[2.49] Artistic Pride (Part 2/3)

Just what the heck was that warning? Angelica would commit a Sin? Didn’t she commit sins everyday in the eyes of Vissiem? Small but compounding ones? So how would this be any different? Something told her a Demon Sin was probably something far more significant if the Demon Growth System was going out of her way to warn her about it.

She wanted to ask more about it, but couldn’t quite find the words. Her brain felt like it was on fire, unable to think about anything mundane. It could only think of art, of passion, of everything she wanted to create. Inspiration was spiking higher even now in potency, growing exponentially. How was she supposed to temper her emotions when her mind was being tampered with to such a degree?

But then… inspiration struck her. Because of course it did. Maybe the way to stop whatever was happening could be found in other outlets. If she dove back into Merlina’s, that would probably just exacerbate the issue. While the description for Inspiration specifically said it was for art, perhaps she could leverage it for other matters.

Such as… sending that email to Lemon Literature with her requested contract changes. That was something she had been dreading. They were already offering her an amazing opportunity, and her overthinking brain worried the idea that they might renege on it if she were too nitpicky. Nothing she was asking for sounded unreasonable, but her anti-social tendencies always loomed on the worst possible outcomes.

Now it felt trivial. Angelica just needed to get her requests across clearly and concisely. If they were reasonable people, they’d be amenable to her changes without a second thought, or counter with something sensible of their own. And if they weren’t, that was the sign she needed to find different pursuits.

She penned the most eloquent email, sounding professional with just a bit of flare and personality without being overbearing or off-putting. Yes, reading it back—simply marvelous. She didn’t know she was capable of such refined writing. If artistry didn’t work out, perhaps there was a future in novel writing for a similar creative outlet. And when it was done, she pressed “Send” without reservation, something she would have hesitated to do for at least several minutes otherwise.

Wonderful. Task complete. Now what else could she do while she felt so empowered? Except, she knew it was wrong. She had fallen further into the trap. Whatever the anomaly was, it wasn’t going to stop if she kept going like this. But… she didn’t want to stop. Why would she ever want to stop?

This felt so amazing. She felt so amazing. This was Angelica at her best. Not bogged down by anxiety or depression, no restraints with her creative limits or second-guessing her choices. It was perfect. She was perfect. So why would she waste herself at her peak?

But what was worthy of her enlightened state? It was the worst time to have minimal commitments, no more tasks in urgent need of completion. She found herself unable to sit still, cleaning up her apartment without any input or decision by herself, naturally wanting to make it spotless, perfect, worthy of her. And just when the last dish was quickly washed, Inspiration struck once more.

[Inspiration Lv.7]

[Warning: the anomaly is spiking. We have isolated the Skill and prevented Worth and Attunement increases to minimize potential damages]

And what sort of damages? She did not care. They couldn’t harm her as she was. There was no need for such a warning. Nor did she need the system to peddle out its meager increases. It did not determine her worth. Only she could do that. Yes, she would prove it right now by taking care of more tasks she’d been putting off. It was time to get her finances in order.

First, a deposit. While she counted the $10,000 in cash she got from Grahj into her net-worth, it was currently unspendable and useless to her—still in its physical form and in a foreign currency she couldn’t spend. She’d kept meaning to go to the bank to deposit it, but a poor girl with a big wad of cash felt like it would raise a bunch of eyebrows. Odds were, the tellers wouldn’t care, but her anxiety, and knowing there’d be a bunch of cameras still put her off. But now with ID fraud, that shouldn’t be a problem.

Waiting in line at the bank, however, still didn’t feel like a wonderful use of her time. So she opted for the undoubtedly riskier option that would make her usual self through a fit with worry. Coterie Trust, for those who knew, had a service where a courier would come and pick up the money for a deposit, or supposedly bring the cash from a withdrawal. Checking now, they’d even come right to her home if she wanted, but fortunately, even her anomalous self wasn’t that foolish.

There were a few dead-drop locations nearby where she could just leave the money and it would be picked up, but that was hard to trust, at least this first time around and with so much money. Well, so much money to her. It was practically crumbs compared to the financial transactions that the high-ranking Summoners dealt with.

