“Sir? Keep calm—”

  “I—GAH!—am perfectly relaxed, thank you,” I said, through gritted teeth.

  //10 Str//

  I reached up from the table, swatting the notification away. “Perfectly fine.”

  Okay, maybe not ‘perfectly fine,’ but fine enough considering I was trapped in a white room on a table with just a towel around my waist as some strange woman kept beating the snot outta me—

  She twisted my arm back, and I cut off in a bolt of agony.

  //117 Str//

  Shelly—the massage therapist—sighed, letting go of the arm she’d been trying to loosen up.

  “Please, sir.”

  I took a deep breath in, then out.

  //10 Str//

  “Fine—fin—e”, I cut off, biting my lip as she wrenched my arm over my back, before letting it relax, and the tendon contracted. “There, isn’t that so much better?”

  I’m not ashamed to say I started whimpering.

  Sern looked up from her bench, squinting. Since she physically couldn’t leave my side, the spa manager found a pile of magazines suitable for children and handed them to her. I doubted Sern knew enough to actually read anything on them, but she seemed to like the pictures—pictur—pi

  White pain tore through my lower leg and knee.

  //117 Str//

  Shelly cleared her throat, stepping back from the massage bench. “Sir.”

  “Sorry,” I whispered.

  //10 Str//

  “I’m trying to be as gentle as I can,” Shelly said, ramming an elbow into my back and twisting, pushing the air from my chest. “But you’re wound tight as a board, sir.”

  She moved to a volley of jabs and punching maneuvers on my back, molding and stretching muscle tissue, before going into kneading motions.

  “You’ve got a lot of scar tissue,” Shelly grunted. “You don’t use health potions much, do you?”

  “Not really,” I sighed. “Sleeping it off is usually cheaper.”

  “Use potions and get a good night's sleep. If you did both, you wouldn’t have nearly so many knots, and you’d last longer in combat.”

  She moved away from the massage table, picking up a large heated stone, and setting it onto my back, where it started sizzling. The heat sank into my skin and muscle, filling my body, and I started melting into the table.

  “Better?” Shelly asked.

  I nodded, closing my eyes.

  She waited for a few minutes, nodding to herself. “Great.” she glanced at Sern. “He wanted a deep tissue massage, right?”

  Sern nodded.

  “A what now?” I asked, blissfully ignorant.

  Shelly cracked her knuckles.

  {Shelly : //200// Str}

  I groaned, deflating into the hot spring.

  After the massage, every muscle in my body was aching, worse than after any dungeon. The hot springs—part two of the spa—were nice, and they’d given me some soft silk bathing shorts, which were heavens above better than dusty jeans but still—

  “I can’t believe I paid good money for this,” I said with a sigh. “This is all your fault.”

  Sern didn’t seem to be paying much attention, floating in a hot spring beside me, with a new silk bathing dress.

  While I’d been suffering on the massage table, counting down the seconds until our appointment was over, she’d been taken to another room and given manicures and quality skin care.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  “Traitor,” I whispered under my breath, only half serious.

  Sern perked up.

  I opened my mouth.

  I shut my mouth.

  “Nevermind,” I mumbled.

  Even my speaking was slurry after Shelly stretched out my jaw, neck, and throat. If a monster broke into the spa, I wouldn't have been able to lift a finger. Or an arm. Or anything, really. Actually if a monster broke into the spa, then I might just be able to get out of here.

  I grinned, sinking deeper into the hot spring, letting my loose, greasy hair fan out into the water.

  When was the last time I’d given it a wash?

  Even if I started counting from when I’d respawned, it’d still have been…four days? Five?”

  I let out a huff. In all my travels around town, I hadn’t seen a single bottle of shampoo. Maybe I could find a wizard or something to summon a bottle for me.

  We were only in the hot springs for thirty minutes, since anything longer wouldn’t be healthy. And that meant that I was subjected to the next torture on the “Special customer ultra-luxury package.”

  Two silver rings. I paid two silver rings for this. And then there was the third part.

