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It was the morning three days after Crim invited Hinagiku and Ryunosuke. All of their schedules lined up that day, so they agreed to meet in the Starting City Wyndham’s southern district, where the assembly hall to register guilds was located.

“Hey, it’s been a while…or maybe not much of a while actually.”
“Oh sorry for keeping you waiting, I didn’t think you’d be here already.”

Crim spotted Ryunosuke waving at her in front of the registration desk, so she ran up to greet him.

“Well, I’m just glad you’re all really easy to spot, especially Crim.”
“Ahahah, I guess this color stands out…”

Crim’s finger twirled her long hair around as she mentioned that. She had been in that player-packed city for a few days already, but so far she had been unable to spot anyone else with the same hair color as her.

“So…is that your daughter over there?”

There was a young girl hiding behind Ryunosuke, so Crim assumed that was his daughter.

“Please try to understand her. I work from home, so she became pretty dependent on me and shy with others. Now go, greet your new friends.” Prompted by Ryunosuke, her face slowly peeked from behind him.

“Ah, are you a gnome?” Scooting down a little, Crim asked the girl.

She looked younger than Crim, probably being on her way out of elementary school, or early middle school. That was the same as Hinagiku.

If she stood up straight she would likely be closer in height to Crim, had inorganic-looking sky blue hair, and immaculate white skin that looked like synthetic skin of the newest generation.

But more telling were her eyes, with pupils that looked like the mechanical aperture of a camera with streaks that lit up periodically. Those were all features of gnome artificial lifeforms.

There were other additions though, like the headset-like parts around her ears, or the mechanism she had affixed to her hair that seemed to have a rainbow vinyl record spinning inside, or the reinforced servos-like gauntlets on her arms, giving her a more raw mechanical appearance, ready for combat.

“Yes, she is. Apparently, she’s a rare species of gnome, called Norma Machina. In a way she’ll be right at home with the rest of you, so take care of her.”
“Hahah… Now that you mention it, I guess we do have a lot of rare species…”

Crim’s Noble Red was likely the rarest one, followed by the High Elf twins, Hinagiku as a Silver Fox, and now a Norma Machina. It was somewhat impressive that everyone belonged to a rare species except for Ryunosuke.

“It’s getting harder to walk through the city thanks to that though.” Crim and Freya smiled at each other awkwardly, recalling all the stares they felt while getting there.

“Hey, at least those were good stares. I felt like everyone wanted to wring my neck.” Frey added that with a heartfelt sigh. So far he had been the only male character in the group, which turned him into a black hole for jealousy from other players. All Crim could really do was tell him to not let it bother him.

“Anyway, that’s not important now. This is Crim, she’ll be our Guild Master, make sure to get along with her, alright?”
“U-Umm…”

Hearing that, Crim held her hand out ready.

At the same time, the girl hesitantly moved out from behind Ryunosuke, all of her movements accompanied by a slight whirring sound from motors, and shook Crim’s hand.

While she was clearly wary of everything, she also seemed to be keen on learning more about her new friends, her demeanor slightly reminiscent of a shy kitty.

“I’m…Lycoris. Nice to…meet you umm…Crim?”

She began introducing herself with a weak voice, which only faltered more as her embarrassment grew.

That’s too cute!

That kicked Crim’s protective instincts into high gear, her face reddening as she thought that. At the same time she began to understand why Ryunosuke was so doting and protective as well.

Once their introductions were over, Hinagiku approached Lycoris and tried to talk more to her, as they were both around the same age. Lycoris replied slightly clumsily at first, but it was clear she was not feeling bothered either.

Crim watched that, relieved that everything was working out nicely, then focused her attention on registering their guild as promptly as possible. At least until the last step.

«Please enter your guild’s name.»

A window with a text field appeared in front of everyone.

“Ah.” But no one moved a muscle. Eventually Crim just muttered, “It completely passed my mind,” staring blankly at the prompt.

“Crim…don’t tell me…”
“Yeah…I didn’t even think about the guild’s name.”

Frey stared straight at her, and Crim just averted her gaze in shame. But she could not think of any names right away, so she began to get nervous.

“Wh-What should we do?!”
“What should we do? I thought you were the one planning everything!”
“I-I thought so too! I didn’t think I’d have to come up with a name too?!”
“Same here! Exactly how are things decided in such a situation, actually?!”
“Sigh… I won’t intervene here, you can figure this out yourselves, children.”

Ryunosuke shook his head in disbelief seeing them panic over their lack of foresight, while Lycoris’ eyes darted dizzily from one person to the other.

“Ah, you’re something like a vampire, right? Then maybe something related to that, or maybe to the moon.”
“Maybe, but won’t it sound a bit corny?”
“U-Umm…”

Lycoris timidly raised her hand. She had been debating on talking or not and finally decided she would. Everyone else quickly went silent and focused their attention on her.

“May I suggest Lua Cheia..? It means ‘full moon’ in Portuguese…what do you think?”

It was just a coincidence and Lycoris had no way of knowing it, but Crim’s last name in real life, Mitsuki, also meant full moon but in Japanese, so that was slightly shocking. Somehow that name was charming in an indescribable way though.

“Alright, we’ll use that. No complaints, right?”

Crim surveyed the group and made sure everyone nodded, then went to the floating window and filled in the name.

«Your guild will be registered under the name Lua Cheia.»

The system replied, and a new notification popped up in Crim’s peripheral vision saying «Guild Lua Cheia has been created», and a new guild management screen appeared in her menu.

There were many blank spots in the newly accessible screen, but everyone smiled seeing their six names listed there.