Whether Kō Yagami saved all those fashion show photos of Hifumi on her phone like Ichin told her to, no one knew. But co Monday, everyone had returned to the studio, ready to dive into a new week of work.
At 9:30 AM, once the team had gathered, Hazuki clapped her hands and stood up.
"Alright, everyone. Even though Ichin still has classes today, our work won't be slowing down. The minor bugs we found in _Hollow Knight_ and _Slay the Spire_ over the past few days have all been resolved. So today, aside from getting ourselves back into work mode, we'll be starting the first phase of our new project. Ichin has already mapped out the tasks for this week. Rin, hand them out."
Rin Toyama nodded and began distributing the task sheets to each person.
As they received their assignnts, everyone began reviewing their tasks for the week.
"Oh~~ so this is what we're working on!"
Kō Yagami looked over her weekly tasks and mused,
"I rember Ichin ntioned yesterday that there'd be a lot of work coming up, but this is actually way better than I expected. As expected of Ichin—he'd never load us up with so much work we'd have to pull all-nighters."
Hazuki smiled.
"Of course not. We don't have that many people on our team right now, so we definitely can't afford to burn ourselves out just for so overti. Besides, this isn't sothing that a few extra late nights can finish. When it cos to ga developnt—especially the large-scale project we're about to start—quality and stability matter way more than speed."
Hazuki didn't give a long speech. After just a few words of encouragent, she had everyone start their work.
After all, everyone had been with the studio for over half a year by now, and none of them were the type to waste ti on empty talk. Better to get straight into the job than stand around.
---
At noon, Ichin and Utaha went to the Service Club to have lunch with Yukino Yukinoshita and Eriri Spencer Sawamura.
As they sipped their hot miso soup, Eriri asked,
"Ichin-kun, did the studio start developnt on _Persona_ today?"
"Yeah, today's the day," Ichin nodded.
"The team doesn't really need to supervise everything anymore. Hazuki just needs to distribute the tasks I've planned out, and they'll be good to go. Everyone's been dying to get started. By the way, Eriri—this sester's almost over, you know? There's only about a month left before finals. Maybe cut back on your ti at the studio for now. I don't want Aunt Sayuri coming after if your grades take a nosedive."
"Huh?! Are you looking down on ?"
Eriri puffed up in protest.
"I've been studying just fine, thank you very much!"
But before she could argue more, Yukino interjected calmly,
"Last week's test—you didn't make it into the top fifty in your year. That's a drop from last sester."
"Uh... I can explain..."
Explain? Not likely. Out of the four people sitting at the table, two were ranked first in their year, and one was ranked second. No one was going to let her off the hook that easily. A drop in performance was still a drop.
Utaha smiled sweetly.
"I know you love illustrating more, Eriri, but don't forget—before you joined the ga dev team, you were still a student. Your grades matter. Unless you plan to drop out now and focus entirely on ga developnt—which I highly doubt your parents would approve of."
"Of course I'm not dropping out! I _am_ going to graduate from college!"
Eriri declared proudly, pumping her tiny fist.
"Don't be fooled just because my grades look so-so right now. If I really put my mind to it, getting back on top would be a piece of cake!"
"Oh~~ soone's feeling confident."
Utaha's smile widened slightly, and Eriri imdiately felt a chill.
"I'm really glad to see you so motivated, Eriri," Utaha said sweetly. "So, to help you keep that promise you just made—Yukino, would you mind tutoring Eriri more often? We'll reduce her studio tasks for the ti being. What do you think, Ichin?"
Ichin, trying to hold back a laugh, nodded.
"Sounds good to . The early developnt stages aren't that urgent anyway. If Eriri focuses on her studies for now, that's the right call."
Yukino also noticed the expression on Eriri's face—she looked like she was about to crack. Although Yukino's personality was still as straightforward as ever, being around Ichin and Utaha had rubbed off on her a little. Watching Eriri get knocked down a peg from ti to ti was unexpectedly entertaining.
Besides, Eriri was one of the few people in their year she actually got along with. Yukino didn't want to see her grades drop either. So she nodded and said,
"No problem. I'll handle the tutoring. It's a good opportunity for to review and reinforce my own knowledge, too. Two birds with one stone."
As the lowest-ranked student among the four of them, Eriri had no room to argue. Her schedule for the next month had basically been decided for her, right then and there.
Frustrated, Eriri angrily stabbed a piece of pork cutlet from her lunchbox and shoved it into her mouth like she was declaring war.
---
After finishing lunch and taking a short break, Ichin pulled out his phone. He selected a photo he had saved the day before—a picture of the main mask from _Persona_—and posted it on Bilibili with a short caption:
"New project begins. Please look forward to it, everyone."
The mont he hit post, comnts started pouring in.
It had been ten days since _Hollow Knight_ released, and the ga was still riding a wave of popularity. Many strears and players had already completed a full playthrough, but even more were diving into second runs, aiming for 100% completion.
Sales continued climbing. After breaking 100,000 copies on launch day, _Hollow Knight_ hit 120,000 units on the Switch in its first week, and the Steam version soared to 350,000.
As of today, total sales had surpassed 500,000 copies.
It was a number that stunned players and developers alike in the industry.
But it wasn't completely unexpected. With the success of _Slay the Spire_, Ichin's developnt skills were already well-recognized. On top of that, the ga had been featured at Gascom and launched on the Nintendo Switch. The platforming chanics shown in the demo were top-notch and drew a lot of attention.
Finally, the ga was priced affordably. Even the normally pricier Switch version wasn't much more expensive, and there was even a physical edition available for collectors.
All of these advantages combined led to _Hollow Knight_'s blazing success. It was already a smash hit—especially impressive considering it had only been out for ten days.
And now they're already starting on a new ga?!
That's fast! But what did he post? Sothing from the new ga?
Looks like a mask? Never seen that one before.
Gives off a dark, mysterious vibe.
As expected, the comnts section quickly spiraled into chaos.
Ichin wasn't surprised at all. After scrolling through a few comnts, he put away his phone and left the Service Club with Utaha, heading back to class.
...
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