[Game] Chapter 435-436

Chapter 435: Smooth Cat Bathing, and…

Driving two cars, they quickly arrived at the mall where Utaha and the others had been before.

Inside the pet supplies store, their appointment time was only minutes away, and since there was no one else waiting, they could start immediately.

Among all the cats, the eldest, Mochi, was first to be bathed.

Ever since Yukino brought her home, Mochi had lived without any worries. After Sesame had kittens, Mochi sometimes helped look after them, but most of the time she lazed around the house, snacking and sunbathing, enjoying a good life.

This wasn’t her first time being bathed either. When she was carried onto the professional bathing table, Mochi simply looked at Yukino waiting nearby, then glanced at the staff member who was about to bathe her, and calmly sat down.

The staff girl smiled in surprise. “So well-behaved! Most older cats, unless very well-trained, usually squirm around restlessly their first time here.”

Yukino smiled. “She has a calm personality. Pretty easy to care for. It’s the two little ones that are more troublesome.”

The bathing began.

Ichin and the others didn’t go in. They sat outside with the remaining cats still in their carriers, chatting casually.

Noticing Ichin scribbling away on his tablet, Haruno nudged Utaha. “In this situation, shouldn’t you ban him from the bedroom tonight?”

Hearing that, Ichin immediately looked up. “Eh? Haruno-nee, don’t set me up like that.”

“I’m not. Utaha said it herself at lunch.”

Utaha shrugged. “Relax. I wasn’t planning to restrict him right now. As long as he doesn’t keep doing this when we’re shopping later, it’s fine.”

“You’re going shopping afterward?” Ichin glanced at the carriers. “What about the cats?”

“You’ll take them home, of course.” Utaha smiled. “We’ll start first, and you can meet up with us after dropping them off. It’s not far anyway.”

Ichin’s mouth twitched. “Yeah, not far.”

Neither he nor Utaha had thought of leaving the cats at the store. That would mean keeping them in carriers the whole time, which was worse than Ichin driving them back. The round trip wouldn’t take too long anyway.

Haruno, sitting on Utaha’s other side, narrowed her eyes with anticipation. “Last time you went shopping, Utaha and Yukino picked out clothes for you. I’m very interested in this part. Today, I must experience it too. Ichin, be ready to play dress-up model!”

“Uh… I already have plenty of new clothes.”

“That’s fine! It’s getting hotter—time to pick some summer outfits. You can never have too many!”

Haruno thumped her chest grandly. “Big sis will pay!”

“...”

Ichin gave up resisting. Three against one—no way to win.

One look at Utaha’s expectant gaze told him everything: this afternoon, maybe even all evening, he was doomed to endless shopping.

Luckily, it was Saturday, with Sunday still free. At least he could sleep in a bit… no, wait, he’d already planned his workout schedule. He’d have to get up early after all.

When Yukino came out carrying freshly bathed Mochi, she saw Ichin slumped in a chair looking lifeless.

Puzzled, she glanced at Haruno and Utaha. “What happened to him?”

After Haruno explained the shopping plans, even Yukino showed a faintly tempted expression, which made Ichin’s heart sink further.

One by one, the cats were taken in, bathed, dried, their fur trimmed neatly, nails clipped, even paw fur groomed—each coming out fresh and renewed.

Though it took time, the quality of service was impressive. Their coats looked smooth and silky—completely different from before.

Once all the cats were tucked back into their carriers and the bill was paid, the four of them left the mall and loaded the carriers into Ichin’s car.

Opening the door, Ichin looked at the three women. “Alright, you go shop first. I’ll drop the cats off and come back.”

Haruno waved happily. “All yours then~ Utaha, Yukino, let’s go! Shopping time!”

And with that, she pulled the two along into the mall.

Ichin scratched his head, exhaled with a wry smile, and slid into the car.

---

After being “tortured” most of Saturday, Ichin finally enjoyed a proper rest on Sunday.

Compared to being dragged through endless outfit changes by Utaha, Haruno, and Yukino, collage and work truly felt relaxing.

He didn’t hate shopping per se—just not when he was the one being dressed up, especially with three people picking for him. That was real suffering.

After class, he went to the company with Utaha. She watched him head straight into the Dark Souls programming group, fully absorbed in work.

Aoba noticed and asked Yagami Kou curiously, “Have we run into any development problems lately? Why does Ichin-kun look so urgent?”

Kou, who knew what had happened Saturday, chuckled and shook her head. “Relax. It’s not a work problem. Just a ‘happy kind of trouble.’”

“Huh?”

Aoba tilted her head in confusion and turned to Momiji beside her. “What does that mean?”

Momiji was equally baffled. After thinking hard, she said, “No idea. Maybe he really does have sudden work issues.”

Her mind was simple—aside from drawing and food, she didn’t care for other puzzles.

Utaha, of course, had no intention of explaining. After chatting a bit with Toyama Rin, she went over to the Fall Guys team to check their progress before public testing. She was genuinely interested in the game and definitely planned to play it when testing opened.

As for the Dark Souls team, Ichin had hurried there partly because of a real technical issue.

“The boss is acting up?”

He frowned at the code for Pontiff Sulyvahn on the screen.

“Looks like we’ll have to comb through everything. On the surface it seems fine, but something else must be interfering. Don’t worry, Narumi, leave this to me. You go handle other tasks—we’ve still got plenty.”

