When noon arrived, I left my room and headed outside the guild.
Today, I was the first to arrive, followed next by Leticia-san, and finally Philia and Alan reached the meeting spot.
When I mentioned that I had something rather important to discuss today, Leticia-san offered to let us use her detached cottage.
So, after purchasing ingredients in the commercial district, we headed to House Fortis.
I used the groceries I had bought to quickly whip up a meal in the kitchen.
◇
Practiced [Cooking].
Gained 1 EXP.
36/100 until skill acquisition.
◇
Cooking with the skill in mind earned me a tiny bit of EXP.
"Erik, you really can do just about anything, can't you...?"
"Well, the villagers taught me how to cook back when I lived in our village. Here, dig in."
"It's incredible that you can make something this good without even having the [Cooking] skill..."
Naturally, I prepared a portion for Garm as well, letting it cool down in a feeding bowl.
If anything, since Garm was quite large, its serving ended up being the most lavish of all when considered as a single meal.
Then again, just like yesterday, we had been saved countless times by Garm's detection capabilities.
Considered as a token of gratitude, it was a small price to pay.
"Gau~"
"Fufu, look at Garm—acting even happier than usual. I wonder if it prefers Erik-kun's cooking?"
"Gau!"
"It practically declared that loud and clear, so it must really love it."
It seemed Garm truly enjoyed my food.
Once we finished eating, we moved on to our discussion.
"All right, now that our stomachs are full, let's get down to business. First off, I'd like to officially invite Leticia-san and Alan to join the party. I want to hear what everyone thinks, including Philia."
"I strongly feel that I want to keep partying with both of them from here on, too."
"If you'll welcome me as an official comrade, I'd be glad to. I really want to keep working together with everyone."
"I feel the same way. It's only been a few days, but adventuring with Erik-kun and the others has been so much fun that it made me want to stay with you even more."
Everyone was in complete agreement, and we decided to become an official party.
"I look forward to working with you both from now on."
"Looking forward to it!"
Philia and I said, exchanging handshakes with each of them.
"And with that, we're officially a four-person party. Oops—make that four people and one beast."
"Gau!"
When I had nearly declared us a four-person party, Garm's tail, right beside Leticia-san, had drooped dejectedly.
Having noticed that, I corrected myself, and Garm wagged its tail in delight.
"Because of that, there's one thing we need: a party name."
"Ah, that's right. Up until now, it was provisional, so we hadn't registered one with the Adventurer's Guild, but is that usually required?"
"It's not strictly necessary, but apparently having a name makes it easier to take on requests. Rather than making clients remember each of our individual names, a single party name is much easier to keep in mind."
"I see. So that's why you asked to borrow this place—to decide on that."
Leticia-san nodded in understanding, and everyone began pondering names.
"A name, huh? When you bring it up out of nowhere, nothing really comes to mind."
"I don't have any experience naming things, after all..."
"Besides, if we make the name sound too cool, it'd be embarrassing if people thought we couldn't live up to it."
Philia and the others couldn't come up with any proposals right away.
Of course, I hadn't done much naming myself, and it was certainly not my strong suit.
"You hear a lot of party names like 'Sword of Something' or 'Shield of Something,' don't you?"
"There are also plenty with 'Dragon' or 'Wolf' in them."
"Things like 'Dragon' or 'Sword' sound really cool to a guy like me, but that's probably just a phase, huh..."
"I heard from Reina-san and Ryan-san that plenty of adventurers end up regretting the names they picked when they were young. They advised me to choose carefully, because even though you can change it later, if you get famous, your old name might get dragged back into the light."
A party name is given to a group, but it follows the individuals for the rest of their lives.
That was why they had advised me to choose carefully while we were chatting earlier today.
"Hearing that makes it sound even harder."
"Erik, do you have any ideas?"
"None at all. It's one of my weak points, too."
"...It's rare to hear Erik-kun flatly admit he's bad at something."
Philia commented in response to my admission.
"This is just one of those things. I had a bit of a bad experience in the past, you see..."
"Ah, did something unpleasant happen? Sorry for prying."
"It's not that serious of a story. The household of someone who took care of me decided to get a cat. They asked me to name it, and since it was white and fluffy, I named it 'White Fluff,' but everyone just laughed at me..."
"So you're the type to just name things based purely on their appearance, Erik-kun."
Ever since that incident, a lingering aversion to naming things had taken root in me.