At 4 PM, Ichin arrived at the studio together with Utaha.
Heading over to the art departnt, 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 that was Hazuki's idea?"
"No, no, don't worry," Kō waved her hand. "You already told the art departnt is my responsibility, so I wouldn't make decisions on a whim. Those three were chosen by Rin and together—they're truly talented. I even had them do so live drawing on the spot. I'll show you their work later so you can see for yourself. As for the other departnts, 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, "Co 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, co in! The interviews today went really well!" Hazuki said cheerfully as she handed over a finalized list of the selected candidates.
"These are the confird hires. We'll notify each of them tomorrow to co in and complete the onboarding process."
Glancing at the list, Ichin imdiately noticed the na "Kuroneko Gokou." There had only been two applicants for the programming position, and both passed the interview. It seed 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 nad 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 so 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 imdiately 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 ti 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 resu. Welco aboard, Miss Gokou. I'm Ichin, the founder of this studio."
Kuroneko shook hands with him a little nervously.
"Nice to et you, Boss!"
"There's no need to call that," Ichin waved it off. "Even Umiko and the others don't call that. Just use my na—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 co by specifically to see Gokou?"
"Yeah. Hazuki told you kept her here, so I ca 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 co in? I forgot to check with Umiko about that."
Kuroneko imdiately responded,
"I can co three days a week—Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays! And if overti is needed, weekends are fine too!"
"We'll talk about overti separately," Ichin said with a smile. "Here at the studio, we don't usually ask people to do high-intensity overti. If we have a lot of developnt going on, we might ask people to co in on Saturdays—we provide als and overti pay. But Sundays are strictly off for everyone. Is that arrangent okay for you?"
Seeing how easygoing Ichin was as a boss, and hearing that the company's overti 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 confird 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 so ti 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 developnt team—excluding finance, HR, and other support roles—up to over fifty people. That's when we'll have a truly stable team."
Recruitnt 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 rembered he hadn't logged into Bilibili in a while.
After logging in through his browser, he found that his inbox was flooded with ssages—so seeking collaboration, others asking about upcoming gas, and many wondering about updates for older ones.
Clicking on his previous update post for Hollow Knight, Ichin noticed a slew of new comnts, all eagerly speculating about the next ga.
> "Finished Hollow Knight again. So many pros out there, I can't even crack the top 100 anymore. Giving up, lol."
> "Sa with Slay the Spire. Beat it on all difficulties. Still no news about a new ga. Not even a peep."
> "Hey, anyone ho? Say sothing!"
Seeing all the comnts, 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 ti to make any announcents.
...
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