Ughh... Slowly coming to and opening my eyes brought a sharp beam of light directly into them. I had to close my eyes quickly and try to slowly readjust to the intensity of the light around me.

I felt oddly comfortable yet sore, and I still had no idea where I was until I began to recognize the furniture and items around me. It seems that somehow I'm back in my room in the new apartment we had recently bought.

All I could remember was trying to dodge the explosive blast and then the feeling of pain and then nothing. I don't even know how I managed to make it back here in one piece. The stabbing sensation over my side and back was letting me know that not all of me managed to make it out unscathed, although I was lucky to even be alive with all my limbs intact.

I didn't feel up to much more than turning my head and looking around while staying laid down. It seems like it's light again, so I assume this means that I probably slept for nearly a day at least.

"Mira, are you here?" I do my best to yell out with a hoarse voice from dehydration. I figure that since I'm at home, Mira likely is too, and I am not looking forward to facing her wrath.

Not long after my beige bedroom door opened and in entered an obviously stressed and angry Mira. She had tear tracks in her makeup from crying, but all I could focus on was the pure rage on her face directed at me.

"Hey Mir, it's nice to see you again instead of being put in the dirt. What happened exactly? How did I make it back here, because all I remember is blacking out after nearly escaping the bydra." (Thomas)

"Don't you 'Hi Mira' me Mr. I can't believe you did something so risky, you're lucky to even be alive. I can't decide whether I'm relieved that you're here and safe or pissed off at your reckless and dangerous behavior, not to mention you put Alexis in danger as well." (Mira)

"In my defense, I thought we would be able to escape before the mom came back to the cave, we just got unlucky with timing. Although I realize now how reckless and stupid it was to go so deep into an area where I'm not completely safe from harm, and it was even worse for me to drag Alexis along even though she tried to warn me. I just wanted to make some more money or find something valuable and hopefully useful for us, I didn't think it would lead to such a disaster." (Thomas)

"Well at least you seem to have learned your lesson, I won't bother nagging you over something you clearly regret and have looked back on. But don't you dare ever do something like this again you hear me, if I have to worry about you dying off every time you go to the monster plane I'll just kill you myself." (Mira)

You're lucky Alexis already told me the whole story, including the part where you were willing to sacrifice yourself for her. I'm at least glad to see I raised you right, if not a bit stupid. I hope you plan on making it up to Alexis, in fact, why don't I bring her in now so you can apologize." (Mira)

I couldn't help but bow my head in shame after being so verbally berated for something I know was completely my fault. I gulped at the thought of having to face Alexis again, I didn't know how I would thank her for saving me or apologizing for getting her into that situation.

*Creak!!*

Snapping me out of my thoughts was my door once again opening and entering was Alexis. She had bags under her eyes from lack of sleep and it seemed like she hadn't even had the chance to shower since I last saw her.

Deciding that getting this over with as soon as possible was the best way to go about it, I began speaking to her, "Hey Alexis, you look like hell."

"I wonder why?" She couldn't help but snarkily reply to me.

"Fair enough, I deserved that." (Thomas)

"No shit you did. I'm just glad that we made it out of that fight in mostly one piece. Although I'm a bit upset at Hemlock dying so soon after getting her, luckily not much experience was wasted since she is relatively new to my lineup." (Alexis)

*Gulp* I couldn't help the nervous swallow at being reminded of the serious and potentially lethal consequences of my mistake. I'm just glad she's more upset about it and that no more summons were killed, I think.

"Look, Alexis, I'm really sorry for ever putting you in that situation when you even tried to warn me about it. I promise that in the future if you still want to work with me, that I will listen to you and exercise more caution. Also, I decided that the egg should belong to you since our little excursion cost you so much, so go ahead and bond with it, I'm curious what it will turn out to look like." (Thomas)

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

"Don't sweat it, shit happens and you even tried to sacrifice yourself to save me when we were faced off against a far stronger opponent. Of course, I'm still going to be working with you, this just further proved how dependable if a bit hasty you are." (Alexis)

"Before you bond with the egg, why don't you tell me what happened after I was knocked unconscious from a blast, and how I even made it here." (Thomas)

"Well, I don't know the entire story, but from what I can gather is that you managed to survive the explosion from the bydra somehow and Jotun carried you the rest of the way to the gate. Luckily I stayed waiting for you and was able to start some first aid as soon as I got to you. You had bled a fair amount and there was a ton of splinter stuck in you." (Alexis)

"Once I got you stable and stemmed most of the bleeding, I brought you back to the apartment where Mira and I began to take care of you. We managed to disinfect your wounds and remove all the splinters, but there's still a bunch of holes in your back. If I remember right you still have some healing salve, so you might want to use that, otherwise, you're going to be stuck in bed for a while." (Alexis)

"I can't believe I forgot about that," I say in a tone that expresses my frustration at forgetting about something so important that could easily take care of the remaining injuries. I took out the mostly full jar and had Alexis help me put it on myself until we had emptied the jar out covering all my wounds.