So Angelica opted with the option to meet a courier at a location of her choosing. And that location was: a bus stop that was a few blocks from her apartment, not the one she’d use herself, but one she’d pass by regularly on runs that she never saw anyone sitting at, so it should be nice and abandoned. On her banking app, she had to pick a time that was at least five minutes from then, but could pick a specific time afterward. She headed out, turned into a Puffball, bounced a few blocks, then transformed once again.

[Fake ID: Demon | Alias: Placeholder | Demon Rank: Hellion Lv. 27 / 50]

Gelic became a random Demon, hodgepodged together by a bunch of different design elements she’d seen in Hell. Truly an inspired design that she didn’t really consider in the slightest, whatever her mind came up with on the spot. Same for the name. She’d gone with “Placeholder” because it didn’t truly matter. It was irrelevant to the Demon she’d be meeting, so there was no point in coming up with something, especially one that might already exist. It was fine if the courier thought she was faking her identity. They probably came across that a lot. As for Hellion, that was to lessen suspicion a bit, since they were more common in this world than Puck or Imp.

She sat on the bench at the bus stop, but not for very long—thankfully, because she was already getting antsy from her wasted potential, figuring out her next course of action. Right on the dot of the agreed time, a Demon approached, sort of out of nowhere, like a gust of wind. They were a Hellion as well, or at least presenting as one, and appearance wise they looked like a big hairy caterpillar, inching along the sidewalk.

“Spithel” was the name she got when she scried them, which also matched the one in her app, and they were also wearing a nametag, along with a Coterie Trust hat atop their head—pretty cute, honestly. Both the tag and hat must have actually been real, or they would become visible to humans if Transfigured. As was the satchel that suddenly appeared out of nowhere in Spithel’s hands. They must have had Second Stomach then, or some other similar Skill she didn’t know about.

The Demon held out the bag toward her, its top flap already unfurled. So she dropped the envelope of cash into it, and the transaction was done. The satchel vanished from Spithel’s hands, and they gave her a courteous nod. With no words exchanged at all, the real Hellion turned and began inching along the sidewalk once more. With each step, though, they dramatically built up speed, until they were gone in a flash like a speedster. Well, that explained the precise timing on short notice at least.

But she had her own ways of getting around fast too. After Returning to her apartment, she was back to being Angelica and at her computer in seconds. When she pulled up her bank account there, the deposit had already been processed—some damn good service. With the exchange rate, her deposit amounted to roughly eleven thousand, bringing her grand total savings to a bit under eighty thousand. It wasn’t quite her original goal before she started investing, but she’d never be more motivated than now.

Thirty thousand was gone from her account in the blink of an eye. Well not gone gone—tied up in a diverse portfolio. Normally, this was the sort of thing she would languish over. Angelica was frugal to a fault, but not today. She threw money at whatever tickled her fancy. That wasn’t to say she hadn’t done her research, however, speedy as it may have been.

She had actually taken quite a few investment courses during college, so she knew what to look for; the pitfalls, the hidden tells, the writing on the wall that a company was about to bottom out. And while not real money, during the last of those courses, they’d done trading in a simulated environment that took real data from the various markets. Angelica had made the most by an incomparable amount. Touting such an achievement was part of what had landed her internship at such a prestigious company, along with her good grades, and of course, her family connection.

As an intern, though, they’d had her doing grunt work. But now that she was working for herself, she could actually achieve something of value, meaning actually making money for her own pockets instead of some CEO she’d never met. It was hard to complain about making value for shareholders now, though, because she was now a shareholder in several different companies.

Her money had been spent in three different categories, high, medium, and low risk, roughly ten thousand in each. Well, even the low risk ones had considerably more chance of failure compared to what a layman would invest in, because they had to have higher return than her bank’s already ridiculous yield for their savings account. Should she ever have enough to thrive off of that return, then she’d be happy to take the security, but that was still a few digits away.

Previously, she would have been happy with a million, content to live off the interest for the rest of her life. But not now, especially not with the inspired mood she was in. A million wouldn’t buy a castle and the land on it far enough away where no one would bother her. Such a silly idea had become a crutch of her goals for some reason. If it failed, she’d be happy to settle for a cozy cottage in the woods like Adora, but it was fine to have grandiose dreams for now.