Reassuring the troubled Narumi Tsubame, Ichin sat down and began tackling the issue himself.

***

Chapter 436: Fall Guys Announced

This particular problem in the code was something Ichin hadn’t expected at all. When the initial programming was done, he hadn’t personally written it, but he had reviewed Narumi’s progress and hadn’t noticed anything wrong.

After carefully checking everything again and studying it with the test program, he finally pinpointed the cause.

“So it was actually a chain reaction from several small bugs?”

Scratching his head, Ichin confirmed the issue and then explained it to Narumi.

“Alright, Narumi. This isn’t your fault—without multiple test passes, it really would’ve been hard to catch. I’ll fix it now. Once I’m done, take a look at the records of the fix. That way, if something similar happens again, you’ll know how to handle it.”

Hearing that, Narumi finally let out a sigh of relief. If it had really been a mistake from her development process, she would’ve been depressed to no end. Thankfully, it was just one of those unpredictable bugs.

On the side, Nene grinned happily. “Hehe, that’s great news! This boss’s moves look so cool. If something in the design went wrong, we wouldn’t get to see it in action for quite a while.”

“Yeah, good thing it got caught early.”

Narumi nodded, glancing at Ichin before clenching her fists to cheer herself on. “Alright, back to work—time to keep improving myself!”

Once the bug was identified, Ichin spent about twenty minutes fixing it all. After testing, the misaligned boss actions and missing special effects were completely gone.

With that settled, Ichin casually grabbed some unfinished code from the programming group and started working on it himself.

Since he was already sitting there, he figured he might as well spend the rest of the day buried in programming.

He worked straight through until nearly six o’clock. At that point, the door opened and Utaha came over, gently patting his head.

“Ichin, take a break. It’s almost time to clock out.”

Snapping back to his senses, Ichin pulled off his headset, stretched his neck, and said, “Already? Time sure flew by.”

He saved his current work to continue tomorrow, shut down his computer, and stood up. After telling the team to wrap things up, he left with Utaha.

That evening, they ate dinner at Utaha’s parents’ place, so Ichin didn’t have to cook.

Back home afterward, he had been planning to relax with some games, but the moment he entered the bedroom, Utaha pulled him from his chair and pushed him onto the bed.

“Lie down. I’ll give you a back massage.”

Looking at him, she said, “You had class, then sat at the computer all day at the office. You barely moved your body, right? Let me loosen you up a bit. Don’t overwork yourself.”

Moved by her thoughtfulness, Ichin smiled as he lay down. “Alright, I’ll gladly accept your service.”

Utaha climbed onto the bed, sat beside him, and began carefully massaging the muscles in his back.

Within moments, Ichin was so comfortable that his eyes narrowed. Surprised, he asked, “Have you studied this?”

Her hands pressing firmly, Utaha replied, “I watched a few videos and learned a bit. Looks like it’s paying off.”

This was an unexpected surprise—Ichin had no idea when she’d learned it. Regardless, the fact that she wanted to do this touched him deeply.

After ten minutes, he told her to stop—he could feel her strength fading, meaning she must be tired.

Sitting up, he pulled her into his arms, gazing at her slightly flushed face. “Thanks for the effort. Take a break.”

Utaha nodded and nestled against him as they went to the living room to watch TV together.

—

The rest of May passed in this rhythm—Ichin buried in study and work. Aside from the occasional shopping trip with Utaha, most of his free time was spent reading technical books to improve himself.

Though Dark Souls development didn’t feel too difficult for him now, if he was going to continue making games in the long run, he couldn’t afford to stand still. He had to keep growing.

Days passed quickly in this tight schedule, until June arrived.

It was finally time to announce Fall Guys, along with its first public online test.

On June 4th, Ichin teased on his account that a new game would be revealed on June 6th, with the first round of free online testing.

But it was only a teaser—no details about the game’s genre were given.

Still, based on the studio’s track record, expectations were high.

Then came June 6th. Early in the morning, both Steam and Switch released a demo for Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout.

At the same time, all of the company’s official accounts dropped a reveal videoFall Guys: Ultimate Knockout was officially announced.

The video showed colorful bean-like characters tumbling through wacky obstacle courses: dodging oncoming contraptions, jumping across platforms, and racing toward the finish line.

As the footage continued, bigger maps and funnier costumes were revealed, instantly giving players a clear sense of the gameplay.

“Wait—this looks just like those obstacle-course variety shows!”

Indeed, it was—but as a battle royale, with online multiplayer.

It looked hilarious and fun.

And since the test was free, with low system requirements, there was no reason not to try it.

Downloads of the demo on Steam and Switch began climbing rapidly.

That Saturday, Ichin and the Fall Guys dev team were all at the office. Not only them, but even the Dark Souls team came to watch the first day of testing unfold.

As the download numbers and online players steadily rose, Hazuki narrowed her eyes. “Everything stable on the network side?”

The network team member monitoring the backend nodded. “All good. Servers are fine for now, but with how quickly numbers are rising, we’ll probably need to spin up another cluster this afternoon.”

Hearing that, Hazuki looked at Ichin.

He nodded. “No problem. We knew we’d need more than just this initial setup anyway. Right now the numbers aren’t overwhelming, but once the streamers we contacted go live, the player count will rise even further.”

It might’ve been just the first public test, but since it was free, it was bound to attract a wave of players eager to try it.

***