There can be many causes for a person to die suddenly. They could have had a heart attack, someone could have poisoned them, or their time might just have been over. But when a person dies suddenly in your inn while eating your food, the assumptions that can be made are narrowed considerably.

“Is… is he dead?” the quiet voice of Richard brought Willum out of his daze. It was a fact that the man was dead, he couldn’t change it. But he needed to think about what to do next immediately. There was no time to waste while being scared and panicking.

“Be quiet,” Willum whispered sternly and glared at Richard. He then began running his brain on overdrive. He needed to find a solution to the situation quickly.

‘Should I just hand the body over to the mayor’s town guards? No! Those incompetent bastards will just choose the easy route and accuse me of murder to settle things conveniently. No matter how I look at him, this guy seems like a thief or an assassin. What if his companions or worse his guild find out?’

“Bury or burn…” Willum mumbled while weighing his options. A startled voice asked from behind him. “Heek! Wha-what? What did you say?”

Willum once again turned back and glared at Richard. “Either keep your voice down or just shut up. We can’t have a dead body found in our inn at a time when the mayor is having an important event a day later. No matter who sees this scene will blame us and our food to end this quietly.”

“So, you want to bury him or burn him instead? He might still have a pulse. Can’t you do CPR or something?” Richard asked in a trembling voice. The fear and shock were clearly seen on his face and his eyes were shaking. He knew of CPR but he couldn’t perform it himself either.

“What is that? What nonsense are you talking about? There is no pulse and he isn’t breathing. I have already checked for it twice.” Willum growled while maintaining a low voice.

“Ah!” Richard took a step back, startled by Willum’s reaction.

“It can’t be helped. Even though we didn’t kill him, we will get in trouble for it if we don’t dispose of his body. Burning him would cause a nasty smell. Let’s just bury him in the back for now, we can think of what to do after a few days.” Willum decided in a shaky voice.

Richard wanted to ask why he knew about the smell of burning a human body but he held it in. It didn’t seem like the right time to question Willum. He just nodded at the old man’s instructions.

As a cook, Willum had butchered many animals in his life. From large bears to small chickens, he had killed, butchered, and cleaned many animal carcasses. But handling dead animals was nowhere near as nerve-wracking as handling a human corpse. His mind was screaming at him not to touch the body.

It wasn’t just fear but also a lot of disgust and a bit of shame that was overwhelming his senses telling him not to handle that corpse. But no matter how much he didn’t want to do it, he had to do it. Willum suddenly slapped his own cheeks and shook his head to clear his mind.

“You take the legs, I will take the hands. We will take him out back and place him under the shadows of the eaves. We will quickly dig a hole in the side and bury him in there. If we do it quickly and quietly, none of the guests should find out.” Willum ordered and lifted the body by the hands.

In normal circumstances, Richard would not have had the courage to even touch a corpse. But when people believe that responsibility for their actions does not rest on themselves but on someone else, they tend to do things that they could never have even imagined.

In Richard’s mind, all he was doing was following Willum’s orders. This created a comfortable degree of separation between himself and the consequences of his actions. Whatever happened next didn’t matter because all the blame would squarely fall on Willum’s shoulders.

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It wasn’t like this was a conscious thought process either. It was just how his mind was interpreting the situation subconsciously. So, Richard followed along as Willum instructed and quietly lifted the body by the legs. Willum led the way to the backdoor while lifting the body by the hands.

“Don’t drop it or make any noise. Tell me if you need to put him down. We can’t afford to attract any attention right now.” Willum advised Richard who was having a tough time lifting the heavy body. The two were finding out that dead bodies were deceptively heavy and difficult to carry.

Richard quietly nodded while clenching his teeth due to the strain of carrying a large weight. He was already an accomplice anyway, it didn’t do any good to him to get caught with a dead body. He would be as careful as he…

Thud!

Well, that went to shit real quick! Fuck!

A chair was caught on the dead man’s legs and it fell over making a loud noise in an otherwise empty inn. “Hurry!” Willum barked with his face distorted in anger. Richard tried his best to follow Willum while huffing for air.

Just when the two reached the kitchen door, they heard a man’s voice from behind them, “Oh? Did someone pass out from drinking this late? Do you need any help?”

Willum and Richard stood there frozen for a moment. While Richard mechanically turned his head with his heart beating like drums, Willum reacted fast. He observed the man and was able to recall that he was a guest who had arrived from out of town

“Ah, yes this happens every once in a while. You don’t have to worry about it. But did you need anything? Or did we disturb your rest?” Willum spoke with a smile like a proper inn owner.

The guest scratched his head and spoke in a sleepy voice, “It’s just that I got thirsty but there wasn’t any water in my room. So I came down to see if I could find any water.”

“Just a moment.” Willum quickly went into the kitchen, brought out a pitcher of water, and handed it to the guest. “Here you go. We are sorry to have disturbed your sleep. Please go up and rest comfortably.”

The guest seemed to want to talk about something but seeing that Willum was in a hurry, he just nodded and walked to the dimly lit stairs. His steps were very silent. But Willum didn’t have the time to think about all that at the moment.

He patted the frozen Richard on his back and spoke in a calm and gentle tone. “He is gone. The door is right there, let’s get him out quickly. Then we just have to dig a hole.”

The two managed to take the body out to the backyard and put him under the eaves. Willum handed a shovel to Richard and began to dig a hole in the corner with the sound of gentle grunts. Richard followed along and helped with whatever little strength he could muster.

The pair of an old man and a young guy sweated hard for over half an hour and dug a fairly large hole. They were completely absorbed in the work while trying to get the work done as fast as they could.

Although it wouldn’t normally be very suspicious to just dig a hole in your own backyard, if you did it in the middle of the night under the moonlight, no matter how anyone looked at it, the first thought anyone would have is that you are trying to bury a dead body.

“It looks like your first time doing this but you guys are quite skilled, aren’t you? With a bit of training, you might even be able to join the assassin guild’s clean-up department.” A creepy, languid voice startled the duo who were absorbed in digging the hole.

When they turned their heads, they saw a man standing above them at the edge of the hole. Their faces went pale when they saw the man. It was the man they were supposed to bury. Willum’s mouth hung open and just as Richard was about to scream, the man lifted a finger and placed it on his lips.

This simple gesture contained such intimidating force that the scream got stuck in Richard’s throat. The man smiled gently, sending shivers down the spine of the duo. “You don’t want to wake up sleeping people now, do you?”

At this point, Willum asked nervously, “Excuse me, weren’t you dead? Are you a zombie by any chance?”

“Heh heh. No, no. I am a red-blooded human. Sorry for scaring you like that. I have an extreme case of narcolepsy. It is so severe that even my own organs are fooled into thinking I am dead. Naturally, you thought so too. Anyway, I enjoyed your food. I’ll swing by again if I have the time. Take care.”

The man casually walked away. Richard and Willum turned to each other at the same time, both their faces expressing confusion at what just happened. When they looked back at where the man was, he had already disappeared.

The same thought passed through both of their minds and they hastily walked to the place where they dumped the body. When they saw that there wasn’t anything there, they sighed in relief. “It wasn’t a ghost. He was a real person.”

With that Richard’s legs gave out and he sat down on the ground. Willum looked up at the night sky, sighed, and patted Richard’s head, “Let’s go get some sleep. We need to get up early for service tomorrow.”