And besides, that may not even come down to money. If she advanced enough, either as a Demon or Summoner, she could just build the thing herself, assuming she could find the right combination of Skills. But with the revelation of Gawk’s Ton of Bricks Skill, and the knowledge that there must be those connected to it, architecture could very well be in her future.

[Inspiration Lv.8]

Overall, she was quite satisfied with her hoard of investments. She’d even grabbed a couple shares of Lemon Literature. They’d invested in her, so it felt right to invest in them. And it was ultimately her safest investment of the bunch, operating on the lowest scale. Just looking at their history, it was definitely a safe bet, and made her feel all the more secure about working with them. Now she just had to hope that her future self would have the motivation to tend to these investments, making adjustments where needed.

Ngh, what else can I do? The anomaly was still going strong. Her brain felt like it had fully melted, and there was now definitely a part of her that wished it would come to an end. Running on full inspiration was apparently exhausting. Of course, the jazzed part of her mind told that other part to suck it up because there was so much more to achieve. She found herself wanting to delve back into art, but something even more grandiose than just drawing.

Yes, let’s work on being an art Demon! From her hand blossomed a flower of ice with perfect petals and a delicate stem, but she found herself unimpressed. This time, she focused on what it could be and invoked Auto-Color, unsure whether it would work. But it had to work, because that was what she wanted to bring to life, and it was her own magic, so she’d make it possible.

Her next hand-crafted flower was a tulip, one with petals of gilded gold. And it looked amazing, brilliantly beautiful, so rich in color. This inspired her to make a full bouquet of different frozen flowers; a blue daffodil, a green rose with a black stem, and peonies of various shades of purple. But why stop at just flowers? More ideas raced through her mind.

[Inspiration Lv.9]

First, she went and ran her bathtub, since that would take a while to fill. Then she returned to her room and triggered Manifest Ice once again. This time she filled the room with an array of sculptures. Of course, one of the first was Cherub, colored down to the last detail, then she made Gelic, both versions, the puffball and the pest. They really were nearly perfect replicas. If they didn’t have the shine and opacity of ice, they could potentially work as stand-ins in an emergency. Maybe they would fool an enemy when there was low visibility. Now that she had made them once, she should be able to recreate them quickly with Manufacture.

Last on her list was a life-size statue of Merlina. That took the most time and effort by far, so many intricate details to sculpt, and it was costing a considerable amount of MP to let her magic flow for that long. Sadly, she ran out of time, resulting in a cruder version than she would have liked, but it was still magnificent. She just had to stop before it was fully finished, since the tub had filled, and was now risking overflowing. And… she’d wanted to save a good chunk of her MP for her next inspiration.

There were Skills on her Weave that she could try to get for free but just hadn’t due to different priorities. But if she had a good idea on how to obtain them, why wait? First to mind was Flash Freeze. If she managed to obtain that, she’d see where inspiration struck next and maybe try to obtain more. Possibly Force Feed? How would she get that? A problem for later!

Angelica placed both hands against the surface of the water in her tub and activated Frost Touch. Immediately, the surface began to freeze. She could feel the power emanating from her, transposing into the liquid, but it wasn’t enough. Immediately, she knew that this wouldn’t unlock the Skill from this sad display. So she just needed to put more into it!

After turning into a Puck, she placed her claws and the tips of all four wings into the now icy water and pulsed her power through each extremity. Immediately, the full tub of water froze solid.

[Inspiration Lv.10]

It was definitely more than Frost Touch should be capable of, even at such a high level and usage, so it undoubtedly felt like she’d unlocked the Skill. But there were two problems. First, not only the water had been frozen. Both her claws and wings were now firmly secured into the block of ice. She quickly tried to use Salvager to break herself free, but it didn’t work at all except for the topmost layer. Since she’d made the ice through physical reaction rather than direct manifestation, it wasn’t classified as her creation.

Yeah, she’d definitely messed up, so full of herself, becoming definitively stuck from her own power. And the second issue was that she did not get the expected Skill notification. Instead, an entirely different message played in her mind.

[The anomaly has now ended, and the cause has been identified]

[You have committed the Sin of Pride]