CHAPTER 56 RELAXATION

I packed all of my stuff into the room I was renting, before making my way down the stairs with a jaunty step and whistling a satisfying tune. I flipped a coin with my finger, my heightened dexterity making it easy to catch it. I passed by the reception desk again, Mina looking up for a moment from the guest she was helping get checked in, giving me a five star certified CSR smile before returning to assisting the large man at the counter.

I walked down the long hallway passing a bunch of doors that had stuff written on them. I never realized how frustrating it was not to be able to read basic things. I needed to fix this soon. Stats should make learning a new language relatively easy… Or so I hoped, I guess I would find out eventually.

I didn’t expect stats to just pour information into my mind that I shouldn’t know, what I expected things like Wisdom and Intelligence to do for me was give me foresight and a capability to piece information together that was beyond the realms of a normal person.

Wisdom would be the knowledge of how people would react to certain decisions based on experience and be able to formulate accurate and detailed plans that stretched years into the making like some sort of anime mastermind villain.

Intellect being able to look at more increasingly difficult math problems and being able to solve them quickly and efficiently. So long as I actually understood the process of how to solve it, I would still need to be taught, I would just soak up things like a sponge. Hopefully that wouldn’t just be an exaggerated analogy.

I hoped that’s what these skills would do on top of their normal system benefits for my skills. There really wasn’t a way I could test that, however. Maybe if I found a way back to Earth, I could compare myself to a similar person? Assuming the Government didn’t try to kidnap me. Not that they would succeed, it would just be difficult to deal with them without killing the people. Even now a punch from me would shatter an unpowered human rib cage like it was made of paper.

I shrugged, my thoughts cutting off as I reached the end of the hallway and noticed the box that Mina had described to me. It was a smooth black cub with a dispenser on the front. There was an almost invisible slit on the top of the box that was perfectly sized for a coin.

I lined up the silver I had brought with me and pushed it through, it clinked satisfyingly as it landed on the other coins inside. The front dispenser spat out a band that looked like paper at first but upon touching it I quickly realized it wasn’t. It was something… Something. I didn’t know what it was. I hadn’t ever felt something like this before, it was interesting.

Just another reminder that this world wasn’t Earth, I was going to keep needing healthy doses of that for it to keep sinking in. It was always the little things that I just subconsciously expected to be the same and then I’d get thrown for a loop when it wasn’t. I had initially expected some thin plastic to be used for the bands, maybe a rubber? But it made sense that they probably hadn’t invented such a material, they probably didn’t have a need for it the same way we did on Earth.

There were materials that probably were either naturally occurring or magically created that occupied the same use for Kelthas. I smiled as I slapped the band around my wrist, it fit snugly which kept it from sliding around.

I then looked up to the doors… Uhhhh… I had forgotten which one Mina said was the male and which was the female. And I couldn’t read. I sat there for several moments contemplating my dilemma. After a minute I decided I’d just suck up my embarrassment and go ask Mina which was which again, when I turned around to see the large man from earlier standing right behind me.

And man was he big, a few inches taller than me and at least 150 lbs heavier. He wasn’t necessarily muscular like you’d think of a builder, he had more of a strongman’s physique. It was deceptive like he was possibly fat, but it wasn’t fat and more just bulk that added to his size and provided a formidable presence.

He had just finished walking up behind me, he made eye contact with me for a moment frowning slightly.

“Whatcha looking at, elf?” He rumbled, his voice incredibly deep. It almost seemed unnatural. Hell I had to wonder if he had nonhuman blood.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to stare,” I responded, “This is a bit embarrassing to ask, but I can’t read the language here quite yet, could you point me to male side?”

He pondered me for a moment before grunting and indicating with a finger the door to the left.

I gave him a friendly smile, “Thank you, sir!” And made my way through the door.

It chimed softly as I got through without much effort. Inside looked somewhat similar to what you’d expect from Japanese style hot springs, you know those changing rooms they show in anime. It seemed very stereotypical and shockingly out of place. So far everything I had seen had been much more ‘western’ in aesthetic in everything. Including the skin tones.

Although I guess Lustirne was a bit more varied on that front than places like Vinwood and Elendar. Especially given the huge amounts of nonhuman races here. I quickly stripped out of my clothing, putting it in a little box that held a towel that I removed and slung over my shoulder.

There was a cleansing spot before the springs and it basically just power washed you with cold water. It was a little disorienting and it left me sputtering as I received a nice blast straight into my face.

With my dignity in tatters I managed to stumble my way to the actual hot spring. The flooring gave way to rock that I couldn’t tell if it was magically sculpted or natural. It wasn’t open air, which didn’t particularly matter to me, it was still early enough that the sun would just be out and shining in my face which was not my idea of a good time right now.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

I left the towel on the rocks behind me within arms, or rather arm reach. I dismissed my wooden arm before stepping in, for some reason it just felt like the right thing to do rather than potentially shedding wood shavings into the water.

It was always interesting watching the arm disappear. It sort of crumbled into nothingness, starting first with the fingertips before working its way back towards my shoulder. A short moment later it was completely gone and I was free to finally step into the water.

