Coldsnap: The Billionaire Alpha's Fated Pregnant Princess (GL)
Chapter 89 - Apoc-System Standard?!

Chapter 89: Chapter 89 - Apoc-System Standard?!

| TASK: Establish Connection with Potential Mate |

| TASK COMPLETION ✓ |

Instead of the mere mention of an imminent reward for that questionable ’task’ in the listing, new text had appeared. The mist had not even swirled from that strange symbol into its formation - just already there.

"What?"

Is it possible that such a quick change was an effect of the length of time it took? Vrika mirrored my confusion, being quite intelligent despite the spirit’s tendency to act like a foolish beast slaved to its base nature... around the Alpha of the Rimecoat.

But like with Wisdom, I also don’t really feel any different. Other than being a little mortified by this system’s naming sense... but I guess it is better if not every reward it gives messes with my senses like Intuition does.

| Single Parent Stash |

"Making a big deal out of being single crosses the line, right? Besides, it’s a choice! Not like I couldn’t clearly... just tell her... I mean, ANYONE that I was interested in what I’m going through if I wanted..."

Transmigrated, not really a wolf in my heart, things that would make me seem crazy alone. A system that talks of an Apocalypse, with no way to prove it and a child of a man only the body has ever slept with - I think.

> Quite a catch, am I not? Even the parts of me I am so certain of. They sound like nonsense that someone should flee from. <

My wolf, Helene’s old partner, steps softly and intentionally on my tail in my mindscape. So for a while, we fight and play... because I’m open to what it was obviously trying to do.

Irritate me into action so I’m not thinking depressed thoughts.

⧖ ☾ ❄ ☽ ⧖

| SINGLE ITEM STORAGE SPACE |

| RESTRICTION: Inanimate Objects |

| LIMIT: Maximum Volume, Standard Shipping Crate |

I stared at the message that I finally got to pop up after glaring at the new section in the stockpile grid. My heart hammered in disbelief and excitement.

"Storage... space? Like in those fantasy stories Helene had read before you showed up, where heroes pulled impossible items from magical bags?"

Vrika gave out a huffing chortle, as if amused by my skepticism despite everything else I’d already accepted about this strange system. But heightning something my body is already capable of - or providing information like a computer might is very different from this?!

Tentatively, I reached out as if toward the new... lilac glowing square icon on the interface in my vision. The moment my thoughts aligned and ’touched’ it, every glow in my vision shot to the very periphery again and left a translucent blue outline around that hand.

"...Okay."

I reached for a pen the motel provided on the nightstand and held it. Nothing happened at first, until I willed it to store away.

> Goddesses, what the hell was that?! <

My whole soul shot inward to my mindscape and landed on Vrika’s back, clutching at the spirit desperately in my old human form. In my world, the royals and many others were accustomed to pursuits of magic.

It’s a primal force of nature, a confluence of phenomena, and while at times it seems mysterious and nonsensical to the layman - it often has clear rules of cause and effect. Sometimes it happens ’accidentally’, simply because of an arrangement of events of fate, but this was not that.

> That felt like nothing. Absolutely nothing. There is always a feeling, Vrika. Do you understand? Even interacting with deities gives a tingle, they can’t just do things and NOTHING?! <

The wolf whined softly as I hugged it with all my spiritual body strength. Understanding that I was shaken but not what to do about it.

I honestly don’t know what to do about it either. The blue light had moved quickly away from my hand as I willed it to store, wrapping around the item that just ceased to exist from one moment to the next.

No soft shimmers, no fading effects, no feeling of it drifting out of my hand. Just erased from the space it was taking up and making my thumb, index, and middle finger jitter from the removal of the surface I was pressing lightly on.

> Like I’d blinked and it was never there, but I didn’t blink. <

Slowly, I was able to set aside my existential panic of being erased out of nowhere with no warning. This... ’magic’ did say it was restricted to inanimate objects...

Pulling myself back to reality and out of my mindscape, I uncurled from where I’d hopped on the bed and started shivering. The pen was still gone - completely gone without a trace - but the empty lilac square was now a solid glowing panel.

"How do I get it back?"

I whispered to no one, suddenly glad I didn’t test this on something more precious. I did the only logical thing and repeated the process, ’touching’ the square - and the blue glow appeared again around my hand.

When I clenched my fist it turned white, open was blue. And when I pressed my hand toward a surface... again it turned white.

"Is this an indication of whether it has space to reappear?"

With a shift of will, the glow formed into the size of the pen and it was suddenly slightly above my outstretched hand, rolling onto my palm. I sat in stunned silence for a minute, trying to process the implications of such a reward.

The system claimed I could store any one thing up to the size of a standard shipping crate. I don’t even know how big that is, but it sounds like a lot more than I’d ever need for a single item.

> Does it want me to store one of this world’s vehicles or something? In the first place, what does a ’single item’ even mean... the pen has ink in it that could be argued as separate from the container, but it... <

A wild laugh escaped me as a thought struck - half disbelief and half triumph. If this worked as promised, I could bring back everything of value from the hunter’s cabin in one trip.

> But how do I know it won’t just... disappear? Or break whatever I put inside? <

I needed to test it more thoroughly before trusting it with anything valuable. I grabbed one of the possibly useless books on human pregnancy and stored it, planning to leave it for ten minutes.

The wait was long and my little orange fox failed to even reach level 3 because I was too distracted to play the game. But the point was that I did let my mental state drift some, yet the book reappeared exactly as it had been.

"Some proof that this magic doesn’t actually revolve around my own mentality... if this was a spell I was doing then losing focus might ruin it."

Next, I filled a glass with water from the kitchenette sink and stored it. When I retrieved it moments later, not a drop seemed to be missing... though perhaps I should have marked the line.

A half eaten protein bar, to gauge its taste, went in and came out unchanged after twenty minutes. The shirt I was wearing returned without a wrinkle and with all of the body heat and scent it had when it went in.

Even after I took a lengthy shower to give it more time to test. Which led to the final example I needed to try.

"Cheap tote, stuffed with multiple items... and it’s all gone. Because the item I stored was the tote itself, which is a container... like the storage container it explicitly mentioned."

I paced the room with excitement at the clear hint the system had given this time. Mirroring me was my fox form, plodding circles around a wolf in my soul who now wagged his tail softly as it sat and happily watched me.

> Tomorrow, I will find the largest container I can. If I can stuff everything inside it, I can perform this journey back to the hunter’s cabin and bring everything of value back in one impossible trip. <

For the first time since arriving in this world, I felt like I’d been given a way to step ahead without any strings rather than constantly scrambling to catch up. This reward was almost too grand!

As I prepared for bed, I couldn’t help but appreciate the irony. This | Single Parent Stash | had come from the task of establishing a connection with Kyrie of all people.

The very forced feeling relationship of ’fated mates’ I’d been so determined to resist had provided the means for greater independence, just like she seemed to be trying to ’let me’ have this whole time.

Perhaps that was the lesson this con man of a system was trying to shove down my throat. That true strength wasn’t in isolation but in knowing when to accept connection and when to set boundaries.

"If so, it can shove its philosophy down its own nonexistent mouth. I’ve already accepted some things and made boundaries clear!"

But it doesn’t change the fact that the very attractive person she seems to be has the ability to ruin me. To make me hope, give me expectations... and then push me aside because of any number of conditions.

Boredom, her commitment to pack, or even just an inability to accept this child. Accept who I am beyond it, everything I am going through, and in the end...

> I simply cannot allow myself to hope, Vrika. After living so long rejecting it. I cannot. <