A UTF-8-like encoding would probably be better than VLQ encoding because the length is known up-front, which allows for the decoder to have fewer branches.

Something like [1] or alternatively [2]. See also [3].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UTF-8#FSS-UTF [2] https://sqlite.org/src4/doc/trunk/www/varint.wiki [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11263378