With Kyungsu as the presiding judge, the team managers tested the students.

As the test was so simple, it was almost impossible to test their skills accurately. But the team managers did their best to evaluate the students as if to select their successors.

As there were so many applicants, it took two days to test them all.

Though Hyunwoo felt sorry about the six students who left, he had to steel himself not to repeat the same mistake. It was to enhance the students’ skills as much as possible.

For this, Hyunwoo had to create an atmosphere for them to study hard.

He called them again and announced,

“We’ll continue to evaluate your performance in the future. And the 21 teams will be divided into the top, intermediate and lower groups. Those teams that fail to move up to the top group three times in a row will have to leave.”

The students were quiet. Who was going to raise an objection when Ani & Funny owner Hyunwoo announced the decision?

Everybody was full of tension.

“I don’t think my selection method is the best. There must be a better way. If you are not satisfied with my decision, just find a better alternative and let me know. Let me accept it.”

When he was done, Hyunwoo left the rest up to Kyungsu.

“Please buy them some snacks in the afternoon.”

“Where are you going now?”

“It looks like the atmosphere here is heavy if I continue to stay here. So, soothe them well.”

“Got it.”

Coming out of the office, Hyunwoo looked around the Ani & Funny building to find out if there was any lot or building for sale for the expansion of the office.

There were none, however. Though there were some empty buildings nearby, they were not for sale.

He then called Ngun, the temporary head of the Vietnamese branch. Though Ngun didn’t speak English well, he could still carry on a basic conversation with Hyunwoo.

“Did you hire many people?”

“I hired about 70 so far,” said Ngun proudly.

But Hyunwoo was not satisfied.

In fact, he planned to increase to 42 teams from the 21 that Ani & Funny was currently running. In that case, each student would be entrusted with leading his or her own team. When the office was expanded, there would be more students coming in, with an increase in workload.

It would delay the work speed and lower the quality if Hyunwoo hired the staff after that, so he wanted to hire as many staff members as possible in preparation for that potential manpower shortage.

“Hey, increase the staff up to 200 as soon as possible. If your office space is not large enough, let me find a bigger one for you. If you want to be the CEO of the Vietnamese branch you need to learn English more. You should be able to communicate in English.”

“Yeah, I got it. Let me try harder.”

Hyunwoo then called Sungji Na, president of N&C in Vietnam to find a bigger office space.

“Really? Expanding the office again?”

“Well, I want to seize the opportunity when it comes along. One favor, Mr. Na.: I want to build a five-story headquarters of the Vietnamese branch that can house 400 people. Can you find me a good lot and a competent builder?”

“Do you intend to construct a building? In fact, I know a cheap building on sale in Ho Chi Minh City now. I was thinking to buy it as it has some investment value. Hearing your explanation, it looks like that fits your needs.”

“Wow, that’s good. I don’t have to build a headquarter building then. If the location is good, let me buy it.”

Na emailed him the information about the location of the building and its sale price.

Hyunwoo asked him to purchase the building then called Ngun to take care of the interior work.

Several days later, Hyunwoo entered the Ani & Funny office.

Kyungsu briefed him about the status of the routine business as usual.

While he was being briefed, Hyunwoo was thrilled because Kyungsu had an important item to report to him.

Story Mecca was hosting a couple of open contests in connection with Ani & Funny at the same time. One was about the animated move story while the other was about a short-story animation.

The short-story animation contest was closed as of today, so he would get a call from Story Mecca today at the earliest or tomorrow at the latest.

But Kyungsu didn’t mention anything about the contest while briefing Hyunwoo.

Looks like they’re going to inform us tomorrow.

But there was something interesting other than the open contest.

“I had a call from an official with the Education Ministry. He said he wanted to use our animations as teaching material. Given the choice, he said he wanted to use Tuti & Angelica and asked us to participate in the contest.”

Tuti & Angelica contained educational content on history. Though the content was educational, it still was the most interesting among many animation works.

Even some of the parents who stopped their children from watching animations made an exception for Tuti & Angelica.

