Tales of Concordia: Volume One

Chapter Six: Escort

Riario

-One day later, early morning

I woke up about thirty minutes before my usual alarm was supposed to go off, which was something I did often, unfortunately. Realizing there wasn't much time before it would go off, I decided to get up as the few extra minutes wouldn't be worth the trouble of trying to fall back asleep.

I rubbed my eyes slightly as I sat up in my bed, turning slightly towards my bedroom window, I noticed the first rays of light slowly enter my room through the blinds. I got out of my bed, adjusting the blankets and sheets back to how they'd been the night before, and walked towards my closet. I opened the two wooden doors before taking out my usual set of clothing and placed them on the corner of my bed before walking towards the bathroom to take care of my morning hygiene.

Roughly fifteen minutes later, I exited my bathroom and walked toward my bed to get changed. My eyes ended up trailing to my desk in the corner of the room, which had several stacks of paper on and around it and a pair of glasses sitting in an open case. I walked towards it and peered at the papers I had been focusing on the day prior. They were reports from Ren, Keita, and Rosetta, and a request for a mission. All of these items were dropped off to me by Rosetta last evening. Keita and Ren's reports covered the events of the attack and the man they ran into, so it was a smaller stack. Rosetta's however, was far larger. It contained an extensive run down on the actions she and Keita's expedition group conducted while gone, including information about the new member and something else worrying towards its end, which didn't help with my concerns regarding the situation that went down with Keita and Ren.

I turned away from my desk after stacking the papers back up neatly and walked toward my bed, changing into the set of clothes I had taken out several minutes before. I walked back to my desk and grabbed the mission request I had peeked at prior. I neglected to grab the two reports since there was probably already a copy on file at the hall.

*BEEP*

My morning alarm went off. I moved to the phone which was sitting on my bedside dresser, before dismissing the alarm. I finished preparing myself for my day of work, and soon after headed out my front door.

-

After a short walk, I arrived just outside of the guild hall. It was still early morning, so there wasn't too much movement around it, although I greeted the few members and civilians outside as I approached the building. I could see that the inside of the guildhall was lightly populated. I pushed open the doors, entering the hall.

Upon entering I immediately noticed an ongoing conversation, as it was the loudest in the hall at the time. Rika, who I was surprised to even see at the hall this early, was in the middle of speaking to both Celica and Keita.

"It was like I was talking to a brick wall, I really can't understand her!" Rika said, seemingly crying out before taking a sip from a cup in her hands. She laid her head on the table she was sitting at soon after.

"R-Rika, I don't think trying to force information out of her this early is going to work, it hasn't even been a day since she joined." Celica said to Rika, trying to calm her.

I approached the group, immediately being sighted by Keita who up until that moment had been looking at his phone. One of his ears twitched as he raised his head before speaking.

"Right on time, I was getting tired of hearing Rika cry." He said with a smile.

"Good morning guildmaster." Celica said right after Keita.