Chương 63: [1.63] Cost of Living (Part 1)

[Would you like to consume 1, 064 Essence to reach Imp Lv. 15?] Dang it! She needed to reach Lv. 16 to get enough Growth Points to purchase Auto-Color. Angelica decided to go ahead and accept the upgrade, wanting to see how much Essence she'd need for that last level. It was a good thing she was still lying in bed, because the all-consuming euphoric feeling of gaining four levels at once would have been enough to knock her off her feet. [Demon Rank: Imp Lv. 15] With that transaction done, she had 292 Essence left over, and needed 345, so that was a difference of 53 left to obtain. Woof, these levels are getting pricey. Normally, such mental math should have been a breeze, but she was so tired and unfocused that it had taken her way too long, about to resort to pulling out the calculator on her phone before she realised how stupid she was being and pushed through the head fog. It had been a long night of tossing and turning.

Even with the adrenaline of her magic performance subsiding, the anxiety of what was to come had been constantly plaguing her mind. It was payment day. She didn't know when, but at some point, Ms. Gate would be stopping by for the rent. That alone wouldn't really be a problem, and she could just send the money now, but she knew her landlord also wanted to do an apartment inspection, and the busybody probably wouldn't take her word or a picture for it.

So Angelica had an unknown amount of time to kill, stuck fretting about how the conversation would go. Would it just be a quick snatch and grab of the cash like last time, or would the woman want to seriously evaluate how her tenant's life was going? Both ways annoyed her. Really, Angelica was just going to be annoyed no matter what. But she was in a much better place now. If her landlord asked, Angelica could pay a full year's worth of rent upfront today.

She made sure to have that much money on hand just in case that ridiculous scenario happened, but probably wouldn't offer. Plus, that would then require the explanation of how she'd made so much. Obviously, she couldn't just come out and say she'd been doing Demon things for money. Saying she'd been freelancing or temping was more rational, but would the woman believe her? Worst case scenario, Ms. Gate somehow came under the assumption that Angelica had been doing… certain scandalous things for cash.

That would be an unfettered nightmare. She didn't really care about justifying anything to her annoying landlord too much, besides just generally wanting to avoid confrontation. But if such a rumor reached her mother… Oh, Vissiem, the mere thought made her stomach clench and twist. Corticia would be banging down her door within the hour. But… it'd be fine… yeah… totally fine. She just needed to act like a proper tenant, hand over the money, and show off her now perfectly clean apartment.

Well, there was still one part she had to fix before the woman's arrival, but that was dependent on outside factors. More specifically, she'd ordered a rug to cover her Summoning Circle, to both keep the lie while hiding the floor damage, and was still waiting for its arrival. It was supposed to come two days ago, but the carrier said it required a signature, and since she hadn't been home to sign for it, they'd try again today. Worse part was, Angelica had actually been home, just asleep between magic rehearsals.

She wasn't a super heavy sleeper, either, so if there'd been any attempt to knock, she would have heard it and woken up. But nope, nothing, just a note on her door. Maybe her Deterring Field Rune had driven them off? No, she would have wanted to be bothered in that case, so it would have gone against her directive. More likely, it was just bad customer service, which was sadly very standard for the carrier she was dealing with.

Fortunately, tracking showed it should be there soon, so, hopefully, it would be delivered well before Ms. Gate's arrival. Angelica guessed it would be the evening again, with the woman coming after work, so it should all line up fine. To double check that, she confirmed with Divining Ear whether or not the woman was on her way over. [No] Do you have any idea when she might show up? [No] So helpful, thanks. Meaning, yes, she was stuck playing homebody for an indeterminate amount of time, which normally, she'd love.

It was too risky to accept any summoning calls, and her mental and bodily weariness was still probably too much to draw anything of worth for Merlina's Boutique. Well, she could do some admin work and maybe work on some commissions. Angelica had been neglecting that side of her life lately, but it was for a good cause! Auto-color! All for Auto-Color. When she had that, Angelica could take maybe like a week break from being a Demon and just focus on her art.

She could clear her whole backlog of commissions, write dozens of chapters for her webcomic, of which she was brimming with ideas thanks to her time as a lovely assistant. And who knew, if the Skill was as useful as she dreamed, maybe she'd even be able to start working on one of the other dozen comic ideas in her head. One that would maybe be a bit more successful… Don't get her wrong. Merlina's Boutique was her first artistic love.

She would see its story to a fitting end, but had accepted in her heart that it would never be the banger that would get her to stardom. That was the one thing she was really missing from her life improvements. Angelica had nothing to wave in Ms. Gate's face about how well her art aspirations were going. That would really make the day a homerun. You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. Or did she…?

"Good day, Gelic. My name is Kelsie Travis, and I'm an agent at Lemon Literature." What, what, what?! A publisher was reaching out to her? No way! That was not at all what Angelica had been expecting when she checked her dedicated artist email. Did they wanna publish Merlina's Boutique? She should probably finish reading the email before jumping to such hopeful conclusions.