It was divine. I quickly slid all the way in, dunking my head under for a moment before letting it rest at neck height.

I let out a long sigh of satisfaction as I rested there. It was wonderful, it had been so long since I got a chance to properly bather. I had more of a preference for showers personally, I enjoyed the pressure on my back. But this would be good enough for now I suppose.

I almost didn’t notice the other man come in, so lost, I was in the warmth of the water. The man situated himself on the other side without a word, which was fine with me. I was no social butterfly, mainly preferring to keep to myself as it was.

I just focused on enjoying my time here and let the hours wile away.

***

I suddenly snapped to attention.

I had dozed off. It had been so long since I was just able to relax and enjoy something nice that I let my guard down, oh that could’ve been bad. Imagine if I had drowned? How embarrassing would that be?

I got out and wrapped the towel around my waist with a little difficulty given my one armedness. There was no sign of the man that was here earlier. I wasn’t sure how long I dozed for but it shouldn’t have been that long. I guess I’d go back up to my room and sleep the rest of the night.

I made it back to the changing room and started drying myself off. Once I was sufficiently dried I changed back into my clothes. On my way out I noticed a hamper by the door with a sign above it, a glance inside showed towels filling it up nearly halfway. I nodded and dropped my used towel in there.

Walking back down the same hallway I could see candles lighting the end of the hallway by the reception. I guess it was night now. I made it back to the front and made my way to the stairs. Mina was still working on stuff and glanced up again, her eyes only giving the barest flicker to my arm before flashing me another smile.

“Did you enjoy yourself?”

I gave her a slightly embarrassed smile, “Yeah, it was great. It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to just relax and enjoy something so I lost track of time.” I gave a timid chuckle at the end.

She laughed lightly, in a kind, polite way.

“If you have any questions a worker will be here all day from dawn ‘till near midnight.” She informed me.

I nodded, “Alright, thank you for letting me know.”

“Enjoy the rest of your night, sir.”

“You as well.”

With that I walked up the stairs. I made it back to my room and let myself in with the key. Once I hit the bed I was out like a light.

***

Waking up the next morning I felt completely refreshed. Like I hadn’t been through some of the most traumatic things in my life at all. Blessings of the System maybe? I shrugged idly to myself and got to work on getting my arm up and running.

‘Ping’ [Wood Manipulation] Has leveled up 2 > 3

I could see that it was slowly going faster. Before it used to take me hours to form an arm. Or rather more like a decent chunk of the day, now it only consumed a couple hours of my morning. On top of that it was just stronger now too.

I stretched myself, shaking off the last desperate clutches of my desire to sleep the rest of the day away, the sunlight softly filtering through the lightly covered window creating a refreshing mood to the tidily decorated room I was in.

I sat down on the edge of my bed. I needed to contemplate my next moves. Sure I knew where I was headed and what I wanted to do, but visualizing that and making sure the idea was concrete so I wasn’t getting distracted was a good idea.

I wanted to go to Verdanst, the town that had The Tunnel, at Fiona’s and her party’s suggestion. It would be a great place to train in my early levels, even potentially solo. It was also a fairly decent way to earn money from what little they’d heard about it as well. I guess that’s something we’d be able to confirm.

I needed to learn the language(s) of this world. So a tutor possibly. It was starting to get ridiculous how difficult it was to be able to do anything without being able to read.

What if I went to a restaurant and they handed me a menu and I couldn’t read it? It’d be a nightmare. For me anyways, the waiter would probably just be annoyed or get a good kick out of the illiterate elf.

It did kind of ruin the magic of the elf aesthetic didn’t it?

Outside of those two things, what did I want? Nothing was particularly coming to mind right now.

Hmmmm.

Well, I’m sure I could worry about that at some point later. If I needed to I could just reprioritize, but a lot of my goals just fit in with ‘getting stronger’. I guess there was also the nebulous goal of finding my way back home. I liked this place, but there was a lot of convenience to be had living on Earth that just couldn't be found here.

I was also starting to feel a little homesick. I had a fairly good relationship with my parents. They weren’t perfect by any means, but nobody is. But they had given me everything I had needed and a lot of things I had wanted, so I didn’t just want to leave them thinking I had just disappeared or died. They didn’t deserve that.

I’d also had a few good friends I’d talked to regularly, I didn’t just want to leave them high and dry wondering if I would ever show up again like an Xbox friend from the early 2000’s who one day logged off and never got back on.

The more I thought about it, the more the feelings cemented in my mind and heart. I wanted to go home. At some point. Not that I wanted to fully cut off this world, because a fantasy world with a way to gain such unprecedented strength would be too much to pass up. But I wanted to share this with people. Like with my friends. It’d be dangerous, but I don’t think they’d mind too much, especially if I was there to watch over them and protect them from being hurt.

I stood up from where I was sitting, my mind set in determination and flexed my wooden arm again to make sure that it was situated comfortably. Nodding with approval I stepped forward and opened the door to my room.

For now I still needed to take the time to relax, half at Fiona’s advice and half because I realized I just hadn’t fully accustomed myself to this world before throwing myself into it.

But once I got things figured out and I was sufficiently rested, I had work to do.