"I-I'm alright Kyo. But who..."
Who even fell on him?
Korey looked up to find himself face-to-face with a Therian girl, who opened her eyes a second later, as her pupils shrink as soon as she found herself in the situation that she was in. Both of them yelped in surprise as soon as their eyes met with the other.
"Ack! Oh my gosh, I am so sorry sir, I d-didn't mean to bump into you, I'm sorry-" She exclaimed, quickly getting up and helping Korey stand up. She seemed to be apologizing a lot for just bumping into him...
"Whoa, whoa, calm down! I honestly should've been paying attention, it's more or less my fault that we both fell to the ground." Korey explained, hoping that would be enough to calm the Therian down.
The brown skinned Therian quickly skimmed over Korey's armor. "Are you hurt? Any injuries?" She sighed in relief when Korey told her that he was perfectly fine.
"I guess your fifty-fifty luck is starting, and we haven't even reached the first floor of Yggdrasil yet!" Kyo teased, causing Korey's cheeks to flare red for a few seconds. "S-Shut up, Kyo!"
Kyo couldn't help but laugh, leaving Korey to sigh in disbelief, before turning to the Therian who fell on him. "Still, that was a rather surprising fall. Were you in a rush or something?" He inquired, as the Therian's ears twitched and the girl turned her attention to the brown haired Fencer.
"Y-yeah, I g-guess you can say that. I-I was just hoping that-"
"There you are, sis! Sheez, could you wait for at least one second? It's hard enough for me and Beta to keep up with you..."
The woman was interrupted by another voice, as female Therian ran up to her, followed by a black wolf. It seems like the other girl had the same skin color as the Therian who fell on him, along with the same hair color. From what Korey could tell, those two could easily be identified as twins, as he noticed that the other Therian's eye color was the same.
"S-Sorry Demetria, I- uh... I couldn't help but be in a rush to hurry back to our room back at the inn that I tripped and fell..."
"Keiko... You may be a Masurao, but you're still clumsiness is still on par with how you rush things." The shorter Therian sighed before turning to face Korey and Kyo, and quickly bowed in apology. "I'm sorry about that... My sister couldn't contain her excitement to climb the World Tree lately, she's been tripping more times than I can count."
Korey chuckled a bit, as he scratched the back of his head. "I-It's fine. No one got severely injured in the end, so it's all good."
"I see..." The girl replied, seeming relieved. "I don't suppose you guys are gonna travel to the World Tree as well?"
"Yeah, we are. We just kinda... can't right now because..." Kyo responded, pointing to the line that Korey and Kyo encountered, as the Therian girls looked at where Kyo was pointing. It seems like the line got even longer than it was before. The taller Therian girl let out a whimper, as she looked at the ground, almost like she was in shame.
"Ohhh... there goes registering for a guild today." She groaned, as the shorter sister placed her hand on her shoulder in an attempt to cheer her up. "Hey, don't worry. There's always tomorrow. We can try again then."
The taller sister nodded, and seemed like she wanted to say something when Korey interrupted her. "Pardon me for interrupting anything, but I forgot to introduce myself and my friend here. I'm Korey, and this is my best friend, Kyo." Korey announced, as Kyo smiled at the Therian girls, whose attention is back to Korey and Kyo.
"It's nice to meet you two." Kyo's face beamed, as Keiko seemed to smile in return.
"You too! U-Um... I'm Keiko, and this is my twin sis, Demetria. Oh, and that's Beta!" Keiko explained, pointing to the hound that was sitting next to Demetria. It seemed to look at Keiko when Keiko called for its name, wagging its tail in the process.
"Certainly nice names you two have." Korey commented. Keiko looked back to Korey and Kyo, seeming to be thinking about something. "Are you two in a guild, by any chance?" She inquired.
"No... at least, not yet. I'm going to be the leader of my own Guild, with Kyo joining me. I just need three more guildmates to find... I don't suppose you girls would be interested in joining?"
Keiko's face seem to beam at the thought of it, and turned to her smaller twin sister, who seemed to be in deep thought. "Can we join, Demi? Oh can we pleaaaaase join?!" She continued to ask Demetria, which caused a chuckle to rise from Korey.
It was like reliving his old memories, seeing his younger sister act much like how Keiko is right now... He wondered how she was doing right now. She had been in charge of keeping care of the house while Korey was gone, so he hoped she was doing fine.
"Can you be quiet for moment, Keiko? You're interrupting my concentration."
"S-sorry, sis..."
Demetria's sudden question must have brought Korey back to reality, as after a couple of more seconds later, she appears to have made a decision. "I can't understand why you would ask us out of the blue to join your guild, especially since we only just met... But, I'll keep that in mind. Is that acceptable?"
Korey nodded to the Therian's question. "Yeah, it's totally fine. I didn't come here and expect to get a full guild in one day... That's just way too much effort, especially after the trip me and Kyo had coming here."
"Ah, so you just recently arrived?" Keiko asked.