"An author we recently signed, Marcool, mentioned that he had commissioned artwork for a cover from you for their webserial, Dragon King Hot Rod. Upon reviewing the art, we found that it greatly exceeded expectations and was a wonderful fit for the story. If you are available, we would like to go ahead and put in an order for you to illustrate covers for the remaining nine entries in the series. We can offer you our standard rate of $500 per cover.

"Additionally, should all go well with this series, we would be interested in retaining your services in perpetuity as one of our contracted artists with your compensation increasing with your tenure. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. And if you are interested, do let me know, and I will send over the initial order, along with a copy of our contract for your review. Hope you have a lovely day." Oh, yes, it would be a lovely day. A lovely day, indeed!

Holy frits, her literal wildest dreams were coming true. Sure, it wasn't her own work that was getting a publishing deal, but still, her art had been appreciated, acknowledged, and most importantly, valued with real money on the line. Absolutely, she was going to accept that deal. Angelica would be the best damned artist on their roster. She'd make sure of it! Maybe cheating a bit with her Demon powers, but oh well. The end result was all that mattered, and it still came from her own imagination. Also… uhh…

Dragon King Hot Rod? That's what the story had been called? Angelica remembered it immediately, since the title completely narrowed down the possibilities. She'd found it a bit odd to be drawing both a dragon and a sports car on a cover together, but did think the piece turned out fantastic. Still… that was the kind of thing that got published and sold copies, huh? Maybe she needed to do a lot more market research. That wasn't remotely important now, though. In her eyes, she had made it.

The last piece of the puzzle in turning her life around had come to fruition. And most critical, she had something to gloat about now to her landlord. Yes, so much gloating on the horizon. All this success was honestly making Angelica feel a touch bit emotional, and on top of that, ideas were now swirling in her mind. She began musing about what the future covers for the series could be, thinking she should probably actually read the story so she could create better depictions. Hopefully it would be to her tastes.

And the ideas overflowed to both the waiting commissions in her queue, along with a few of her own. Gelic was practically bursting with inspiration. [Inspiration Lv. 5] [Creativity increased] [Fabrication Attunement increased] Okay, that was a bit weird. She hadn't actually been doing anything artsy when that happened. Apparently, just being more in the right state of mind could cause Skills to level. Wait, was that what Attunement was all about?!

Gelic suddenly felt like she understood the system just a bit better. It wasn't just rote use, but genuine connection that led to additional improvement. Neat. She should just stop sitting around, though. The Inspiration Skill had actually triggered, and it would be a waste to let it go unused. She grabbed her drawing pad and… of course, that's when she got a text.

"Your delivery driver is one stop away. ETA: 4 minutes." Ughhhhhhhh, but also, sweet. Angelica pried herself from her chair and headed out to the parking lot. No way in hell would she let them say she wasn't home again. It was times like this that she wished her complex had surveillance cameras. Oh, maybe she should get one of those fancy doorbells that records, if her landlord would allow it. Maybe she'd get one even without approval.

As she stared at the small empty lot, Angelica began to wonder if she should buy a car. Her initial reasoning was since no one else lived there, there were never any cars, so it might lead to passersby thinking the place was abandoned. She didn't want hooligans coming around and getting the impression that they could turn it into some hangout spot. But hopefully, Deterring Field should keep that from happening, even if it was only a minor irritant for regular humans. Any bad feeling was better than nothing.

More importantly, though, a car sort of felt like a status symbol, that she'd somehow made it in life. Angelica had gotten her first car in high school, a used beater her mom had gotten her for cross-country practice and meets. That had served her all the way through college, limping until she was set to move back to the city. At that point, it just didn't make sense to keep around, due to the wonders of public transport. She kind of missed it, though, the sense of superiority and freedom it brought.

And she'd really feel like she'd made it with something new. Not something super expensive, but since she had a reasonable amount of savings now, a good mid-range car that would last her a while. Realistically, she would just never use it, and a car would be a waste of money. It would become a fancy ornament in the parking lot. Between Multi-Bounce and Return, driving around in a car regularly would only feel slow now. And when she needed to pretend to be human, the bus and subway were still viable options.

It was all just a random musing during the definitely more than four minutes it took for the delivery driver to arrive. He seemed a bit flummoxed when Angelica hoisted the hefty rolled rug over her shoulder, since he himself had struggled a bit to unload it from the truck. But the girl that was far scrawnier than him had unintentionally handled the package like it was no bother at all. That was something to keep in mind. While she had the appearance of a weak human, Gelic was now a mighty and powerful Imp…

who still happened to have the label of Weak in the eyes of the DGS. Either way, best to play a bit frail, so she quickly dropped the carpet as if it had suddenly gotten heavy, and began to drag it to her room. [Lurren Gate is heading to your location]