Fuck it, you deserve a bath

Your hand is turning the water on before you know it. While it warms up, you leave the bathroom and empty your pockets onto the vanity that’s set into the wall by the door. First comes your wallet, filled with all kinds of things that used to be useful. Now, the paper bills and plastic membership cards are just extra weight. Extra, highly sentimental weight. Next comes your pouch full of imperial coinage, which was useful up until about two days ago. You’ll have to swap out the coins for the golden drachmas, or maybe just use one of the coin purses Lia “obtained.” Thinking about it, I’d rather leave as little behind as possible at all times. I should keep my coins on me, even if they aren’t going to be useful in the trials. Keys come next. Those are just as useless as the wallet, but with much less sentimental value; they’re just the keys to your old apartment, the mailbox, your car, and a bike lock. You didn’t carry a pocket knife, or pepper spray, or anything useful like that on your key chain. Finally, out come your phone and the glass eye together. The phone has less than half of it’s battery life remaining, and the glass eye is a total mystery to you. I got it for killing the tentacle monster, but was I meant to kill that thing? Was it part of the trial? Was it supposed to drop the eye? You have a lot of questions, and until they get answered you’re stuck carrying around a big marble that triggers a panic attack in one of your friends. You could always get rid of it, but years of collecting mob loot in games has hard-coded the idea in your brain that it has to be useful, somehow.

Checking on the water, it’s hot, so you go ahead and plug the tub and walk away while it fills. You strip and chuck your clothes onto the nearest bed, then return to the bathroom stark naked and ready for a good soak. The tub is nearly full, so you turn the water off and step in. The heat is intense in the best possible way, and it only gets better as you sink your whole body under the water. It feels like your skin is melting, like you can’t tell where your body stops and the water begins. You close your eyes, lay your head back, and let out a long, deep sigh. It’s been one thing after another ever since I died and ended up becoming a demon lord, you think. It’s nice to finally be able to unwind a bit. You run your fingers over your body, noticing how it has changed since your ****. All of the cuts and bruises from your tussle with the tentacles are well on their way to being fully healed. How much of that is your own natural healing versus the limited field medic attention Blythe was able to provide for you isn’t clear, but your healing wounds aren’t the only thing you notice. You would never have called yourself fat, but you used to have a few extra pounds on your gut and some flab on your legs. That’s all gone now, leaving slim legs and an almost flat stomach. Your arms, though thin and unimpressive, are much firmer than they ever were before. The changes seem small, but you know that even changes like these would have taken weeks, if not months, of dedicated exercise and a healthy diet to achieve in your past life. Your growth is accelerated: that’s what The Voice told you at the start of all this, and it’s starting to be believable.

The biggest change, though, is the distinct feeling of mana burning inside your chest. It’s a warm sensation that you only seem to notice when focusing on it. When you cast a spell, you feel the mana move from your chest, through your arm, to your hand, and out through your palm. One thing you haven’t been able to figure out is the “shape” of the mana, though; the flow of mana seems to feel the same to you, regardless of what spell you cast. If you recall correctly, the incantations you use help you shape the mana on its way through your body, which results in the formation of the actual spell you want to cast, instead of something completely different happening. You can’t remember the book mentioning anything about it, but you’ve seen enough magic in fantasy stories to suspect that messing up the casting could have disastrous consequences. Maybe tomorrow I can find some time to take another look through the book, you think. I know it’s only a beginner’s guide, but I feel like I’ve only skimmed through it. I’m sure there’s still stuff in there that would be handy to know. Like if a spell can backfire against the caster.

Thinking about reading through the book again reminds you of the first time you read it. At the time, you were still enough of an unknown in the world to walk the streets of Evris without anyone calling you a demon lord. You were able to eat street food, and go shopping, and push your favorite elf companion to accept and embrace her exhibitionism fetish. You and Blythe have come a long way in such a short time, but you can still remember clearly the look of pure ecstasy on her face as you fucked her{if BKnowsUrDL = 1} on the edge of town{elseif BKnowsUrDL = 2} in that alley{endif}. Picturing it has your dick rising higher in the water, and for a second you seriously consider rubbing one out right here in the bath.

You’d rather not be soaking in your own cum, though, so you keep your hands off and let your hard-on run its course.

There’s no soap anywhere, so you do your best to rub yourself clean, then you sit and enjoy the water until it starts to lose its heat. After your bath, you pull your boxers back on and slip into the farther of the two beds. It takes no more than a few seconds after closing your eyes for you to fall asleep in the big, comfortable bed.