Chapter 8

The Pacts Effects

That night, I don't think I got any sleep, my heart couldn't stop beating, remembering that foreign pleasant sensation. It didn't help that we were both resting in the same tent, making it super hard to think. Rachel was also dead silent, avoiding eye contact since she fed on me. I really don't want things to be awkward between the two of us. She just couldn't help that she was thirsty right? She was experiencing some vampire things, that's all. But a partner? What the heck does she mean by that? Don't tell me that the pact was something more than some sort of master servant magic. Am I gonna somehow become a vampire like her? Is that even how turning works for them?

When day arrived, I see Rachel sitting up in the tent, a loose nightshirt that I assume was hastily thrown on while she was waiting for me to wake. “So uh, Tracy. About yesterday.”

I find my cheeks going warm, what grogginess from the lack of sleep I was feeling quickly fading. “Y-yeah?”

“I'm so sorry!” She prostrates. “I had completely lost control of myself!”

I panic, never have I seen someone do that before me. “I-It's okay, just get up.”

“No it's not fine! I was up all night worrying about it, and I could feel that it was also bugging you! I mean, look at you, Tracy, you haven't turned back yet!”

She was right, I looked down and realized my body was still very much that of my other self. I frown at the sight, the usual fear was there, it just felt more subdued. “Wait, you felt it was bugging me?”

“I- uh, yeah. One of the abilities that our pact gives us enables us to feel what the other's feeling at any time.”

I help Rachel up back onto her feet and we exit the tent, starting to pack away our setup. “An emotional connection, huh?” That's a super useful ability, if we utilize it in combat scenarios we could potentially become quite coordinated. Ooh, maybe we could take down some really strong baddies using it, though I'd absolutely love to solo some high ranking enemies. Oh my gods me, don't start something with any of the local hostile wildlife, please. “So wait when you were feeding on me Rae Rae, you also felt-”

“Y-yes, I felt the sensation you were feeling as well.” She interrupts, both of us look at each other, our faces lit up like a red sun though I didn't understand why. “I somehow managed to enable the connection at the time, but I still don't know how to turn it off.” She lowers her head, “I'm sorry that my hunger made you uncomfortable Tracy, I know you don't like to be in that form. I promise I'll hold myself back next time the craving comes along, I just wasn't prepared for how strong the desire to feed was going to feel.”

“It's... it's fine.” I reply, “you needed to feed yourself, that's fine, just be sure to ask.” I look away, “I didn't hate it either.” Oh my gosh me, what the hell are you saying?!

“Eh?”

“N-nothing.” I cover my face in embarrassment, accidentally dropping the tent before scrambling to pick it back up. Oh my gosh why am I such a mess right now. Is the emotional bond messing with my head, or is it my female self, I just don't know.

It's also not like Rachel likes me or anything, she had made that clear while we made the blood pact. But that was also my first kiss, I was saving that for Mimi, not Rae Rae, I didn't even know her that well. Suddenly annoyed, I shake my head and stuff the tent back into my bag.

Rachel hurriedly puts the rest of our stuff back in the carriage, and we go on the road once again. While there still was an awkward atmosphere about us, we definitely talked more than last night.

“I'm uh, not gonna become a vampire cause you fed on me am I Rae Rae?”

“Oh, no, the change has to be consensual, fath- Demure had his servants turned so he could have them for as long as he lived.” Rachel explains, “I can feed off of you with no risk, all it does is feel good for the recipient.” She shows her fangs, pointing to them, “We have a chemical that we inject from our fangs that acts as a very fast acting... aphrodisiac.”

“Ah, that explains the weird feeling I've been having after.”

A couple more awkward seconds pass before the realization hits me.

“Wait, that's what feminine arousal feels like?! Oh my gosh!” I cover my face, completely and utterly flustered, the amulet feeling warm against my chest once again. The form changes kept resetting my body, making such a function as a guy impossible, and when I was a girl I was too afraid to do anything at all with my body. Come to think about it, I never really felt much before my heart condition, well aside from Mia's tendency to somehow sending me into a flustered state. But this isn't right, my first time ever being properly aroused in forever and it was from getting drugged, and in this form no less! I find myself rolling around on the floor of the carriage as my mind bounces all over.

“Uh, you okay there Tracy? I know I can read your emotions but not your mind.”