It didn’t deal with Korean history only.

Starting with Season 2, Tuti & Angelica first dealt with the histories of the world. The educational content about America and Europe was also attracting wide attention.

That’s why Hyunwoo was expecting invitations to contests not from Korea but also other countries.

Finally, Ani & Funny was invited by the Education Ministry to take part in the contest. Though Ani & Funny had to contend with other companies, Hyunwoo was confident his company could beat its rivals in terms of educational contents, popularity and the variety of content.

He had no reason to reject the official’s offer. As long as Ani & Funny’s animation works could be used as the teaching material either in Korea or overseas, Hyunwoo happy.

“Regardless of the price, accept the offer. You don’t have to get my approval next time. You might lose the opportunity while waiting for my approval. Just take action and report to me later.”

“Got it.”

The next day Hyunwoo went to Haenim School as usual. As Suyoung was taking care of all the matters related to the school, Hyunwoo only focused on analyzing Taeho’s failed experimental notes.

While he was in the thick of that, he received a call.

He initially thought it was a call from Story Mecca, but it was not.

The call was from Yonggu.

“Hey, my parents are seeing her parents next month!”

Hyunwoo’e eyes opened wide at that. Seeing her parents meant he would marry Minhye finally.

Of course, Hyunwoo thought deep inside, Was Yonggu’s decision wise?

For he felt Yonggu and Minhye would marry not for love but for something else.

Yonggu was aware of that, too, but it was his judgment call. Hyunwoo didn’t need to advise him on that.

“Good for you. Congrats!”

“Thanks, man. I think you deserve the credit for this. I’ve decided to come back to Space Design today.”

“Okay. Grow the company big, man!”

As soon as Hyunwoo hung up the phone, he had another call.

This time it was from Jaeyun Hong, who was responsible for the contest at Story Mecca.

Hyunwoo answered the phone quickly.

As expected, the call was about the contest about animation the story.

“The contest drew lots of attention from writers. I just closed the application for the contest,” Jaeyun said.

“Thanks for your good work, Jaeyun.”

But Jaeyun let out a sigh.

When Hyunwoo asked him why he sighed, he replied in an embarrassed voice.

“They submitted more than 1,000 entries when we have to select only ten. I just don’t know how to judge all these. It looks like reviewing and selecting them will cost more than expected.”

Giggling at that, Hyunwoo said, “Just leave it to me. I have a solution of my own.”

He received the applicants’ stories from Story Mecca. Though it numbered over 1,000, the volume of each story was no more than one piece of A4 paper, so it was not that much.

In the evening, he called the 42 students of Ani & Funny together.

All of them were tense because they felt some of them would drop from the race and leave.

But he didn’t call them for that reason.

“From now own each of you is the head of your own team. Just form a team of your own and make an animation work.”

The students were not embarrassed. Though Hyunwoo didn’t mention it this time, they expected that some of them would have to leave someday.

Hyunwoo gave them the story files submitted to the contest.

“Each team has to select a story. You should make sure your selections not overlap.”

Those who choose good stories had priority, so they would have to cooperate with each other to review the stories as soon as possible before selecting one.

“There is a prize for this contest, with the top winner receiving 70 million won and the 7th winner one million won. I’m going to hire those students who stand out in the process as part-timers.”

“We’ll do our best!” they answered with sparkling eyes.

Hyunwoo also had a great expectation of them. He wanted to use this occasion to discover talented students among Ani & Funny students and the internet cafe members.

“As you know, these works are all protected by copyright. I’ll buy the copyright if the need arises, so don’t think about anything suspicious. Give your internet cafe members a kind reminder of my point. If there occurs something wrong, I can’t protect you. And that team in trouble will be expelled from Ani & Funny forever.”

“Got it.”

“Start to work now.”

From now on they were supposed to select the good ones first out of the 1,000 stories. They went back to their desks and got down to work.

Hyunwoo looked at them with a look of full expectation.

‘I think I can expect at least a couple of excellent animation works. No, I don’t need two. All I want is just one smash hit.’