My healing factor which was boosted thanks to Jareth took care of most of the smaller cuts and scrapes already, but there were plenty of larger wounds to take care of. Pretty soon my body was mostly back to normal if not a bit tired, and we decided to get the egg bonding out of the way

After having helped me, she fiddled with her watch until she brought out the large multicolored egg we had gone to all of the trouble to acquire. Seeing how rare the monster egg looked and knowing how powerful the mother was made me just a bit tempted to take it for myself.

I quickly shut that line of thought down, not only because she truly deserved and needed the egg, but because I had already given my word. I would be able to make use of the monster since Alexis was my ally and partner and her summons would fight alongside mine.

Without worrying much else, Alexis single-mindedly brought out a short knife and pricked her finger to bond with the egg. Ruby-red blood dribbled down the egg, and as if the egg itself was starving for blood, it gobbled it all up and began turning black all of a sudden.

With the color change started a series of cracks to form alongside the egg, and a few moments the egg had completely collapsed. Inside was a tiny two-headed lizard colored mostly purple with one head having blue horns and the other red ones.

It was about the size of a puppy and looked like a miniaturized copy of its' mother, although many defining features were either absent or much less pronounced. If I had to take a guess, as the summon advanced in stage and age these features would present themselves more pronouncedly until it surpassed its' evolutionary starting point.

It was a creature that was currently weaker than most tier 1 monsters as a result of being a weak newborn, but it had the absolute potential of reaching the pseudo-tier 5 rank or even surpassing that and becoming a real hydra.

Both heads seemed to be independent of each other and were looking around at everything near them, at least until it spotted Alexis. As soon as eye contact was made, the little critter began ambling its' way over to her, tail wagging in its' wake and apparent excitement.

Alexis squeed and began coddling the little lizard. Mira must have heard Alexis making noise since she popped in to check what was going on. Just like Alexis, she started to play with the infant summon as well, and I was completely forgotten, which I was appreciating considering they would probably still be a bit mad at me.

I would take what I could get, and after the girls had settled down with the little bydra in between them, I brought up the topic of what it should be named.

"Considering the little baby is a she, we should give her a feminine name that suits her." (Alexis)

"What about Suzy?" (Mira)

"Or maybe Therma, since she controls hot and cold." (Thomas)

"No, too on the nose. Ooh... I know what to call her, from now on her name will be Violet. It describes not only her color scheme, but it is a flower as well, which fits in with Hemlock." (Alexis)

Since it wasn't my or Mira's summon we didn't have any grounds to object, not to mention that it was a pretty suitable name for the little one.

.......

"Now that her name is decided, I wanted to bring up something I've been thinking about for a while now since we started partnering." (Alexis)

"Alright, let's hear it." (Thomas)

"I know you just bought this apartment, but I was thinking that we should save up our money and try to buy a guild house of sorts for us to live together in. It would obviously be a smaller one since it's only you and me right now, but it would make working together much easier." (Alexis)

"I hadn't even thought about that honestly, but it definitely seems like something we will need at least in the future. Guild houses aren't cheap, but since we only need a small one the expenses shouldn't be too bad. We should probably start taking some bigger official jobs rather than hunting to earn income." (Thomas)

"We can also explore the world and meet new people from all over to recruit while we're at it. I don't really want a big group, but I definitely think we need to expand our group at least a little in the future. We'd be a lot safer if something like the bydra incident happened again, and we could take on more jobs requiring a larger amount of people. I don't know about you, but just hunting gets boring after a while." (Alexis)

"Then it's decided, we'll work extra hard to save up some income, and we'll be a lot more cautious of what we do or where we go." (Thomas)

I couldn't take much more of interacting due to the exhaustion from being rapidly healed. I would need to buy another jar of that, or even better, I can get Mira to make me some for a lot cheaper.

I left Alexis to play with her new summon that was acting like a new puppy dog, which was cute until you realized how much lethal potential was packed into that tiny body. I flopped back down onto my bed and went right back to sleep knowing that I would probably be extremely busy trying to gain additional funds.