[1.10] Contractually Obligated Motivation (Part 1)

“Alright, let’s do this.” Angelica put on her sneakers the following morning, daring to go outside for a fourth day in a row. At this rate, maybe she’d even be a normal member of society again in no time, shedding her hermit status. She was planning to go for a run like a person with a healthy lifestyle, someone she used to be and was now pretending to be again.

After the tormented night of strange dreams, Angelica had elected to ignore them. Either this was a side-effect of having inherited the Demon Growth System, or her subconscious was having a hard time accepting her situation. But her main consciousness wouldn’t allow such wallowing. Despite the rocky start, her new abilities were a blessing from Vissiem, erm… Ferrul? She still wasn’t sure about that.

Point being, she was going to use it to get her life back on track. The weird resistances and Skills she’d gotten were neat and all, but the real power came from the ability to fully control her own actions. So what if she didn’t have the motivation to actually commit to self-improvement? That didn’t matter now since she could force it upon herself.

For starters, she was going to get back into running. It was what she knew, what she was good at, or used to be good at… The former cross-country star hadn’t genuinely tried in some time. After how badly her legs had quivered from just walking around all day during the trash fiasco, she expected some serious atrophy she’d have to power through.

But that was fine. Her goal for the day was just to get back into the rhythm, to see how far she could go. “Go for a run at a steady, expected pace until you’re reasonably tired but not close to the point of total exhaustion. Take a familiar or obviously okay route, obeying all traffic laws, respecting anyone you come across, and above all, be safe and take care of your body, rehydrating whenever is necessary to maintain a level of decent comfort.”

[Order accepted without resistance | Current Contract: Go for a run]

It was a bit funny to see it all boiled down so simply. If she wasn’t used to it now, she would be worried that all of the caveats of the Contract didn’t take. And they were all rather important, not wanting a repeat of past incidents. Since it wasn’t a Named Order, she could resist, pausing when needed for breaks or rational adjustments, or she could just cancel it outright whenever she wanted. However, as much as possible going forward, she’d aim to complete all of her Orders so that she could further increase her Summoner Rank. While she had absolutely no idea what benefits it provided, higher was certainly better, right?

Angelica hit the ground running, letting the familiar high take over as her apartment quickly vanished from sight. As unfortunately expected, it wasn’t long until she felt a bit winded, and her muscles were already creaking in agony. But she did not slow, did not break stride, keeping a consistent pace and powering through the pains. Because she had no choice. If she tried to ease up, her body would continue to propel itself forward, and if she pushed harder, the Contract added motivation of its own, making the need to continue gnaw at her instincts.

Before she knew it, the runner found herself out of her usual stomping grounds, trotting down a trail that led to a fancier part of town. She supposed it fell within the guidelines she’d given herself, since it was very clearly a path that many people would use for jogs just like these, even briefly running along a river which was definitely a highlight.

However, when she reached one particular fancy neighborhood, her body reacted in an odd way. It told her that she shouldn’t be there, like she was trespassing. It wasn’t the same way a poor person felt ostricized by the rich, but rather that there was some sort of force propelling her away. It didn’t last long, just a few meters, so she ruled it out as just some fleeting vibe. Though she could have sworn she briefly saw script similar to the stuff written in her Demon Summoning book, not that her body would let her stop to get a better look.

When she really felt the tiredness looming, Angelica veered herself back in the direction of her apartment, though that wasn’t her final destination. She charted a course for a grocery store, needing to stock up, having put it off for far too long. Right when she spotted the supermarket, she was also greeted with a notification.

[Vigor increased]

Hell yeah. She felt a little boost of endorphins from the bonus. Angelica knew from her past exploits the benefits of exercise, but they could take a while to show, so the instant validation was certainly a win. And despite her boost in energy, when she reached the store’s parking lot, the Contract completed itself. She could have kept running, could have kept pushing herself, but apparently her Summoner side also deemed it a good stopping point and fulfillment of the terms.

And it was a good thing that it had come to an end. She had to assume that she’d get no progress to her next Rank if the contract was cancelled, because that would be a failure, right? It was probably the same if the she used Order Rejection to break free of it. Frits, that could possibly even be negative points, if such a possibility existed.

But besides that, she wanted to immediately dive straight into another Contract. It was definitely an annoyance that she could only do one at a time. Wait, hadn’t that been one of the error messages? She couldn’t give more than one order per Contract due to insufficient Rank, right? All the more reason to improve!

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