An hour later, once everything related to work had been sorted out, Ichin brought the meeting to an end.
"Alright, everyone can head back. Afternoon tea should've arrived by now—go grab something to eat, take a short break, and then continue working."
After some people had left the room, Umiko and Yagami Kō exchanged a glance, then immediately hooked their arms around Ichin's neck from left and right.
Looking at him, Umiko laughed. "That photo turned out pretty nice!"
Yagami Kō grinned as she poked Ichin's arm. "You should've taken a few more."
Ichin shot them an annoyed look and struggled free. "Come on, that was all Hazuki's doing. Do you really think I could resist? Who knows why she just sent it out the moment she finished taking it. At least I was wearing clothes—otherwise it would've been even worse."
"Oh! Then when are you training at the gym next time? I'll come watch!" Yagami Kō said excitedly.
Hearing that, Ichin replied speechlessly, "Kō, I didn't expect you to have this kind of hobby. Rin, aren't you going to stop her?"
Off to the side, Rin smiled and said, "It's fine. Ichin really does have a great figure—very pleasing to the eye!"
Ichin hadn't expected Rin to be like this too. And with Rin leaning over to show her other photos that hadn't been posted yet, Ichin finally understood—every single one of these women was a shameless pervert.
Not bothering with them any further, Ichin picked up his laptop and cup and left the meeting room.
After he left, Kō nudged Umiko with her elbow. "Hey, don't you think there's something a bit off between him and Yukino?"
Umiko shrugged. "There is, a little. But it's not something we need to discuss—there's really no need, right?"
"Mmm, that's true. But judging by the situation, Utaha probably knows something too. Even if you say we don't need to talk about it, I'm still really curious."
Hazuki adjusted her glasses and smiled. "Gossip is a woman's nature—it's normal. Let's just watch how things develop. If there really is something going on, we'll find out sooner or later. Come on, let's go have afternoon tea."
Sure enough, the moment Ichin stepped out, he was immediately subjected to countless gazes from the company's female employees. Completely unable to withstand it, he grabbed a cup of milk tea and a slice of cake and fled straight to the Tales of Berseria programming team.
Seeing him arrive, Sakura Nene smiled. "What, can't stand all those girls staring at you? You really got badly set up by Hazuki."
"Who knew the reaction would be this intense?" Ichin replied.
He sat down, stuck a straw into his milk tea, took a sip, then slumped back in his chair. "I really need to find an opportunity to organize some mixers for the single women in the company. Every last one of them is like a bunch of hooligans."
Narumi Tsubame on the other side couldn't help laughing. "There's nothing you can do. When there are more women in a company, it's bound to be like this. I've seen similar situations online in companies with lots of female employees."
Over the past year, they had actually hired quite a few male employees, but overall, the gender ratio was still skewed toward women.
And it wasn't just that there were more women—their looks were generally above average, they were relatively young, and they were highly capable.
This also gave many of the single male employees who joined the company a chance to get into relationships. After all, the company didn't oppose office romances, as long as work wasn't affected.
Men and women working together—it really does make the work less tiring.
Seeing Ichin constantly drinking his milk tea, Sakura Nene asked curiously, "You just finished working out and you're already drinking milk tea and eating cake. Is that really okay?"
"Hm?"
Glancing at the milk tea in his hand and the cake on the table, Ichin said calmly, "I'm not really training for muscle—just for stamina and staying healthy. I'm not as strict as those hardcore fitness people. And it's not like I drink this all the time. An occasional treat is fine. Anyway, you won't see my figure fall apart within the next ten years."
With that, Ichin bit down on the straw and rolled his chair over to Gokou Ruri's side.
At the moment, Gokou Ruri was sipping milk tea with one hand while holding a controller with the other, testing the combat AI of a humanoid boss.
Since Tales of Berseria's combat leaned toward fast-paced action, the requirements for monster AI logic were quite high. The AI needed to respond differently based on distance and the player character's actions, using various attacks and mechanics, with all the judgment logic clearly sorted out and not mixed up. Moreover, to prevent situations where enemies endlessly repeated the same move, Ichin had the design team add more skills to elite-level monsters and above.
Luring enemies into repeating moves was an old and well-known combat strategy, but after playing so many games, Ichin really disliked this kind of design. It made games dull very easily—after all, not everyone enjoyed speedrunning or record-chasing. Most players preferred rich and interesting combat.
After watching Gokou Ruri fight the boss for a while, Ichin said, "There's a problem with the boss's moves at close range."
Gokou Ruri nodded. "Yeah, the boss's response speed is a bit too fast. A lot of players won't be able to react in time and will just get hit. We need to adjust that, and also lower the skill damage a bit. This is only an early-game boss, but the current values are still too high. The other moves don't have any major issues, though. Ichin-kun, could you help me take another look later?"
"Sure, no problem."
As he spoke, Ichin glanced at what Gokou Ruri was wearing today—a black lolita-style dress, with matching hair accessories.
He vaguely remembered seeing this outfit in a magazine at Iijima Yun's place. It was a new release this year, and pretty expensive.
It seemed that with her job stabilized and her salary going up, Gokou Ruri was also investing more into her hobbies.
Yeah, that was good. More variety in clothing made the office scenery better too.
After Gokou Ruri finished testing, Ichin started checking the boss's AI logic. After reviewing it, he identified several areas that needed changes based on the original design concept, offered a few suggestions for further improvement, and then handed it back to Gokou Ruri to implement herself.
As for Ichin, after finishing the cake he'd brought back, he started working on the AI for another boss.
While they worked, everyone chatted casually from time to time.
After fixing a bug, Sakura Nene stretched and said, "Everyone, do you want to go see the new Ultraman movie this weekend? It's about to be released! Ichin-kun, are you going?"
"Me? Sure. I was planning to find time to watch it anyway. Nene, if you're going, is Umiko going too?"
"She is. We agreed on it a long time ago. Aoba and Hifumi are going as well."
Ichin nodded and agreed. "Then let's buy the tickets later. I'll ask Utaha and Yukino if they want to go too, though they'll probably not be that interested."
He took out his phone and sent them a message. In the end, both of them agreed to go.
The reason was simple—both of them quite liked Masami Nagasawa.
Yeah, that was a perfectly valid reason. Ichin liked her too.
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