I found myself falling for the second time today, this time on the shoulders of a woman I met half a day ago. This was firmly establishing itself as the most tiresome day of my life.

"Hold on!"

May screamed before landing on a branch to break our momentum, then jumped off it to do the same thing repeatedly while I was holding on for my life. We finally reached solid ground after half an hour.

"How's that a useless contract?"

"I was talking about my birth contract."

Birth contract?

"So what now?"

"Let's get away from this place first. Someone might have seen us."

She was panting but still with a determined expression on her face

"Alright, let-"

My body was already tumbling toward her without my full understanding. She looked perplexed for a moment, but immediately realized the danger we were in. I barely caught a glimpse of it running unnaturally fast from behind May. My head would've gotten impaled if I hadn't reacted.

"Sorry 'bout that. I was eavesdropping."

Our assailant was a tall humanoid with pale skin and baby blue eyes. The only thing he had on him was a thin 50 cm rapier, after getting a good look at him, May had a surprisingly tense expression.

"Then why go after him first?"

"You already know, don't you? I'd appreciate it if you came with me. I'll even guarantee your safety."

He looked at me as if I were a piece of trash on the side of the road

"Leave this filth and come with me. I'm trying to help you here."

I looked into May's eyes. Her confident expression was nowhere to be found, but I felt like I understood her feelings.

"Survive at all costs. You shouldn't go out of your way for me, look at it this way, without you, I would've been dead anyway, so-"

"Just shut up!"

I couldn't believe my eyes. She shot twice, first through its right leg and missed the second, aiming for the head.

"Why?"

Why would she risk her life again for someone she just met?

"I have my own reasons."

"Well, it's do or die now. Got anything from those two shots?"

"Not really. The mutant managed to evade the second one even though it should have been impossible."

"Before we start, my contract, as you call it, heals all non-fatal wounds, so use that if you need to."

"How many do you have?

"Two, or maybe three?"

She looked puzzled but didn't question it, Naturally, we were running away as we spoke, even if we were planning to fight, running away was still the optimal option, I was hoping he'd let us run away but as if that wish was being denied, I felt him behind me, coming at a terrifying velocity, with nothing but a rapier in his left hand, all I could do was pull out a short sword to avoid a direct hit while twisting my body to minimize the damage, the realization that I've made the wrong choice struck as I was sent flying by the strike, since I hit a tree while landing I was pretty sure I broke some bones, but I won't heal just yet, now focus, there's no way we can run away now, so how can I beat it, just now, that hit tossed me about 30 meters, if the mutant was that strong I would've been pulverized on impact, so that's the first contract, the other has to do with the terrifying speed it has, but so far it never used it at close range, and it has at least one contract that prevented May from spoting it.

"Alright, we'll try this."

I closed my eyes without ceasing to run, deliberately taking heavier steps while drawing two short swords.

"..."

I found the mutant in a few seconds, it was searching for May, but without any luck in this foggy forest, once it noticed me, it came running, and just like I thought, he gained a boost in speed after passing about twenty meters, but this time I hung onto a nearby branch to avoid a direct hit.

"Just take your chance and run!"

The mutant screamed

"..."

Did it really want to get to May that quickly? Why not wait until reinforcements come? Judging by how worried May was, that could be a possibility, or maybe they're both scared of something bigger, nevertheless, if that means that it's looking to rush the fight, that'll be perfect I don't have any way to fight it if it decides to avoid me, so I jumped down and ran towards it, I should get some more info about its contracts.

"Just give up already!"

Once it noticed that I was intentionally dodging the rapier, it started mixing in pushes and kicks, I let one of those punches hit me deliberately, and just as I expected, the knockback effect didn't trigger, I was sure that I was letting out a less than pleasant smile, the mutant then drew an ark on the ground with its sword, causing rocks to fly towards me at a terrifying speed, I had to jump back to avoid lethal damage, and again, the mutant was stationary, I closed my eyes and started running, which confirmed my suspicions bout the second and third contracts, since it ran away, then stopped after reaching about 25 meters, and what looked like its stationary self was only an image left in the viewer's mind, it's a beutifull attack, but it's not enough, I pretended to fall for it and went running to the clone, while the real one was coming, after three more steps it would reach maximum speed, that's my chance, I pulled out my gun and emptied it towards the mutant's legs, at the point when it usualy got a burst of speed, I only saw it twice so I wasn't compleatly acurate, so it stumbeled but barelly kept itself from falling, and I was quickly aproaching, I came in with an upward swing so it tryed to stop my sword with it's rapier.

"That won't work again."

I let go of my sword a moment before contact, letting it fly away. Then a bullet from May went through both of its wrists.

"Got you!"

Now it was exhausted and without its primary weapon, I let go of my other sword and started focusing on breaking its limbs for a while...

"That's enough."

May spoke calmly.

"Sure, he's all yours, I broke the knees just in case."

"Why are you smiling like that?"

She had a somewhat disgusted expression on her face.

"It was a beautiful fight, wasn't it?"

"I don't see why."

"You don't? Well, to each their own. Why do you want him alive anyway?"

"His contract might be useful in the future."

She took out a piece of paper from her chest pocket and put some of the mutant's blood on it, then knelt down before speaking.

"What's your name?"

The words slowly, carefully left her mouth, breathing terror into anyone who heard them, but the mutant didn't react.

"Understood, any last words?" she said with a flat expression.

"Just finish it already, you don't have time, right?"

He paused for a moment, examining May closely.

"Name's Nak by the way."

As the paper shone in her hand, a surprised gasp slipped through her lips, but she quickly recovered

"Why?"

"Consider it a goodbye gift."

He kept his smile even post-mortem. I thought it was pretty cool, and somehow nostalgic.

"Hey May, I'll go get my sword. Take your time."

"Sure"

Since I could still sense its general direction, I walked into the forest and stretched my hand.

"Hopefully it still works."

The sword came to my hand, cutting through the trees between us.

"Good, now I know for sure."

I came back to May, finding her carrying a transparent bag full of a dark gray liquid. Tt wasn't hard to figure out its source, the corpse of the mutant's body was drained of all its blood.

"How did you do that?"

She raised the bag as an answer

"All right, can you always use it like that?"

"If the target is dead."

"So what now?"

"I'm not familiar with this zone, so we'll head to Rahma."

"What's that? You know what, never mind."

"Then shall we go?"

She knelt down so I could get on her shoulders again

"You sure about this?"

"It will be faster and more efficient this way."

"If you say so."

I hopped on her shoulders. I couldn't fully process it the first time, but it was jarring to feel this secure on someone's shoulders.

"It's super comfortable."

"I don't want to hear that."

She seemed a bit annoyed.

"For what it's worth, I think it's a cool contract. Where is this Rahma anyway?"

"I saw it from on top of the God tree. We'll just have to hope that it doesn't move."

"Rahma is a city, right?

"It's closer to a country, but it's still recognised as a city."

"Why would it move then?"

"It's a mobile city, you'll understand if you see it."

"Then let's go capitan!"

We took off again, to a better place, hopefully.