“You took some of my firsts!” I exclaim with tears in my eyes, “Especially my first kiss! I was saving that for Mimi! But of course I was an absolute idiot, and never took the chance to kiss her on the damn day that I had to say goodbye!” I pant, trying to wipe the tears away. “And none of this wouldn't have happened if I never got this stupid curse! This body ruined my life and I can't do a damn thing about it!” I find it hard to stand now, everything around me is spinning, “Maybe even the damn solution to my problem would have been solved if the villagers actually goddamn told me what the hell happened that day!”

“T-Tracy?” She tries to hold me still, concern written all over her face. “Tracy you're all over the place right now, take a deep breath and calm down.”

“I-I” I find myself bawling in her arms.

“Shh, it's okay Tracy. You're just a little unstable right now, probably not used to being like this for long periods of time.” She strokes my head, “It's all my fault, I shouldn't have tried feeding. And for what it's worth, just think of the kiss as one with no heart put into it. Y-your first true kiss should be considered the one with the most emotion.”

“R-right.” I sniffle.

What feels like an eternity goes by and the sudden wave of emotion I was going through finally comes to pass, yet I can't fully calm down, my mind just can't stop wandering back to the state of arousal that had escalated into my sudden breakdown. It's not like I hated it, really, I just think I felt overwhelmed is all.

“I'm sorry Rae Rae, I didn't expect that outburst to come from me...” That wasn't me, right? Something in my head had snapped and everything I held within my heart had spilled out without resistance. It's this forms fault I swear.
“It's okay Tracy, no one expects this stuff... I can't help but feel bad though...”

“So uh, what else does the pact do.” I shuffle out of her comforting embrace.

“Well, a part of the pact enables us to find each other no matter where we are in the world.”

“Ooh, so I have a built in Rae Rae tracker now?”

“Y-yes.” She smiles, somewhat taken back by my sudden mood shift, “And I have a built in Tracy tracker too. It'll be super helpful if we get separated somehow.”

***

A day later, as we silently ride along the fields, we find our attention grabbed by the sound of a unit of soldiers heading past us. They halt and one of them begins to walk over to our wagon, Rachel commanding our ride to stop as well. I shouldn't be surprised, they're very likely going to ask questions about the explosion from the other day.

Unfortunately for me I never changed back when I woke up today either, so I'm going to have to answer what ever questions they give as this me. Gods I hope I don't say anything stupid.

“Is it okay if you're seen the way you are Rae Rae?” I ask, “Because y'know, you're a vampire.”

“I mean, I could possibly be mistaken by others as some sort of albino elf?” She puts a hand to the tip of one of her ears. “Would they even remember what vampires look like?”

“I'd rather us not get somehow killed from the risk Rae Rae.” I dig amongst our supplies, “Do we have a cloak somewhere?”

“Yeah, there's some in the clothing bag. Did you not dig through it when you checked what we had for supplies?”

“I didn't want to dig through your clothes without permission.”

“My clothes?” She tilts her head, “Tracy I'm pretty certain there's clothes in there for you too, just... not for your guy self. I don't think Demure knew about it.”

“Ah... I'd uh, rather not wear women's clothing, I'm a guy after all it's wrong to do.” I look away awkwardly.

“Mhm.” She gives me a look of doubt, saying nothing as I pull out a dark looking cloak from the sack and toss it to Rachel.

She covers herself and pulls up the hood in time as the approaching soldier arrives.

“Greetings there ladies.” The soldier says, “You wouldn't happened to have headed from the forest near Alino would you?”

Ladies? Oh my gosh my heart, why are you fluttering right now. “Well there's only one road that I've seen this entire time, so I'd assume your guess is correct.” I giggle. “What can we do for you soldiers?”

“We're on our way to investigate the explosion from a couple days ago. Do you know anything about it?”
“Hmm, not really. I was sleeping when the big boom happened.” I reply, dangling my legs off the wagon. “We were fortunate enough to have gone through the forest before it got wiped.” I wasn't lying, I just don't think they needed to hear everything else. The last thing I need is to be brought in for questioning about the whole incident.
“Wiped?”

“Yeah, big crater. I'd be careful, wouldn't know if the thing that created it was still there.”

“We'll be fine ma'am, we're soldiers after all.” The armored man chuckles. “Thank you for your time.”

“Oh yeah, you wouldn't happen to know how far away the capital is would you?” I ask as they turn to resume their march.

“Just keep following the road straight, and you'll get there in about a day or so.”

