Angelica changed things up a bit the next morning. Besides getting up earlier in an attempt to try to fix her sleep schedule, she started with art this time. Mostly, she wanted to get the rough sketch of her big commission done so that she could send it off for feedback while working on other things. With that completed, “Angelica, clean your bathroom.”
She subjected herself to the errand for the day, going into a bit more detail, such as trying to make it as close as to how it looked when she moved in as possible with a sustainable amount of effort. If it needed heavy chemicals she didn’t have or an amount of elbow grease she couldn’t reasonably muster, she wasn’t going to kill herself over it. The cleaning took an annoying amount of time, but she couldn’t argue with the results.
Then, after a snack, it was time to burn off the calories she just consumed with more fitness. She wasn’t going to just be running today, planning to incorporate additional exercises into her routine. Angelica attempted to add a simple regimen of ten pushups, situps, and squats, just for a nice start. But even after ordering herself to do them, her pushup count didn’t go past three.
Damn, have I really gotten this weak? She struggled, both physically and internally due to the Contract influence as she desperately tried to raise herself for her fourth pushup. Ultimately, she had to cancel the Contract and redo it for the remaining reps, instead changing it to, “Do as many as you feasibly can, up to a maximum of ten.”
After that sweating endeavor, she put on her shoes and headed back outside for another run. Angelica stuck to the same path as the previous day, for the most part since, it was a nice one, and she was also fiddling with her Order a bit, seeing if telling herself to follow the same path would veer her body automatically, which it did, even adjusting for new obstacles that weren’t there the previous day. In the nice neighborhood, she was once again hit with that same eerie feeling right outside the fence of a particular manor. She’d gone unnamed this time, allowing herself to stop and look around.
Angelica swore she saw familiar text, like the words in the magical book, written in the air in front of the big fancy house. But they were slightly obscured by the foliage. Tongues was providing no help in translating it, which it should regardless of language—something she’d confirmed by listening to shows from other nations, changing the sounds of the words in her ears. But like with the book, the translations were only partial, meaning she was stuck with subtitles for now. So either she didn’t know the word, or maybe because it was obscured, she couldn’t translate it without seeing the whole thing.
Maybe another Summoner lived there? Was the strangeness she was feeling some sort of Summoner magic? Or… Demon magic? While she’d only had her incident a few days ago, she’d seen absolutely nothing indicating there were other demons around. Nor had she encountered another one of those Malignant things. Maybe they only came out at night?
Well, whatever. Angelica had absolutely no intention of getting involved with Demons, Summoners, Malignants, any of that nonsense. She’d gotten her benefit from it, and she was putting it to good use. That’s all that mattered. As long as it didn’t interfere with this new life of hers, she had no real drive to dig any further.
The runner finished her route, both satisfied and irked. She’d made better time than the previous day, having more energy left over, but at the same time, her Vigor hadn’t yet improved. So she decided to push herself a bit further, doing a lap of a few extra blocks until the notification popped before heading home after another quick trip to the store. Angelica popped into one quickly, not wanting to linger long due to the reason she was purchasing anything: she still stunk.
Right after the run, she lifted her shirt and took a whiff, and damn it was wretched. How did she still smell like trash?! And not just trash, but hot, sweaty trash that had been baking in the sun and fermenting for a few days. So she went straight for the beauty products and grapped some expensive soap, a loofah, new deodorant just in case something was wrong with hers, and some perfume, for good measure. It was way more than she cared to spend, but since she’d made a good amount yesterday, it was justifiable. Then when she got home, she made sure to clean everything thoroughly yet again.
While she was showering, she got another message:
[Transfiguration Lv.4]
[Beguilement increased]
That did raise a curious question. What exactly was being transfigured? She gave her body another once over, and everything looked exactly as it always did. Maybe it was what caused her blister to disappear? Perhaps it was masking other injuries? Her skin did look unusually smooth in that sense; no random bruises, no blemishes of any kind.
It briefly made her worry that she was continuing to disguise an injury and that was the source of the smell, but in that case, wouldn’t she feel a rash, or find pus, or something? She felt fine, and since Transfiguration was assumedly doing something good, she chose not to mess with it. Not that she even activated it to begin with, so she wouldn’t know the commands.
