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[Game] Chapter 238: The Players Can’t Hold Back Anymore
🕑 Added 2025-05-25 19:17:24 +0000 UTCAt 4 PM, Ichin arrived at the studio together with Utaha.
Heading over to the art department, Ichin found Yagami Kō and asked about the interviews that took place that day.
“Kō, how did the interviews go?”
Turning around, Yagami Kō smiled and said,
“Pretty well! Out of the five candidates, we selected the three with the most outstanding skills. We’ll be notifying them soon that they passed the interview. Oh, and all three are girls!”
“Hm? All girls?”
Ichin was a little surprised, then laughed,
“Don’t tell me that was Hazuki’s idea?”
“No, no, don’t worry,” Kō waved her hand. “You already told me the art department is my responsibility, so I wouldn’t make decisions on a whim. Those three were chosen by Rin and me together—they’re truly talented. I even had them do some live drawing on the spot. I’ll show you their work later so you can see for yourself. As for the other departments, I think everything went smoothly too. You might want to ask Hazuki about them.”
“Alright, I’ll go check with her.”
Nodding, Ichin walked toward Hazuki’s office.
He knocked on the door, and after hearing Hazuki say, “Come in,” he opened it and entered.
Even though he was technically the boss, Hazuki was still a woman, and he preferred to be respectful.
“Hazuki, I’m here to ask how the interviews went.”
“Oh! Ichin, come in! The interviews today went really well!” Hazuki said cheerfully as she handed over a finalized list of the selected candidates.
“These are the confirmed hires. We’ll notify each of them tomorrow to come in and complete the onboarding process.”
Glancing at the list, Ichin immediately noticed the name “Kuroneko Gokou.” There had only been two applicants for the programming position, and both passed the interview. It seemed they were quite capable if Umiko had personally approved them.
“Alright, I’ll leave the onboarding process in your hands, Hazuki.”
Satisfied after reading the list, Ichin felt genuinely pleased. The studio was expanding again.
Just as he was about to leave the room, Hazuki suddenly spoke up.
“By the way, over at Umiko’s side—that girl named Kuroneko Gokou didn’t leave after the interview. Umiko hired her on the spot, and she’s still over there with the programming team. You might want to check in.”
“She’s still here?”
Ichin raised his eyebrows in surprise. He hadn’t expected Umiko to keep her behind.
Hazuki nodded with a smile,
“That’s right. Apparently, Kuroneko has some pretty impressive skills. Since she didn’t have any classes this afternoon, Umiko just kept her around and even treated her to dinner. But still, this kind of thing doesn’t exactly follow standard procedures, so I’m thinking we should just get her onboarding paperwork done today.”
“Sounds good. I’ll go take a look first. You go ahead and prep the paperwork.”
With that, Ichin left Hazuki’s office and headed to the programming team’s section.
This area had been specifically separated off by Ichin to provide Umiko and the others with a quiet workspace.
When he entered, he immediately saw a girl in a black dress sitting next to Umiko.
Umiko, who had been talking with Kuroneko Gokou, heard the door open and turned around—just in time to see Ichin walking in.
Ichin looked at the two who had just stood up—especially Kuroneko Gokou—and extended his hand with a smile.
“I’ve seen your resume. Welcome aboard, Miss Gokou. I’m Ichin, the founder of this studio.”
Kuroneko shook hands with him a little nervously.
“Nice to meet you, Boss!”
“There’s no need to call me that,” Ichin waved it off. “Even Umiko and the others don’t call me that. Just use my name—it’s fine.”
“Eh? Really?”
Kuroneko looked uncertainly at Umiko.
Umiko replied calmly,
“It’s fine if you’re not used to it at first. You’ll get the hang of it. Ichin, did you come by specifically to see Gokou?”
“Yeah. Hazuki told me you kept her here, so I came to check in,” Ichin nodded, then turned to Kuroneko. “Gokou, if you’re good with it, we’ll go ahead and process your onboarding today. Otherwise, while Umiko’s talking to you, she won’t be able to go into the project details freely. By the way, once you officially join, how many days a week can you come in? I forgot to check with Umiko about that.”
Kuroneko immediately responded,
“I can come three days a week—Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays! And if overtime is needed, weekends are fine too!”
“We’ll talk about overtime separately,” Ichin said with a smile. “Here at the studio, we don’t usually ask people to do high-intensity overtime. If we have a lot of development going on, we might ask people to come in on Saturdays—we provide meals and overtime pay. But Sundays are strictly off for everyone. Is that arrangement okay for you?”
Seeing how easygoing Ichin was as a boss, and hearing that the company’s overtime policies weren’t harsh, Kuroneko finally relaxed completely.
“Yes, no problem at all. I can start working tomorrow!”
Ichin didn’t question Kuroneko’s ability further—if Umiko had already confirmed her skills, that was more than enough for him.
After wrapping up the conversation, Ichin left the programming team’s area and returned to his own office.
Inside, Utaha was sitting at the computer, her fingers flying across the keyboard.
When she noticed Ichin enter, she looked up and asked,
“So, how’s the new recruit?”
“She’s staying—going to process her onboarding in a bit,” Ichin replied. “The people we hired this round are all pretty solid. Of course, it’ll take some time to get everyone fully integrated, but overall I’m satisfied.”
Sitting down at his own desk, Ichin stretched and said,
“We’re still not that big yet. My goal is to get the core development team—excluding finance, HR, and other support roles—up to over fifty people. That’s when we’ll have a truly stable team.”
Recruitment would continue. Though Ichin didn’t expect every batch of candidates to be as ideal as today’s, he was optimistic.
After checking Utaha’s script progress with her, Ichin prepared to dive into his own work.
As he opened his computer, he suddenly remembered he hadn’t logged into Bilibili in a while.
After logging in through his browser, he found that his inbox was flooded with messages—some seeking collaboration, others asking about upcoming games, and many wondering about updates for older ones.
Clicking on his previous update post for Hollow Knight, Ichin noticed a slew of new comments, all eagerly speculating about the next game.
> “Finished Hollow Knight again. So many pros out there, I can’t even crack the top 100 anymore. Giving up, lol.”
> “Same with Slay the Spire. Beat it on all difficulties. Still no news about a new game. Not even a peep.”
> “Hey, anyone home? Say something!”
Seeing all the comments, Ichin realized a lot of players were getting restless—they were itching for news about the studio’s next title.
Unfortunately, it still wasn’t time to make any announcements.
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