[1.27] The Bigger Picture (Part 1)

The next morning, despite everything that had happened, Angelica decided to stick with her routine and go for a run. She was doing so in her Imp form. While she was still avoiding making any direct decisions about her future, there were aspects of her situation she couldn’t discount that were direct advantages, even if she chose to live on as a normal human.

First, the invisibility in her Demon form. Of course, it wouldn’t work on everyone, but as long as it worked on most people, it was still an extremely useful power. Even if she had no plans to use it for illicit means, being able to avoid awkward social situations was a beautiful thought. Angelica could even pretend she wasn’t home when her landlord came knocking. She actually had the money to pay Ms. Gate this time, but the less interactions with the woman, the better.

So Gelic wanted to get better at moving around as an Imp. She was surprisingly dexterous when bouncing around, but bouncing wasn’t always the optimal choice. Running, and heck, even walking, in her blobby body was still difficult, so she wanted to get better at it. Of course, she could always rely on Orders to get her moving if absolutely needed, but part of her didn’t want to make them a crutch. She, at the very least, wanted to be able to operate her own self functionally without needing the firm hand.

That was definitely not to say that particular power should be ignored, either. Complete control over herself was definitely optimal, and something she’d want to continue using regardless of the path ahead of her. And she was presently taking advantage of the new Summoner Skill she’d received, Simultaneous Orders. Its description was pretty much what she expected, but did add a little extra insight about Contracts in general.

[Simultaneous Orders | Add a simultaneous Order to a Contract that supersedes the inherent sequential Order limitation. Additional Order must not impede or contradict the original Order. If there are conflicts, the original Order will take priority, and additional Orders will take priority in the sequence they are issued. Priority may be shifted by spending MP. Current additional Orders allowed: 1. Amount of additional Orders scales with Summoner Rank]

[Note: If Contract type is Order Exhaust, Simultaneous Orders will cause Contract to count down]

That part was the stickler. Lustre had used an Order Exhaust Contract on her, which was probably why she hadn’t used Simultaneous Orders, assuming every Summoner got the ability pretty early on. That, or by the inherent nature of what she wanted done, they needed to be taken care of sequentially, regardless, or maybe she just didn’t want to use up the MP. Since Angelica didn’t expend MP for her own Orders, she couldn’t check how much it cost, but her gut told her it was a lot more resource-intensive to make them simultaneous instead of sequential.

And, of course, she knew that other types of Contract existed, and that was what worried her more. Completing fritsy Orders was one thing, but the real terror came from the idea of being permanently Bound. Like her Soulbound Contract, there were definitely others that made the Demon and Summoner a continuous pair until they were either graciously released, or managed to break free. Undoubtedly, there were more types than those, too, probably ones with conditions like time limits, or other requirements. While she hadn’t encountered them yet, there was enough to go on that made her fearful.

To counter that, Gelic wanted to increase her Obstinance and the related skills as much as possible. Currently, her primary Order was to complete her run as usual. Because of her short and stubby Imp body, that would take significantly longer than usual, maybe even most of the day. But it gave her plenty of time to think things through, and to practice.

Angelica was using the free Simultaneous Order slot to repeatedly give herself junk Orders and then cancel them with Order Rejection. They were usually nonsense things she couldn’t feasibly complete like “Steal the Sun” or “Punch the President,” whatever her mind randomly came up with. Something she did firmly deduce was that more complicated and wildly idealistic orders were easier to reject than simple ones. They had a higher percentage chance to succeed and cost a lot less MP in general. A very simple order like “Jump Once” had only a 2% chance and cost almost all of her max MP. It was almost as if the DGS was telling her to “just do them, dumb-dumb.”

The caveat was that rejecting simple orders felt like they provided more Obstinance training if it succeeded. She was being more stubborn by refusing to do reasonable things, so it made sense. The Summoner would switch out the type she gave, usually letting a simple yet reasonably chanced Order drain her MP, followed by absurd Orders with practically guaranteed success and minimal cost. During this time, while she let her MP regenerate, she’d focus on training Order Resistance, by just riding out the pain, tricking her mind into thinking it was akin to the burn she felt from running.

Sadly, she had no way to practice Bind Resistance or Bind Break, at least not by herself. All it took was failing to break Soulbound one time to meet her end, not that she’d even really want it to break. Its buff of providing increased Bind Resistance was too good, especially when it came to another of her biggest fears. Even if she refused to take part in the whole business of being summoned, that didn’t mean she’d always have a choice.

Anyone who knew her name could summon her against her will, her true name, at least. Fortunately, that was currently zero Summoners, except for maybe Garvin, if he ever put together her slip-up. However, knowing her alias gave them the ability to specifically perform a summons targeting her, but she could reject that call… supposedly. Gelic had a stinking feeling, however, that higher-levelled circles wouldn’t give her a choice. Soulbound had been listed as being able to even summon a Demon Lord, and there’s no way one so strong would give out their true name so easily, so it had to be otherwise forced.

That meant one day, there was a good chance she could just be called away against her will, forced into a Contract, and that was the end of it. Plus, Angelica still hadn’t found a good way to get rid of the voices. While she was on a Contract with another Summoner, she wouldn’t hear them. Sadly, that didn’t apply for her own self-made Contracts, for some reason, maybe because she was such a low-ranked Summoner that her Demon could be tempted away, or something along those lines. Already, this morning, a few had trickled to her mind, and that would be a constant annoyance. Who knew, maybe she’d just give in someday and accept one to make the voices stop for a while, ending up in a repeat situation as with Lustre.

Angelica had very recently learned a lot of this that very morning from checking her DGS screen. Simultaneous Orders wasn’t the only Summoner Skill listed now. There were several, actually, assumedly ones she already had the capability to do, or at least knew about, and getting a new one had likely just forced the system to update it and present them. She hadn’t read through them all yet, and used an MP Regen break to get more details. There could be more she was capable of and just hadn’t seen yet. And first on the list was, of course, the base of it all.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

[Summon | Summon a Demon via a Summoning Circle. If the Demon’s true name is known, they may be forcibly summoned. If their Alias is known, they may be requested to answer. Should no specific Demon be desired, a general call may be made. A Demon may be summoned without a Summoning Circle, but it is not recommended]

That had provided the information about the naming specifics with summoning. Gelic also hadn’t known about the last caveat with a circle not being needed, but doubted it was something many Summoners did, since it was what kept them safe until the Contract was made. Also notably, it didn’t level up, and neither did any other Summoner Skill. In general, the information was pretty sparse about the specifics compared to all her other skills. Her best guess was that the Demon Growth System just catalogued them for consistency’s sake, rather than really incorporating them.

[Bind | Attempt to bind a demon into your servitude. Once Bound, a Contract will be forged based on the rules engraved in the Summoning Circle and negotiations with the Demon. Negotiations are not required, but recommended for Demon cooperation. Bound Demons cannot attack their Summoner, and the pair become linked with the circle as a catalyst, allowing for additional skills to be used. If binding fails, the Summoning Circle will become inert, and the Demon will have all restraints removed. Recommended to Banish them immediately. Current Binding limit: 1 Demon. Amount of Demons capable of being simultaneously Bound scales with Summoner Rank]