Clean again, and smelling… adequate, Angelica went back and checked her messages. There was no response yet about the big commission, so she went ahead and did the other new one in her queue, the only one. With that done, she decided to try the freelancing website, grimacing at both the requests and rates, but she sucked it up and gave one a shot. It was to draw a sandwich with specific ingredients and purple bread. Why? She had no idea. But this wasn’t a site where one generally asked questions. Maybe some restaurant was having a spooky promotion, or something.
It didn’t take her long, and getting paid right away was nice, so she continued taking those requests for a while. After doing nearly a dozen, her commissioner got back to her. Surprisingly, there wasn’t that much to be changed in the overall design. The Contract she’d done to try to match the prompt they’d given her had produced a great initial result, far better than if she’d just tried to freely conceive it all from scratch.
But with the details ironed out, now she could actually get more creative, add her own artistic touch and style. That could be seen as going against the request’s wishes, but they had requested her, after all, so she would give them her art. Angelica at least had integrity to that degree. While she could produce something passable with a mindless order, it would eat at her. And she was rewarded for her effort.
[Creativity increased]
Then, as she really delved into the work, she was hit with Inspiration: specifically the skill. It activated automatically, the kind that lasted much longer than if she triggered it manually. Over the course of the next few minutes, it was like her hand magically glided across the tablet, producing a masterpiece before her eyes. It was sad when it ended, but even if not demonically enhanced, the lingering imagination pushed her through to the end of the piece, or at least all the work she could do for now. It wasn’t until she snapped out of that trance that her mind played the waiting message.
[Inspiration Lv.2]
[Creativity increased]
[Fabrication Attunement increased]
My work is not a fabrication! She mentally protested. Even if the motivation was forced, I made that all on my own. How dare?! It probably didn’t dare. Based on the other Attunements she’d heard so far, it was likely just some kind of classification in the Demon Growth System for artsy related skills. But why did they have to pick a word that could sting so much if it was a real accusation? Also weird that it hadn’t unlocked before, not until she got Reprint. Maybe now that she had it, the voice in her head decided to classify it as such?
[Summoner Rank: Initiate Lv.6]
At least that served as proof of her efforts. It was definitely the most complicated Contract she’d finished in a while, pushing her over the edge. She set up a timed message to send the work to the commissioner the next day, not wanting to weird them out by presenting it so quickly. After petting Cherub for a while, who had been rubbing against her chair incessantly while trying to finish the piece, she headed to bed.
The next several days passed much the same as the previous two. In the mornings, she would do a bit of cleaning, and then some exercise. For her shabby bit of muscle training, she stuck with doing as much as she could until her body physically couldn’t anymore. They at least showed some progress, increasing the number of reps by one every day or two. And on the fourth day since starting her journey of improvement, she got a Might increase.
For the running, she was a bit more assertive when it came to pushing herself. Each day, she didn’t stop until she got a Vigor increase. That made her have to run a bit farther each time, but each boost of the stat also provided her with a bit more energy, and let her run just slightly faster, so overall, it took roughly about the same amount of time. And for the Contract, “Run safely following the usual route, adding on until you get a Vigor increase,” was whittled down to “Run the usual,” and it produced the same results, further confirming that she and her “Demon” side just needed to have an understanding.
There had been a spot of weirdness as she repeated the route, though. As she passed that one unusual mansion, the feeling it gave off got stronger, and the zone she felt it got wider, like the territory was being expanded. Just to make sure she wasn’t going crazy, Angelica decided to start bringing Cherub with her, remembering how the dog hadn’t quite been able to see the snake monster, but had definitely been able to sense it. So she forced him into a cat-carrying backpack with a clear dome through which he could see the world.
The kitty had never been a fan of it, and she’d only used it a few times after initially acquiring Cherub before giving up on running altogether. But he was a bit chiller about it now and accepted his fate, lazing about in the bag as he was forced to take in the outside world. Yet the moment that weird feeling struck her, it appeared to hit him as well. He began to hiss and thrash about the backpack. And even when they exited the strange area, he was on edge for a bit before settling back down.