“Thank you very much mister.” I smile. “I wish you all the best of luck in your investigation.”

Once the soldiers leave, I let out a sigh. They called the both of us ladies, I'm not one though! But why does it make my heart flutter! I'm supposed to hate it, but I can't do so. It must be this form messing with my head still; the capital can't arrive soon enough, I should be free from these weird thoughts then... right?

“Tracy, you okay?” Rachel asks, pulling down her cloak. “You look conflicted... you feel it too.”

“E-eh?” Oh right the emotional link, we still haven't figured out how to turn the darn thing off. “I'm just not used to being referred to as a girl.” I find myself nervously fidgeting, “It makes me feel weird.”

Rachel giggles, “I'm sure you'll get used to it Tracy. People wouldn't be able to tell you're a guy like this, especially with how you act.”

“I don't want to get used to it!” I pout. “Stupid heart condition...”

***

On the fourth day on the road, we're setting up camp to rest for the night once again, Rachel tried keeping the carriage going as we slept last night, but the rocking and bumps would have waking me up, I was never a heavy sleeper. Not that I could really sleep well anyways, my brain keeps going back to that happy tingly sensation causing my heart to keep beating fast regularly. Ever since I was able to put a name to the sensation though, I've become super self conscious about myself when Rachel and I are in close vicinity of each other. I haven't been able to change back these past couple days cause of it. It's fine though, I'm incredibly content with not having to feel that gross feeling of changing back anytime soon. Not that I'm fine with this body mind you, I'd rather just not feel gross from the swapping.

As we're pulling out my tent, something wet falls onto my head.

Rain? I feel the top of my head, it's something sticky, lowering my hand down and immediately gag. That's not rain, that's slime, gross. I've never seen such a thing happen in Lefaso and now it's all in my hair!

“Ugh, it's so icky!” I whine, I try to wipe my hands anywhere, dropping the tent.

“That's odd.” Rachel comments, “I didn't think slime could rain from the sky like this.”

“It's not... alive is it?” I shudder, trying to wipe off the sticky fluids.

“Well, I feel we'll find out pretty quick.”

Quickly the slime rain picked up, pieces of the gooey rain starting to merge together, the blobs jiggle as they become animated, jumping towards our position.

Ugh, of course we have to fight an army of slimes for no goddamn reason, I'd be all for it if it was an army of goblins or something, but slimes, they're the outright worst. They're like a cockroach, stupid hard to get rid of, and can take a beating. Even worse, instead of damage resistance like a cockroach, they reflect physical attacks, though there is a threshold for the reflection depending on their size that causes them to pop into a gooey mess if exceeded. Despite that, the slimes will eventually re-assemble itself and act as if nothing happened, the only way to properly kill a slime is to drain its mana supply as they're simple mindless creatures driven by the thirst for mana. Of course I don't have any magical capabilities whatsoever, so these simple creatures are my absolute weakness.

“You wouldn't happen to be able to manipulate mana would you Rae Rae?” I laugh nervously.

She frowns, “I can only manipulate blood magic, or at least that's what vampires 'can' do. Demure never taught me any proper vampire skills.”

Looking around, I try to find a spot to escape, but we're surrounded by the pesky blobs. “This is going to suck.” I sigh. “Where's a mage when you need one.”

The next thing the two of us know, the blobs take leaps at us, trying to cover us.

“Ugh, you stupid mindless blobs!” I groan as I keep trying to kick the slimes off, my legs stinging from the recoil. “Rae Rae, you find a gap out yet?!”

“Working on it!” She shouts with a sweeping kick, trying to push the blobs back. “It would be a bit easier if I had a proper weapon!”

“With what we had in the carriage, they'd just break on the first slime it made contact with!”

Just as suddenly as the slime rain began, they finally ceased falling from the heavens, and the slimes we were fending away start converging, it's size growing bigger and bigger, the mix of color slowly turning to pink. Its size finally halted the moment it became bigger than our carriage. A rainbow hue emanates from the center of the pink blob as a core forms within.

It was a king slime, they must have managed to gather enough mana while we were trying to fend them off.

“Well we found something that can actually be killed now.” Rachel nervously chuckles.

She might be nervous, but I couldn't help myself from smiling as a switch flips in my head. A king slime means I can actually kill it if I can get to it's core, and it's a big target too, far more manageable and easier to hit than the many slimes that were trying to cover us.

