Chapter Sixty-One: The Bounty Hunter

Reza Ateu was a bounty hunter.

But she didn’t like to call herself that. She preferred Beast Hunter.

Currently, she was in the forests of Escuridão, searching for her next prey, as she thought of it. Her clothes hung loose off of her to avoid scratching her skin and making noise. Some would describe the way she walked as goofy, but those didn’t know how to sneak around a forest. There were always leaves and sticks in one’s way. Reza would have to avoid all of that if she was to catch her prey.

A mutant.

According to the Ancient she’d asked, the mutant had been terrorizing villages and stealing ancient artifacts. And so, to protect the artifacts—and the people, of course—the Ancient had recruited Reza to find this mutant.

And now, after three days, she was close. She wasn’t a mutant herself, but she had developed her senses more than most humans. Especially her senses of smell, but also her sight and hearing. She sniffed the air, searching for his scent. The mutant smelled horrible, like spoiled milk.

Snap.

A twig crackled in the forest, and Reza smiled, turning to the east. She would never break a stick like that, so there was only one option: the mutant was here, and it knew she was chasing it.

Silent as a hunting leopard, Reza unsheathed her knives, designed to cut into skin and kill quickly. Due to how the sheathes were made, she could sheath and unsheath the knives at will without making any noise. She didn’t think it was necessary, considering how the mutant was watching her, but she did so anyway.

The mutant could think he was the predator, but he was deadly mistaken.

In the end, he would be begging her for release.

Reza creeped forwards, eyes swinging wildly around, scanning for the monster that waited for her. The wind was going downwind for her, leading her to smell the forest and not the scent of the mutant.

A shadow slinked through her left field of vision. Reza didn’t react, instead leading him to believe she was oblivious of his advances.

Then she ran forwards, away from the mutant. By now, the monster was sure it was hunting her. If she ran away in a panic, chances were it would follow her. All she had to do now was hide. Some would consider running and hiding a cowardly move. They didn’t know how easy and fun it was to do it.

Her feet pushed her forwards, making more noise in one second than she had made in the last hour. But it didn’t matter anymore; all that mattered now was that she ran as fast as she could, acting as terrified as she could.

A shadow passed behind her and she shrieked in mock terror, her eyes widening, and her mouth turning up slightly in a smirk. Zigzagging through the next twists in the forest, she began to lose the mutant, which she realized when it growled in annoyance from fifty paces away.

Finding the most average tree in the forest, she began to climb, knives in her mouth now. At a moment's notice, she could drop the knives onto her hands and throw them. She was used to jobs like this; they were the most fun. Once she climbed about twenty feet up, she hid herself on a branch, supple and strong enough to hold her.

Once, her old master had taught her that people didn’t see what they didn’t want to see. Practically, that meant one could hide, and, as long as they weren’t in plain sight and one wasn’t searching for them, then they wouldn’t be spotted. It was a shock how much it worked, and Reza had taken two lessons from that.

One: Always check your surroundings. If one wasn’t careful, they wouldn’t spot the person hiding right next to them. Reza trained herself so her eyes didn’t just slide off the shadows in a corner of any building, or on the small nook. If there was any place a man could hide, a man was probably hiding there. Paranoid was good, especially for a Beast Hunter.

Two: Being great at hiding is not necessary. As long as Reza hid somewhere that wasn’t immediately obvious, she could hide anywhere she wanted, and she wouldn’t be spotted.

This time was no exception. As soon as the mutant entered her vision, scanning the forest, she knew she’d won. He wasn’t expecting to find her in this specific spot, so his eyes flew right past her and didn’t see anything.

The beast was ugly, that much was obvious. She’d heard it was a bear mutant, but she hadn’t seen one before. At first glance, it looked like a hairy man, but once her eyes fixed on it, it became revolting. It looked exactly like a human who had hair everywhere. And everywhere did mean everywhere. Its eyes were hidden by the mound of fur covering it, it wore no clothes as the fur didn’t leave anything exposed; only its hand was devoid of some fur. Its nose was a mix between a human’s and a bear’s snout. Its legs were small but fat, ready to pounce even as it stood on its hind legs, and its barreling chest gave her the feeling it could toss her around with ease.

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The mutant growled and sniffed the air, walking around, two paces now from her tree. Reza held the knives and rose to a crouch.

Not yet.

The mutant sniffed the ground and took a step forward.

Come on, bastard.

Not yet.

The beast took another step forward.

NOW!

Reza jumped and fell, positioning her body perfectly to land on the mutant like—

Whoomph!

