After leaving Elysia's place...
Haru returned to his own room, the smile on his face quickly transforming into worry.
Although he had refused his fiancée's offer of soft rice and sworn he wouldn't let her carry the family burden alone, his own situation was truly not optimistic.
"In modern society, a single penny can really stump a hero."
The man who had defeated the Cocoon of Finality sighed and took out his phone to check his bank account balance.
[Your personal account current savings: 1145.14 yuan.]
Looking at the four-digit balance reeking of money troubles, Haru immediately felt heavy pressure.
After working as a corporate slave for half a year, he had actually saved up tens of thousands, but to propose to Elysia, Haru had spent most of his money on the ring.
Originally, this wouldn't have been a problem.
Making money was for spending. Even if he had used most of it now, once next month's salary arrived, Haru's wallet would naturally fill up again.
However...
Haru hadn't expected to lose his job at the most cash-strapped moment.
"Sigh, this is just great. Forget next month, whether I can even get this month's salary is questionable."
Haru fell backward, throwing his body onto the soft bed.
He stretched his hand toward the white ceiling, the shadow of his spread fingers covering his bitterly smiling face.
Life was unpredictable, and circumstances were hard to foresee.
The reason for his unemployment wasn't any mistake at work, but the company going bankrupt.
Before transmigrating, Haru had been an art student. Although he failed his graduate school entrance exam, his drawing skills were actually quite good.
In this everyday world without Honkai, Haru decided to return to his roots, pick up his old profession, and make a living with his artistic skills.
After some effort.
Haru successfully joined a well-known mobile game company, responsible for drawing character concept art.
This mobile game company had been established for quite some time, had developed a highly popular gun-girl mobile game, and had a loyal player base—it wasn't some small company without foundation.
When Haru joined, he happened to catch this company called "JuZha" working on a sequel to their gun-girl mobile game.
Being an all-female game that otaku loved most, plus having the popularity foundation from the previous game...
From Haru's perspective, this game would definitely be a hit, and they'd just need to wait for the public beta to rake in money.
His luck was pretty good, catching the right timing.
Even though he was hired mid-way, his year-end bonus probably wouldn't be too shabby!
However, just as Haru was about to pop the champagne, an accident happened as expected.
There was never a shortage of idiots in the world who could mess up a winning hand.
Haru, who only handled character concept art, didn't understand the other aspects of the game. Only after the third beta test began did he discover that the game's producer had pulled off an incredibly stupid move with the story.
Even now, Haru still couldn't understand...
What kind of mental gymnastics would lead someone to arrange for female characters that many players had sworn oaths to in the previous game to have romantic subplots with NPCs in the sequel.
What was even more outrageous was that after the game exploded in controversy, instead of making immediate corrections, they planned to tough it out against the players.
Now it was a disaster. The game's reputation was completely ruined, losing money from launch day. JuZha company's capital chain also broke, ultimately leading to bankruptcy.
"How could they make a good game working with those vermin?!"
Thinking about the entire process of his unemployment, Haru complained indignantly.
He had done his best to draw the female characters both beautiful and alluring, but his teammates were worse than Otto, completely impossible to carry.
Otto might be bad and like to backstab in secret, but he wasn't stupid. In crucial moments, Otto was more reliable than most people.
Rather than working with those idiots at JuZha company, Haru would prefer mutual sabotage with Otto.
"Forget it, the company has already gone bankrupt. Complaining more won't help."
Haru clenched his hand slightly, his expression returning to calm. "The priority now is to quickly find a new job."
Actually, after learning the company was going bankrupt, he had already started looking for his next position.
It's just that the economy wasn't great these days, and the gaming industry's share was also shrinking, with major game companies starting to reduce hiring.
Although Haru had solved his identity problems through Elysia's connections, his work experience was only a few months at JuZha company. His resume wasn't impressive, and not many companies were willing to hire him.
"I've submitted dozens of resumes one after another, but only five companies showed interest in interviews."
"Today I interviewed at three companies and failed them all. I can only pin my hopes on tomorrow's two companies..."
Haru glanced at the memo on his phone, which recorded tomorrow's schedule.
At 10 AM, he would interview at a branch office of Tencent Games—the largest gaming company in China. Honestly, Haru didn't have much confidence in succeeding.
As for the afternoon...
The company he was interviewing at was called miHoYo Studio, an obscure small company.
Haru only knew that this small company was originally called miHoYo, had made a puzzle-platformer flying shooter game, but due to poor sales was on the verge of bankruptcy and had recently been acquired and renamed.
He should be able to pass miHoYo Studio's interview.
The problem was that such small companies generally couldn't offer very high salaries.
"Speaking generally and rationally, being able to find a job at this time would be good enough. A lower salary is still better than none..."
Haru pursed his lips, his gaze distant as he spoke.
"But speaking personally and emotionally, I hope to earn more money than Elysia, otherwise I'll still feel like I'm living off her."
As everyone knows, economic power determines family authority.
If he couldn't achieve equal economic status, he would definitely be subordinate to the little fairy.
Then the fairy would occasionally send him expensive things under the guise of goodwill, and when he couldn't give anything back, he would actually still be in a kept state.
Perhaps he could choose to tough it out, but that wasn't Haru's personality.
"Well, let's focus on passing the interview first."
Haru closed his eyes and thought for a moment, seeming to have a plan in mind.
"If the salary is really mediocre, then I'll have to activate my other identity in the artist world!"
Friends who frequent NSFW manga apps all know that if artists want to make quick money, going NSFW is the best way.
This wasn't anything shameful.
In the Far East, many manga artists treated going NSFW as a way to make money, occasionally putting on a pseudonym to draw adult content for profit.
But Haru hadn't thought that far initially.
He was purely motivated by a heroic mindset, wanting to share some classic works from before his transmigration with the people of this world, so a few months ago he began serializing adult content on a drawing website abbreviated as P-site.
After drawing several works...
Haru had actually become somewhat famous in the underground scene and earned quite a bit of pocket money from it.