My body moves without thought, dashing towards my new plaything, readying a fist. A second later, I find myself flying in the air away from the slime, the impact of my punch sent me flying back.

“How rude.” I pout, “The big punching bag has a little kick to it.” I twist my body, landing perfectly on my feet. The blob inches forward, its top caving inwards, releasing into a massive leap towards an exhausted Rachel, I try to kick the slime out of the way, but the shock resistance ended up flinging me away yet again.

I wince as Rachel is taken by the slime as it hopped onto her with an uncomfortably loud plopping noise.

I feel my eyebrow twitch in irritation as I watch Rachel struggle for air inside the slime. Not even a second into fighting this darn thing and Rachel's in danger. “Listen here you oversized blob, you cough up my Rae-Rae right this instant, or I'm gonna pop you like the bubble you are!” Eh? Did I just claim Rachel?

As expected, the King Slime mindlessly arches itself for another big jump.

I dash under to where the King Slime's to land, and release a kick as hard as I can muster just as it's about to hit the ground. All I could feel was a searing pain in my legs as the physical recoil in tandem with the king slimes own weight pushes me into the earth. Why the hell did I think that was such a good idea?! Fortunately the kick did launch the king slime as intended, I just hope I didn't break my legs, I wouldn't be able to save her otherwise.

The creature hits the ground with an incredibly loud splat, as it quickly pieces itself back together, Rachel still contained in the blob.

Damn it, hitting things really hard is all I have going for me! How am I supposed to get her out of that damn thing? Oh, that's right there's a damage threshold for their damage . Well, I know I can't really punch it once with my full force and expect it to work, and I can't really get a good stance without my legs giving out. “Oh, I just had a great idea.” I blurt.

I wince, knowing the recoil from what I was going to try is going to hurt. As I move up to the slime once more, I push my wobbling legs to leap above it to unleash a barrage of punches into its stupid gelatinous body. The sound was weird, it was like slapping fresh meat over and over, gods I miss meat, once we're in town I'm gonna eat so much of it. Just as I planned, the damage reflection flings me up into the air.

I remembered Mr. Man Servant back at the forest doing something like this when he got snagged by my trap. Of course it failed for him, but I'm going against a blob that doesn't think, that should make this very easy to do. Reaching the peak of my flight, I dive straight down, carrying the momentum of the fall, readying my fist for a rather dangerous collision.

My fist collides with the body of the imposing slime with a loud crunch, ripples travel through it violently, only for it to explode everywhere, Rachel flying out of the stupid slime's mass. It's monster core now sitting before me with a large crack down the middle. “I don't think it'll be able to recover from that.” I reach to grab my now limp arm, it hurts like hell and I'm pretty sure I broke the bones in ways they shouldn't have been broken.

“Rae Rae!” I stumble over to her as she coughs out pieces of slime.

“I'm okay.” She coughs, “Takes way more than that to kill a vampire. Still unpleasant though.”

After we managed to kill the gigantic slime, we sit down for a second to catch our breath.

The adrenaline wore off and the pain in my legs and arms had finally kicked in full force, “I just can't catch a break.” I wince, letting out a weak laugh, “This simple trip to the capitals already had way too much happen.”

She quickly looks over me, “Yeah, I think it's time we head to the city as soon as possible.” Rachel says, “We need to hurry to find you a healer, it shouldn't be long till we get there now.”

I take a deep breath, before Rachel helps me get up and over to the carriage, “Yeah let's-” I find myself interrupted as everything in my body suddenly feels wrong.

I changed back, my stomach lurched as I tried to adjust to my normal form, my broken arm and damaged legs feel like they're about to fall off, the pain quickly growing worse. I had never considered if injuries as my other self would transfer over to my normal body, my normal body had always healed when changing to my other self, but apparently the damage remains. Rachel accidentally drops me in surprise, causing me to fall flat on my face in a puddle of the gross pink remains of the king slime as I try to keep myself from hurling whatever was in my stomach. I can't believe I forgot that my form hadn't changed back these past couple days, everything had just felt so comfortable, the damaged limbs from today being the exception, and now everything feels like its crumbling.

Rachel rushes over to me with concern, “You okay Tracy?”

“Fine, I'm fine Rachel.” I lie, my breathing labored. Gods this sensation absolutely sucks, why can't my body be normal.

I try push myself up with my somewhat okay arm to be met with Rachel's face staring back, wide eyed. “Tracy... you're crying.”