I managed to clean up the most obvious dirt and scratches on my body through hauling water from the river but even then, I still needed a proper shower. However, I at least was now presentable to go back home.

And so I did.

Unfortunately, both my grandparents were home. Obviously, given my lack of no contact with either of them and no returning home last night, they weren’t going to just allow me to do my thing without any explanation.

However, what truly surprised me was that my grandfather actually didn’t seem angry with me. He used the same stern voice he always did but not once was it raised and not once was I punished. In fact, if I had to guess, the whole conversation felt more like he was venting how worried he was.

Maybe he was just channeling my grandmother?

Really, the main thing just seemed to be relief that I was safe and sound once I explained how I had gotten feverish and collapsed and so stayed at a friends house for the night. That explanation seemed to placate him and, luckily, it wasn’t a lie--made it hard for me to fuck it up.

He did seem interested in the various cuts and scratches across my body, and it felt like he was always on the edge of calling them out, but my lack of acknowledgement of them meant, for some reason, he was hesitant to do so.

In the end, I returned home without any punishment and without really having to explain myself much. A thoroughly unexpected turn of events.

After that, I eagerly and diligently washed myself out in the shower there but I couldn’t help but stare at myself in the mirror once I got out. This wasn’t a vain exercise of admiring my own reflection but rather trying to understand something I didn’t.

All I saw was negatives: my eyes were too large, too wide, my nose too small, my cheeks too rounded, and my hair was an unruly mess most of the time. I could acknowledge what Luna said--as much as it made me feel weird to--but I just for the life of me couldn’t agree with her.

For the rest of the day, I didn’t drown in my own reflection. Instead, having been thoroughly exhausted yesterday, I didn’t feel like doing any exercise or anything too intensive or physical. I mostly just either read books or bed or used my laptop. This resembled my lifestyle before I met Luna quite closely.

In retrospect, it’s actually pretty remarkable just how much had changed for me in the past two weeks. Not only did I have a System Specialisation now but I had been in numerous hives, cleared two of them (one of them by myself!), endured countless injuries, and now have a steadily growing group of friends.

If you had told me all of this would happen a month ago, quite frankly, I would not believe you and wouldn’t want to either.

The rest of the day passed by lazily. Nothing exceptional or significant happened and I simply stayed inside for all of it.

Tomorrow was Monday; the start of another week at school. Perhaps, originally, after the advent of acquiring my System Specialisation, I had too hostile a view on school. My emotions were so heated over the events that had happened and the trivialization of school that feelings ran deep but after two weeks of schooling and being friends with Luna, my opinion on it began to soften just a little.

I still hated doing all of this--it was a flagrant, massive exercise in futility and pointlessness--but rather than actively angering me, I mostly used moments of boredom to think to the future; there was such a plethora of different possibilities for me--the likes of which I never could’ve comprehended I would’ve been involved with before--that I distracted myself often during school.

It was like I spent half my time awake just daydreaming.

The days passed by before I knew it. Each day was a similar routine; I’d go to school, die of boredom, go home, and head to Luna’s. My time at school became more and more just a precursor period of amplifying my anticipation of being around with all the servants.

I don’t know why but they were starting to grow on me. Maybe it was because they were so much easier to deal with than regular friends--being commanded to listen to me inured them to being friendly, likeable. They were easy to deal with and fun, too.

As the week dragged on, the balance of education shifted in my life. I was willingly becoming more reliant on my System Specialisation at school--not even choosing to listen and learn the content and just use my spec to get all the work done quickly--while I was devoting more time to practising a bow and how to act around friends. My non-existent social skills were getting a limited amount of use.

The days passed just like that: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and, finally, Friday.

“So… Ready to tackle another hive?” Luna asked me as we were both lounging about her warehouse.

“Always,” I replied. Whether or not it was correct didn’t matter; all I knew was that I wished we could’ve adopted a faster pace but, alas, my obligations prevented the weekdays from being viable days for excursions.

