[1.04] Orders are Absolute (Part 3)

It didn’t take too long until Angelica was able to sway her body over in the bottle of water’s direction, having to guide it to specific pieces of trash along the way so that it would eventually be the closest. As expected, it counted, and her arm immediately attempted to skewer the container. But that would have been problematic if she wasn’t precise. Her aim took a bit of fighting, the hand wanting to just get it over with and move on, but she eventually got it to cooperate. After purposely knocking the bottle over, she pierced at a slight angle along the bottom rim so that the poker was flush with the inner wall.

Now came the tricky part. Her body would automatically try to put the bottle into the trash bag she was holding in her other hand. However, she had at least some range of movement, as long as she didn’t directly interfere with the process. So Angelica pulled the bag back behind her as far as it would allow. Then, she bent her body, leaning her weight over the holding arm so she was ducking toward that side. And last, she hoisted the poker upward so that the bottle would have to take an awkward path, over her head to reach its destination.

The water rained down on her face while she held the bottle above herself for as long as she could. Her mouth was open wide, lapping up as much as possible, guzzling the gracious gift. Most of it missed entirely, running into her hair, down her neck, soaking her clothes, but she didn’t care. What did make it into her mouth was likely tainted by the poker’s tip in the water, contaminated with nearly a thousand pieces of various rubbish, but SHE. DID. NOT. CARE. Every drop she drank felt like a blessing from Vissiem herself, and the water covering her skin was only hiding the tears of relief.

With the bottle added to her current bag of trash, she once more felt reinvigorated, since at the very least, she wouldn’t pass out from dehydration. However, as was the case with many of her choices over the past few years, there were unexpected consequences. The sun was gone, it was still winter, and she had just doused herself in liquid.

Frits, it’s cold! She mentally whined a mere few minutes after her quick water break. Cold, cold, cold! While she doubted hypothermia was in her future, since it wasn’t quite that cold, there was still definitely a good chance her clothes would become frosty before they had the chance to dry. She tried breathing hot air down at the front of her tracksuit and the shirt underneath, but it did little, if anything, besides winding herself. After one more shiver that rattled Angelica down to her bones, her mind thought for itself once more.

[Passive Skill: Cold Resistance Lv.1 unlocked]

[Vigor increased]

[Glacial Attunement unlocked]

Well, that was certainly a little better. Angelica was still pretty dang cold, but it had curbed the icy nip. And on top of that, the rest of her body felt a little better too, the stabbing aches tapered just ever so slightly, as they had before, the last time her subconscious mentioned Vigor. What was the whole Glacial Attunement thing? If she was resisting cold, wouldn’t that be the opposite of attuning? Whatever. Such random musings were unimportant for her current predicament.

Able to focus a bit more, the trash-collector recouped her sensibilities and pushed forward. She hadn’t checked in a while, but had to be getting close, hopefully no more than fifty. Angelica really didn’t want to check, afraid it’d break her if it didn’t meet her expectations. While the improvements to her situation had provided a boost to morale, they came with a caveat.

Since she was no longer purely honed in on the possibility of freezing solid, her woes shifted gears to her other major debilitation. She was starving. Not in the way that someone who had a bit of a grumbly tummy would say they were starving; actually, literally starving. The amount of calories she’d burned from her efforts had certainly exceeded the single meal she’d had that day. Now she was severely regretting and chastising herself for her earlier pride, wishing desperately she had taken the offer of a double portion that morning.

Her intake the previous day had been pathetic as well. While she’d become scrawny since her days as an athlete and didn’t require nearly as many calories as a burly person to function, an amount was still required, and she’d definitely gone into a deficit. Every time her belly beast roared, it felt like her stomach was scraping its own walls, settling for her flesh if it couldn’t have anything else. Angelica became so ravenous that she even looked down at the collar of her track suit, debating if she could bend her neck enough to grab it with her teeth and carve off a piece.

[Passive Skill: Hunger Resistance Lv.1 unlocked]

[Vigor increased]

[Famine Attunement unlocked]

In her desperate hour, help came again. She was still certainly hungry, so very hungry. Any source of food placed in front of her would be at risk of being devoured no matter the type or how it was obtained. But at the very least, she could stave off the urge to become a jacket eater, glad she got to avoid that shame that would come back to haunt her right as she was about to fall asleep for the rest of her life.

Despite her better judgment, wanting to ride the high of this new saving grace, she checked her progress again. Close. She was damn close. A fire lit up within her, further staving off the cold—metaphorically at least. With every ounce of energy, she moved forward, one foot in front of the other. Surely, this nightmare would be over soon.

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“How many left?” Angelica asked the open air.

[Current Contract: Pick up trash without stopping (995/1,000)]

“How ‘bout now?”