The feeling of the beast’s back took the air from her lungs but she was used to this. As soon as she landed, she stabbed down, biting deep into the beast’s shoulder.

Shrieking, the beast flailed around, slapping at its back. Reza groaned as she was thrown backwards. The ground took away any breath she’d recovered, and she threw her hands up to recover it quicker.

The mutant turned to face her, knife still embedded in its shoulder. It—he?—screamed at her, and spread its arms and claws as a sign of aggression. Reza did the same, shouting the best war cry she had.

The beast snarled.

Come here, darling.

The beast swung its claws at her, and Reza waited for them to be close enough for the mutant to feel his victory. Then, at the last second, she flung her torso backwards, her feet still planted in the ground. As she did this, she stabbed with her other dagger, digging into the beast’s arms and staying there.

The beast screeched. The momentum of Reza’s fling threw her to the ground, but she caught herself with one arm, her muscles bulging, and she pushed herself up. The monster grabbed the knife in its arm and pulled, shooting more blood from its arm and tearing more skin. That was the part that Reza liked about her knives: it took more pain to remove them than to stick them in,

Snarling, the best threw the knife to the ground and glared at her—at least, Reza assumed it was glaring at her, as its eyes were still covered by the fur. Once again, it ran at her, and Reza shook her head. This one was stupid. As it clawed at her, she slid under its arm and ran for her knife, grabbing it and throwing it backwards.

Her aim was impeccable, that much she knew, but she still felt satisfaction from the grunt as the knife thunked into the mutant’s back.

Reza liked the hunt, but she loved the fight even more. There, she could toy with the beasts and mutants and whatever else she had to chase, keep injuring it until it died from its injuries.

The beast ripped the knife from its shoulder and roared again, a torrent of blood following the weapon. It threw the knife at her, but being no expert, it flew harmlessly to land a few feet away from Reza.

This mutant really is stupid.

She reached for the knife, and felt only the beast’s body as it barreled into her and she was thrown back, her hands grabbing the knife at the last moment. For the third time, something took away her air, a tree this time.

Without wasting a second, the beast charged at her, extending its claws as far as it could. Reza hugged the tree on her back, the tree small enough for her to wrap her arms around it, and she jumped up, kicking the mutant in the face, which swung back with a nasty crack,

Still, the mutant survived. It moved around, disoriented, its head certainly paining it. Reza gripped her knives in her hands, holding them out threateningly. The mutant had finally realized it couldn’t win, and so, in a panic, it turned to run.

Oh, no, you don’t! Come back, darling!

Reza flung her knife with a grunt, aiming just right for the knife to thunk into a tree just a foot from the mutant, whose eflexes threw it back and it hit another tree, stumbling to the ground, where it lay still.

You’re mine, baby.

With the calmness of an angel and the ferocity of a demon, Reza walked forwards, cracking her neck and smiling.

Now for the best part.

When she reached the knife stuck in the tree, she removed it, and raised both of them. Quick as a snake, the supposedly unconscious best rose up and jumped on her.

Now that was unexpected.

For the fourth time that day, Reza lost her air. She was getting tired of that, because she liked the air. It just seemed to hate her. She could feel her body crumbling under the weight of the monstrous bear, but it refused to let her go, growling in happiness as it lay on her, crushing her.

Gasping for air, Reza stabbed upwards with all the strength she had, biting into its neck and stomach, stabbing over and over. The bear-man screamed—a very human scream—as she stabbed it over and over and it got up off her, stumbling to the ground.

Shouldn’t have done that, dearest.

Reza stabbed down on the bear’s eyes, plunging both knives deep in it, blinding it and dealing it pain it couldn’t handle. The bear thrashed and roared, but began to lose consciousness and blood. With a shink of metal, Reza removed the weapons and moved on to its stomach, carving her symbol on it.

An R without curves, the symbol painted with the blood and intestines of the victim.

The beast finally grew still, its final breath coming and going quick like the night. So Reza did her final habitual activity. With precision that a bounty hunter should not have, she carved into its rib cage, removing the most important part of the mutant.

The heart.

Reza drew it out and threw it into her little bag. One more to add to her collection. Was it psychopathic? Yes. Did she care? Absolutely not. It was cool to have the hearts of all the beasts you slayed, and it didn’t matter if they were real monsters or mutants.

But the heart was also proof he was dead. Because of how big and human-looking the heart was, the Ancient would immediately recognize it as the mutant’s, and so she had proof he was dead.

Speaking of the Ancient, it was time she went to speak with him again.

She sheathed her knives and got up.

The morning had just started and she was sure it would be a good day.