“Well, I was thinking that, now that we have C1 with us, we can tackle a medium hive by ourselves and actually clear it this time.”

“We’re going to go to the G.U.G. and ask if there are any medium hives available?” I asked. By now, I had gotten used to the situation; Luna would declare a preference of hive to clear but whether we did or not was up to the G.U.G. and whether any of those hives were available to us.

“Do you think we’re strong enough?” I asked, not particularly implying anything.

“Sure, sure. With you and S2, I doubt we’d encounter much danger than we couldn’t handle. The standard monsters wouldn’t prove a problem and C1 would be strong enough to kill the Manifestation herself. It should all work out peachy.”

“If you say so,” I replied.

“Good!” Luna jumped up out of her seat and walked over to me. “Now, come on!” She strained as she spoke, hooking her arms around my back and abruptly pulling me to my feet, my light weight not posing much of an issue for a woman of her strength.

“We-we’re going now?” I asked suddenly, the situation unexpected.

“Yep! No reason not to.”

“Fine,” I relented.

And so, we began making our way to the G.U.G. building, a familiar route I could probably walk myself at this point.

While, unfortunately, there were so many hives that a new one could reliably emerge every day, stronger and larger ones were logically limited by the viable structures that could house them. Any chance of clearing a medium or larger hive naturally either necessitated arriving on the scene immediately, immediately requesting a hive of that size at the G.U.G. once it’s emerged, or reserving a specific or general hive in advance.

Reservations were quite common in this industry. Larger and stronger hives needed more people and a larger group of people led to logistical obstacles; it was simply a rarity that everything, from reservation to clearing, a hive could unfurl over just one day. Having a guaranteed large group of people to clear a hive meant you’d basically be forced to reserve intermediate strength hives because having so many people actually employed rather than contracted separately meant it was a large drain of money.

Eventually we arrived at the G.U.G. However, what we actually heard when we inquired into reserving a hive was nothing that we had expected to hear.

“You’ve got a request,” The lady at the desk informed us.

“Request?”

“A group registered under the name of ‘Wayward Gloves’ have made a request for you to join them on clearing their latest hive--a medium, intermediate hive,” The woman succinctly put.

That information surprised both Luna and I. Frankly, I didn’t even realise people could request you to help them out. Though, thinking it over, it made sense; it was a way for freelancers to make a viable amount of money by clearing larger and stronger hives without having to dedicate themselves to a team.

“Okay. Where do we meet them?” Luna asked and we were given contact details instead. Already, they seemed more organised and professional than Jonathon’s group. Thinking about him got me curious.

“Should we group with Jonathon again?” I asked Luna as we were walking away.

“We can’t,” She replied. “He broke his arm against the Manifestation and will be out of commission for an indefinite period.” While it was unfortunate, it would’ve been extraordinary for all of us to have gotten out of that hive completely unscathed.

“Was he not healed up by the G.U.G. or something?” I asked. To be honest, I wasn’t sure how this worked--maybe having a user with a healing spec on staff was like insurance--but I thought I might as well ask.

“He’s certainly not big or strong enough to warrant that,” Was all that Luna said.

Well, that’s upsetting. To be expected, though.

The G.U.G. felt like a hive of rooms sometimes--a cross between a hospital and a maze; there were countless places of innumerable utilities and functions that I just accepted it was what it was.

In fact, part of the building extruded outwards and this section was mainly just a gathering area; there were many seats, tables, and little shops to buy food but not much else. It seemed specifically constructed to facilitate meetings between users in a controlled environment.

All of us sat down at a table before Luna began talking.

“Alright. We’ve got two options available to us: clear a medium, weak hive by ourselves or join a team and clear a medium, intermediate hive with them,” She laid out.

“Is there a reason to not join the team?” I asked. As a general rule, the stronger and larger the hive, the larger the payout. I already knew which one I’d prefer.