Weirdness aside, when she was done with her exercises, she got to work making money each day. Unfortunately, with the big commission done, and the others coming in at a trickle, she had to resort more to generic freelance work. And even though she’d front-loaded the first few days with extra earnings, Angelica always made sure to hit that $100 dollar threshold each day before giving herself a break.
On the days when she did have a bit of leftover time, besides playing with Cherub, she spent it watching shows in foreign languages. While, of course, she’d be interested in reading more of her Demon Summoning book, just the idea of understanding all languages in the world and not needing subtitles to watch anything greatly appealed to her.
[Tongues Lv.3]
[Lucidity increased]
Even with that, though, too many words in both videos and the book were untranslated, so she wasn’t going to try to dive back into it yet. But she’d keep working on it. Angelica also hit Summoner Rank: Initiate Lv.7 after a few more days. At the end of the first week, she could call her ambition of revitalizng her life a success so far. She was up $956 after all her hard work, well on her way to the total amount needed. Her apartment was damn near spotless now, and she’d made progress in so much personal development too.
However… one thing that had also progressed was her odor. How?! She smelled herself again after that morning’s run. It had only gotten worse. She had tried everything she could think of: fancy bath bombs that added a slight floral scent on top of the stink, bathing in tomato juice which just added the smell of tomatoes. So today, she was going to try chemicals.
Angelica dumped the concoction into the tub, grumbling to herself the entire time. They were chemicals mostly designed for pets after they got sprayed by an angry animal, a last resort to remove stench when nothing else worked. It specifically said it would irritate and redden human skin, but so be it! Anything to get rid of the lingering rankness that was her very existence.
Was this an after-effect of the Soulbound Summon? If so, it wasn’t worth it! She was going to cut off her nose at this rate, and poor Cherub was putting up with it, somehow, but for how much longer? She’d need to get him a kitty gas mask just to be around her.
Angelica plunged into the room temperature liquid and continued to brood while the chemicals took hold. She felt the tingliness on her skin, but at the same time, it wasn’t reddening at all? There were no sort of bumps or reactions? Was that because of Transfiguration?
[Transfiguration Lv.5]
[Beguilement increased]
Well, that seemed to answer the question, at least… maybe?
[Maximum Transfiguration experience granted with this form.]
Well that was a new message. Sounds like she wouldn’t gain any more levels in the skill until she actually did something with it. But she wasn’t in the mood to figure it out. Instead, she let her body slide down into the tub, marinating in the chemicals, hoping they were doing something to purge the funky filth.
Her mind drifted away, getting a bit of peace, teetering on the edge of sleep.
“I summon thee, demon!”
“Come to me or else!”
“Grant my wish!”
Ugh, they’re back! Angelica groaned, avoiding blowing bubbles into the chemicals to ease her exasperation. They had plagued her constantly over the past week. Any time her mind was idle, not focused on something else, even while doing drawings that didn’t require a lot of thought, she’d hear them. They were mostly different voices, but the occasional repeat.
And it was always the same. They were calling to her, wanting her to come to their side, to do their bidding. And her instincts would flare to varying degrees with each whisper. Sometimes she’d barely react, and other times she’d feel a compulsive urge she’d have to suppress. They even tormented her in her sleep. She hadn’t known a proper moment’s peace, but it had only driven her to work that much harder, because they went away when she was genuinely busy.
“Scuffing fine!” Angelica pulled herself out of the bath and dried herself off with a towel. She then stomped to the main room and grabbed the first set of clothes out of her dresser. In an attempt to better hear the various calls, she eased her mind again. Most were the usual aggressive sort, but she didn’t feel exactly comfortable with one of those, at least not out the gate.
“Any Imp that can hear this, I need your help!”
There, that one sounds good! She pulled a kinder message out of the crowd, focusing on those words alone. “Whoever you are, I accept!”
Angelica’s eyes widened as her body began to disintegrate. Unlike the first night, this time it was from the bottom up. So she watched her feet go, and then her legs. She waved goodbye to Cherub, who was hissing at her again until her arms vanished, too. And finally, the last bit of her body disappeared from her apartment.