"Yeah, about one or two hours ago, I believe. We had a few delays, but I'm just glad we didn't arrive at midnight..." Kyo responded.
"I see... Me and my sis have been here for only a few days, and we've been trying to come up with a guild name for days." Keiko continued, before letting Demetria add more to the conversation.
"We even tried to get some members to join us when we tried coming up with one of them, though they either just leave or don't even give us the chance to listen to why we want to join them."
"Ouch... I guess even here, there's people who are way too excited to climb the tree that nobody would listen to anyone on what they might say." Korey lamented.
"In a way, I guess it's to be expected... though I must ask, how many people did you ask overall?" The brown skin Celestrian asked, swiftly stealing the question out from Korey's mouth before he even got a chance to say it.
"We tried all kinds of people. I talked to Harbingers, Puglists, Necromancers, Botanists, and Demetria tried asking Shamans, Dragoons, and all the other classes of explorers that came through to Iorys. Though we've been keeping track and, uh..." Keiko started, but then whispers something to Demetria, who looked surprised at first, before taking out a piece of stacked paper.
"Well, take a look at this." Demetria spoke, handing Korey the paper in her hand. Korey and Kyo looked over it, occasionally flipping to the next sheet of paper. There were all kinds of names written on here, even names that he hadn't even heard of. When they got to the last page though...
"Two thousand people?!" Korey let out a surprised yell. Apparently all of the people on the list was counted separately, even when they were in a guild, and they apparently asked everyone in guilds that had three or five people, then devolved into asking guilds with only two people in them towards the end of the list.
"That's quite a lot of people... More than I'd reasonably talk to in a WEEK!"Kyo added, as she handed the papers back to Demetria.
"Good lord, how long have you two been at this for?! I'd have given up around one hundred!" Korey inquired, perplexed at their determination.
"We've been at it every two or three days since we arrived in Iorys, actually. We even tried asking at the bar, but almost everybody there had no interest in having us, or they were already full on guildmates." Keiko responded.
"And despite all that, you kept trying?" Kyo was the next to ask a question, and this time, Demetria was the one to answer to it.
"In a way, yes and no. We wanted to do so this morning, but trying to find people we didn't ask on our list was getting difficult with each passing day, so sometime before we hit two thousand, we decided we were going to make our own guild if we did hit that mark. And thus, now that we've hit that mark, we gave up on asking people and we decided that we are going to make a guild on our own with our third member that we gained half-way through our list when we were fully prepared."
"Wait, so, you actually got someone to join you?" Keiko and Demetria both nodded in response to Korey's question.
"Yeah, she's currently at the inn. I think she joined around the three hundreds or seven hundreds, I don't recall the exact details..." Demetria sighed, shrugging the thought off.
"Oh well. If I do recall it per chance, I'll be sure to let you know. I'm sure she knows it more better than me or Keiko..." Demetria continued.
Seems like the third member Keiko and Demetria have is another girl... If Korey could get her to join along as well, then that's essentially a full guild right then and there. Keiko and Demetria's dream of being in a guild is essentially done in one fell swoop after all that they've worked for. Though to be on the safe side, he wanted to ask her if she wanted to join as well, just to make it fair for the three of them.
"I guess on that note, would you guys like to head to the inn with us? It's getting rather late..."
Keiko's question made Korey snap back to reality again, as he took note of the sky's orange hue. Had they really be conversing for so long that the sun started setting? "Huh, so it seems. Shall we tag along with Keiko and Demetria to the inn, Kyo?"
Kyo placed her hand to her chin, seeming to be thinking on the question, which thankfully, didn't take minutes to answer. "...I suppose we found everything we need to go to tomorrow. Let's not waste and time and head to the inn. My feet are fucking killing me..."
"Perfect! Then follow us to Jenetta's Inn!" Keiko spoke, but felt Demetria's hand on her shoulder before she could even take one step.
"And make sure you don't trip this time, Keiko. Don't want you to have any injuries before the day we enter the labyrinth. We're in no rush to get in there..." Demetria cautioned, as Keiko nodded in response.
"O-okay, sis. I'll be careful..." Keiko agreed, taking a few seconds to take some deep breaths before heading to the inn.
"Come on, Beta. Don't fall behind, now." Demetria called for her hound, as it perked its head toward's Demetria, and started following her, before Korey and Kyo followed shortly after.
"Aren't you excited Korey?" Korey looked at Kyo, who had asked him the question in particular. "On one hand, yeah... But at the same time, I'm nervous as to how this journey will go. No one knows what they're going to be facing in the labyrinth..."
He answered truthfully, as Kyo seemed content with his answer. "Fair enough... Guess we're in the same boat." Kyo responded, turning her focus back on the road ahead.
Anyone would be nervous to enter such a place... but who knows what kinds of mysterious will be found in there? And what kind of people will they meet along the way there?
The question only gets harder to answer as each day goes by. Right now, Korey is looking forward to meeting this third member that Keiko and Demetria picked up...