now. "Everyone here has worked very hard..."
"I'm not interested in 'hard work' if it results in a mediocre product," Aoyama countered, his gaze turning icy. "I want a 3D Open World Action RPG. A AAA masterpiece. Anything less is a disservice to the fans and the story."
Ryo Shien took a deep breath, his knuckles whitening as he gripped the edge of the table. "Sensei, do you have any idea what a AAA project entails? The budget? The man-hours? The sheer technical complexity of building a seamless 3D world? It's easy for a mangaka to sit there and demand the moon, but we're the ones who have to build the rocket."
Watanabe Keisuke let out a short, mocking laugh. He leaned forward, his eyes full of condescending arrogance. "Do you even know how to write a single line of code, Sensei? It's easy to talk about '3D' and 'Open World' when you're just moving a pen across paper. But until you've spent a year debugging a physics engine, you're just blowing smoke."
He looked around the room, expecting to see nodding heads. "You'll never see a game like that in your lifetime, let alone one based on your own work. Stick to the ink, and let the professionals handle the software."
Ayumi reached out, her hand hovering over Aoyama's arm as if to pull him back from the edge.
But Aoyama didn't back down. Instead, he reached into the pocket of his hoodie and pulled out a small, silver flash drive. It was scratched and worn, looking like a piece of salvaged tech from the very world he drew.
"Who told you I don't know how to code?" Aoyama asked, his laptop already out and humming on the table.
He'd spent the last few nights hunched over his screen, his 'Game Overlord' ability acting as a divine guide. With a bit of 'shadow-manipulation' from the System's internal logic engine, he'd managed to construct a vertical slice, a polished, high-fidelity 3D combat demo of the Pilar fight. It used his own high-resolution assets and a custom-built, optimized combat framework.
"This is my vision of Cyberpunk 2077," Aoyama said, sliding the drive toward the center of the table. "It's a ten-minute demo. Take a look. And then tell me if you still want to stick with your 2D brawler."
[Translated and Rewritten by Shika_Kagura]