  I yelped, jerking my feet out from the pool.

  Shelly twitched. “They’re spa fish. They won’t hurt you.”

  “They’re biting me!” I snapped, swishing my feet around, dodging the little fish that flocked around them.

  Shelly in deep exasperation. “Is this Dad’s first time in a spa?”

  Sern nodded.

  “She’s not…” I shook my head. “It’s Sern's first day in the spa too.”

  “And she’s behaving much better than you are, sir,” Shelly snapped. “Now let the fish eat the dead skin from your feet.”

  “Why do you say it like that?” I whimpered. “It sounds so much worse when you say it like that.”

  The mountain koi were funny things, in that they looked like koi, except they had little flat teeth around their lips, where no fish ought to have teeth. They were also really tiny, and in a much wider variety of color than any respectable koi would reasonably be.

  Once I held my feet still, they flocked around, shoving over one another in a mad frenzy to bite the more desirable parts of my toes.

  I cringed.

  Technically speaking, it wasn’t like it actually hurt—for fish with teeth they were surprisingly gentle—but it was deeply, deeply unsettling.

  “Sern—”

  She was giggling, swishing her feet around in the water, and the fish were following around. Whenever they caught up and started biting, she burst into a fit of squirming about, with a big grin plastered over her face.

  “Tickles,” she giggled.

  I smiled back. “I suppose it does.”

  That smile stuck with me through the rest of the day.

  Shelly cleared her throat, and I was snapped back to reality, now in my own clothes—newly cleaned—with the rings in hand.

  After the fish, the rest of the Spa had gone by remarkably well. There was a facial treatment with lotion and cucumbers, as any respectable spa would have, followed by a real wash of the hair, a foot rub, and manicure, which was a lot nicer than the first massage.

  Anything was nicer than the first massage.

  I laid three silver rings into her hand. “Thank you.”

  Shelly scoffed, picking up a ring. “What’s this for?”

  “Sern. Deluxe spa treatment for two?” I asked, before doing the math, and pulling out a fourth ring. “Sorry. Long day.”

  “That girl—” Shelly started, pushing Sern’s payment back into my hand. “---Goes free.”

  I felt suddenly and profoundly awkward.

  Shelly sniffed, wiping off her eyes. “It’s good, what you’re doing.”

  I blinked. “Thank you.”

  “That girl,” she sniffed. “Have you…seen her back? Really seen it, I mean?”

  “Not really,” I admitted.

  “Her whole back is covered in scar tissues. The muscles below it are a lot worse, and when I was a massage on her back I could tell it hurt—or-r it should've hurt but she didn’t move or wince or cry or anything and I don’t think her nerves work or-r—”

  Shelly took a moment, rubbing her face with her hands, and then wiping her hands on her skirt.

  “She goes free,” Shelly said, all business, forcing my hands closed around the ring. “You don’t. After all that trouble you gave me,” she smirked. “Come again soon.”

  I waved goodbye and took Sern out the door and into the street. She was skipping, swirling around in her silver dress.

  A couple seconds after walking, I blinked hard, staring off into the distance. “Wow.”

  Sern glanced toward me.

  I was grinning like an idiot, jumping up and down.

  “I think the massage just set in.”

  ~Epic~

  {Deep Tissue Massage (48:00:00)}

  [You have been affected by a [Master-Level] muscle therapy technique.]

  [Substantial muscle damage will reduce this buff.]

  [Miscellaneous boosts given.]

  My tendons were perfectly relaxed and flexible, as if they were thirty or forty pounds lighter—and that was with my strength toned down.

  I hadn’t realized how stiff I’d been getting during fights.

  //20 Str//

  I jumped up, thirty feet into the air.

  Sern giggled, running up and grabbing onto my neck.

  “Want a ride back home?” I asked, waiting for a nod.

  //100 Str//

  “Then hang on tight!” I shouted bracing against the street, which, by this point, had a dedicated team of Npcs to keep it repaired.

  The ground exploded and, like a rocket, we were off.