Leaving Utaha in the office to focus on her novel, Ichin stepped out and went to sit beside Yagami Kō.
"Kō, are you busy?"
Yagami Kō wasn't wearing her headphones at the moment. She set down her pressure-sensitive pen and looked at Ichin. "Not too bad. What's up?"
"I just wanted to talk to you about the next PV3."
The moment Ichin said that, a delighted smile lit up Yagami Kō's face. "So that means PV2 passed?"
"Of course. Kō, you did a fantastic job—I can't find any flaws in it. It's good to go as-is."
"Hehe, well of course! I spent a lot of time learning for this PV, you know!"
She wasn't exaggerating. Ever since she took on the task of making the PV, Yagami Kō had been using a lot of her after-work hours to study video and promotional editing.
Even though it was new territory for her, she had watched the process of Ichin and the others making the Hollow Knight PVs before, so she had a basic idea of what to do. And with Ichin pointing out key content to highlight, as long as she stayed focused, it was hard to go wrong.
Noticing an open bag of chips on Kō's desk, Ichin snagged a couple and said, "So I'll leave PV3 and PV4 to you, along with the rest of the 30-second videos for the main character group."
"What, you're not doing them yourself?"
"Hehe, the most difficult work for the art team is already done. What's left is mostly collaborative and relatively simple tasks, so I'll be shifting my focus back to the programming side. So I'll be counting on you to take over PV production."
Yagami Kō nodded, then raised her right index finger at Ichin. "Hmm~ I'm okay with it, but I have one small request."
"A request? Don't tell me you want a raise? I was already planning to increase salaries next year—what's the rush?"
"It's not about the salary!"
After shooting down his joke, Kō looked around cautiously, then leaned closer to Ichin and whispered, "For the upcoming game promotional livestreams… can I not be one of the support staff?"
Ichin immediately understood. So that's what it was about.
Seeing her pleading expression, Ichin agreed without hesitation. "No problem. If you don't want to participate, I'll assign someone else. I think Hajime and Umiko would be happy to help. But Kō… you sure you want to give up the livestream overtime pay?"
"Nope, nope! Let them take this opportunity instead!"
Yagami Kō knew she wasn't the type who could speak well in front of a camera—let alone promote a game live on stream alongside voice actors. It just wasn't her thing.
"Alright then, settled. Let me brief you on the requirements for the next two PVs."
"Wait, let me grab my notebook!"
Kō quickly opened her notepad. "By the way, when are these two PVs due?"
"No rush. Just finish PV3 by the end of December. And even if it's not ready in time, it's fine—we're not releasing the game until next year, so it's totally okay to save PV for a release next year too."
After walking Kō through the key content for the remaining PVs, Ichin headed over to the programming department to join Umiko in testing related systems.
As the workday neared its end, Kuroneko finally wrapped up her tasks.
She took off her headphones, stretched, and looked around—only to see Ichin and Umiko huddled together, deep in discussion over the program.
Remembering the conversation she had with Kirino Kosaka the night before, Kuroneko took a deep breath, summoned her courage, and stood up to approach him.
"Um… Ichin-kun."
Hearing Ruri's voice, Ichin turned around with a smile and asked, "What's up?"
"Well, it's like this…" Ruri said a bit shyly. "Once the game is nearly finished, won't we need to bring in some testers to do the final round of testing?"
"Yeah, we'll definitely hire a few," Ichin replied after giving it some thought. "Probably around ten people. Why? Do you have someone in mind who wants to do part-time testing?"
Ichin's quick guess didn't surprise Rin at all—after all, her question had been pretty straightforward.
She nodded. "That's right. I met an old friend yesterday, and she really likes our game. She asked me if she could join in if we ever start recruiting part-time testers."
An old friend of Ruri's?
Ichin wasn't sure if Ruri had gone through the original Oreimo storyline, but that didn't really matter. She was someone Umiko had personally recognized as a valuable member of the programming team, and Ichin had no reason to be stingy about something like this.
"We were planning to put out a public announcement for part-time testers anyway. Since you have a recommendation, and it's someone who genuinely enjoys our games, then of course I'd welcome her. When the testing phase starts, if she's still interested, just bring her over."
Ichin's straightforward answer made Ruri very happy.
"Thank you so much, Ichin-kun! I'll tell my friend!"
Watching Ruri happily return to her seat, Umiko whispered, "You agreed?"
"It's not a big deal. We're hiring people anyway, aren't we?"
"Fair enough." Umiko rubbed her temples. "There's still a bit of time left. Let's finish checking this last section. I'm getting a little hungry. Oh right, can I come over to your place for dinner tonight?"
"Rin isn't cooking?"
"She went out to eat with Ko. I didn't want to be a third wheel."
Ichin took a breath and looked at the subtle smile on Umiko's face. "So coming over to my place isn't being a third wheel?"
"I'll pay for the groceries."
"That's more like it."
Time passed, and mid-October arrived, bringing with it Toyogasaki's midterm exams.
The day after the exams ended, the results were quickly released and posted on the first-floor bulletin board of the academic building.
In the third-year section, as always, Ichin and Utaha's names claimed the top two spots in the grade rankings—unchanged as ever.
When other students saw the two names, they couldn't help but comment in awe.
"Looks like no one's going to shake their rankings until graduation."
"Forget Ichin—he's a notorious academic beast from China, that's to be expected. But why are Kasumigaoka's grades getting more ridiculous too? She's acing all her sciences, and only trails Ichin by a few points in the humanities."
"These two… they're both aiming for Todai, right?"
"Why even take the exam? I heard from a reliable source that they've already secured recommendation slots and are just waiting to go for interviews."
"Whoa!!! That's amazing!"
As for the two protagonists everyone was talking about, they were currently sitting in Shizuka Hiratsuka's office.
***
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