“Yes; we probably can’t get the heart,” Luna answered.

“Do we need another servant so soon? I mean, we just got C1,” I glanced towards the servant in question.

“Yes and no. We’re still too weak for any intermediate hive by ourselves and if it’s a bad match up, we’re probably too weak for a large or even medium weak hive as well--redundancy in Specialisations is important,” Luna explained.

Although she wasn’t the most educated person, it always impressed me how she acted when she was handling hive-related activities. She always adopted a keen mind when thinking things through and her observations and understanding was far deeper than my own concerning these things.

“I suppose that makes sense,” I conceded. It seemed there were too genuine and valid options here.

“A request is a limited time thing, though,” I argued. “This is probably the only chance we have for a while to clear an intermediate hive. We can always clear a weak hive whenever we want.”

“That only matters if we care about what an intermediate hive can give us.”

“Money?” Luna nodded her head.

“So this boils down to whether we want more money or another servant?”

“Pretty much,” Luna agreed.

It was an interesting choice. In a way, it was a short-term long-term distinction; getting stronger now means we can get more money quicker in the future while forgoing additional income in the immediate future.

“I’d like to clear a weak hive. My current goal is to be able to reliably clear large, weak hives just by ourselves,” Luna laid out her opinion.

I was left to think for myself. In a kind gesture, Luna didn’t urge me for an answer; she seemed content to just wait for me to respond. None of the servants gave their own opinions but I suspected that they’d naturally side with Luna anyway. While I was thinking of my own answer, I thought I might as well ask.

“What do you servants want?” Surprisingly, both S2 and C1 seemed startled and shocked that I wanted to hear their opinion. S1 was predictably cool and collected.

“I wouldn’t mind getting another sister,” S2 answered first. “The more, the merrier.”

“I don’t think I’m strong enough to defeat a Manifestation by myself,” C1 hesitantly said.

“I’d prefer redundancy in the form of money; we’re already living with little as it is,” S1 took the longest to think it through.

Interestingly, it wasn’t unanimous.

Totalling it up, that’s three for another servant and two for wealth. It’s not like this is a vote, though; Luna’s the designated leader, after all.

“Money is probably the more important thing here,” I began, understanding my own position on the matter. “For a start, you’re essentially a family of four but you lack a reliable income. If you’re not going to get a consistent job, clearing a higher paying hive should be a high priority for you. The costs are only going to go up with more servants,” I explained to Luna.

“I’d also prefer more money. As an equal member in this partnership, clearing an intermediate hive benefits me more directly than clearing a weak one with you.”

I really need to buckle up on getting money.

These were the two main points I could think of. 

“Hmm. Well, I won’t make a decision until we talk with the team,” Luna finally declared after thinking it through.

“Firstly, though,” She said, “I need your phone.”

“Why?” I asked, already bringing out my phone to give it to her.

“The contact information is a phone number and I don’t have my own phone.” Wow.

That was the most surprising thing I had heard about her, which it really shouldn’t have been because by all accounts, she didn’t have enough disposable income for a phone. I supposed that simply seeing someone our age without a phone or connected to the internet was just such an uncommon sight.

As requested, I handed over my phone to her, which she swiftly handed back.

“I don’t know how to use this,” She explained quietly, a shy look on her face.

How does this embarrass you but not the other things you’ve done, I’ll never know.

Diligently, I called the phone number that was written down and once it was ringing, I handed the phone back to Luna.

What proceeded from there was essentially a hashing out of details. We got information on team size, team composition, location of the hive, and even the suspected Specialisation of the Manifestation. Well, it wasn’t called a Specialisation because the G.U.G. didn’t seem to understand that hearts had specs too, but it’s what I termed it in my head.

Once all that was done, Luna briefly asked me if my decision was still the same and, after confirmation, responded into the phone that we’d take the job.

Just like that, we were now going to clear an intermediate hive.