It is now exactly a year after performing our intimate little ceremony and many changes have taken place. The trees have grown their leaves back. The weeds are all gone. Replaced by fruits and vegetables. Blackjacks replaced with healing herbs. The ground no longer stings your feet as you hobble by. We have flowers and green grass. The birds and bees are back. Even our distribution channels have been reinstituted. It's amazing how fast money can turn you into "good person". I have three couriers slash distributors working for me right now. They park right at the gate. Still won't enter the yard but progress is a slow process after all. One of them was almost an enemy. Poor fool has no idea how close he was to … you know.

Shuma is a phenomenon. He can work twelve hours straight without taking a break. You have to tell him to, otherwise he'll work himself into collapse. He eats like a cow consequently. But there's enough food to go around. He's so good at his job we let him sleep in the house. On the rocking chair. Of course the responsibility of washing him comes down to me. Seeing as my sisters are still considered juveniles and all so seeing a man's you know what is not yet sanctioned. I can honestly say that If this is what it's like to have a baby, no wonder I'm single. I just wonder what happens when I'm at work. I think they put him in the storeroom for three weeks then release him on the day of my return. Probably watch me from the living room window as I walk through the gate. It's loud enough. That or they must be the greatest professional spring cleaning experts on par with man landing on the moon. Because the only dirt I ever see when I come back is him. No offence.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Anyway, we've never done this before. They never stay in the house after the ceremony. I will find undisclosed areas to keep them. Then retrieve them when needed. A lot of times I find them dead because I forgot to maintain them. Or I was away at work for too long. I'll admit, there are times when the numbers become too much to manage. And I get lazy to check on them, or I just don't care depending on who they are or what they did. Then they suffer the consequences. Then Their consequences trickle down to the villagers. Like when they resort to cannibalism and the villagers are the victims. Then the stories come out. That somebody saw my mother eating so and so. My sisters were spotted pigging away on this person and that persons intestines. Were vegetarians. If we don't eat meat, why in the hell would we eat raw meat. People can be so ridiculous with their hate. That's why it's so easy to punish them. But with Shuma around and the business booming so dramatically, I think we can relax our hand of justice for a while. Not that the old nonsense will be tolerated. But I can feel the hate for my enemies dying down every day.

These villagers had better be praying. Pray that Shuma lives a long and prosperous life. And if he doesn't, at least pray that it takes longer to find another Lerumo. We had not needed his services in a long time so … he died. Nobody complained. Well, except his parents of course. And whoever else lived in denial over his er … personality traits. I fed his body to his undead friends. There was not much of him left. He deteriorated very quickly without the magic soup. Shuma loves it though. Wolfs it down just as we except him to. Without the raw meat of course. He IS one of US after all.