Chapter 6 – Shitman

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Walt didn’t weigh as much as Kuno expected, but since Kuno had moved more in one afternoon than he did in the last four months, they took each step at a snail’s pace. Both could’ve died today, but only Walt acted like it, with Kuno whistling under the scorching sun above him.

‘I-Isn’t it your second day…?’ Walt asked, his mind able to focus again.

‘Hmm?’ Kuno said, cutting his whistling. ‘Oh, yeah, yes, second day since my toilet sucked me in.’

Walt sighed, his eyes looking at the tramped grass beneath him as his head hang low. ‘How did you do so well? I cried during my first mission. If it wasn’t for Don, I’d be dead long ago…’ he said, opening up to Kuno, respecting him a lot more after seeing he’s more than the small ball nerd he thought he was.

‘Haha!’ Kuno laughed. ‘I can handle pressure really well, my friend. You have any idea how much team based games I play? And I’m always the leader! Victory starts and ends with my choices!’ Kuno said, tilting his chin up.

Walt exhaled through his nose, getting kinda angry with Kuno. ‘Are you kidding me… Your comparing this to gaming… Do you realize the stakes!? How can playing a game equal to fighting for survival…?’

Kuno fell silent. Walt could feel the arm under his armpit tighten its grip, causing him to lift his head and look at Kuno, who stared into the distance with a silent, stern look on his face.

‘Because I have a problem…’ Kuno said. ‘Because when I’m in the moment… winning and losing said game can feel like life and death… And as pathetic as that may sound, that’s why I am the way I am.’

Walt clenched his jaw, calmly keeping his eyes on Kuno, not really understanding him, but seeing that there is more than meets the eye when it comes to this kid.

‘My success in gaming gave me the confidence I want to keep so badly, so there’s a lot more on the line than just a simple loss,’ Kuno said.

With that line, Walt managed to wrap his head around it, thinking back about the soulless eyes his brother had after permanently injuring his leg during a soccer game. It wasn’t life or death in the classic sense, but to him, losing the ability to play soccer meant way more than it could ever to Walt.

It doesn’t matter what you’re passionate about, from academics to competitive eating, when you put your heart and soul into something, losing that thing could mean the end of the world, or at least, the world like you knew it.

Kuno’s pursuits had never been respected by the world, but to him, that didn’t matter. He felt most alive playing games, be it alone or with friends, and Walt could respect that.

That being sad, it did sadden him. He thought back about his life back on Earth. Walt always had friends, some connections more meaningful than others, but all in all lived a life he couldn’t complain too much about. Seeing Kuno, however, did make him feel jealous.

‘What am I passionate about?’ Walt thought. ‘What could equal something as grand as death…?’ he shook his head. ‘That’s absurd… This guy isn’t sane… He can’t be… He’s been living too much in that virtual world… He probably thinks you get to respawn again after you die.’

Kuno definitely was different from Walt and many others, but that didn’t change the fact that Walt wanted to be a little more like him.

‘Must feel nice,’ he thought. ‘Not caring about the opinions of others… Feeling content with yourself, no matter what people think of you…’

‘I’m not the only one with a problem, though,’ Kuno said, waking Walt up from his stream of thoughts. ‘I get the feeling you haven’t really been fighting to survive anymore, Walterino.’

Walt frowned. ‘That’s ridiculous. Of course I have, you just witnessed it yourself.’

Kuno chuckled. ‘What I witnessed was a man entrusting his life to someone he met a few hours ago,’ he said, his words like a dagger through Walt’s heart. ‘Only someone who’s given up can cast his life away with such liberty. I’ve seen it many times, people who go for a risky play, just because they want it to end already.’

Walt closed his eyes, a smile blossoming on his face. ‘Either I’m as easy to read as a book, or this guy got the life experience of a centenarian…’

‘Five and half months, you said… I’m sure it must’ve been hard,’ Kuno said.

Walt bit his lips, two rivers of mucus slowly dripping from his nose. He sniffed them back up, but there was nothing he could do about the dew in his eyes. ‘You talk too much,’ he said, letting the emotions he had imprisoned months ago slip away. ‘I promised Don I wasn’t going to cry anymore,’ he thought to himself.

‘It may be naïve of me to say, but I don’t plan on staying here for that long,’ Kuno said.

‘Yeah… we all thought that in the beginning…’ Walt said.

‘Then it’s a good thing I’ve arrived,’ Kuno replied, raising the hairs on Walt’s arms. ‘I’ll crack this game in no time.’

Walt exhaled through his nose, not even mad about Kuno’s hubris, since it felt like a breath of fresh air. ‘This isn’t a game.’

‘Everything’s a game.’

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He began getting worried, but it wasn’t the first time, and it was kinda the point. When he saw his two students reveal themselves from the shadows of the village houses, he gave a faint smile as he kept on fighting the two hogman.

‘Seems like the boys are out of steam,’ he thought, saying: ‘Sorry, but I’m going to kill you now,’ to the hogmen he was playing with like a child would play with its food.

Don took a step back, ready to end this battle in one swing, but at that moment, the hogmen heard the voice of their captain from a short distance away.

‘Party: Gather!’ the man who greeted them upon arrival said.

The two living hogmen’s bodies turned to a flashing light zapping right next to their captain. Apart from that, faint lights emerged from the fallen hogmen, including those from the forest, collected in the pocket of their captain, who now released his disguise.

Instead of a hogman, the villager turned into a hippo like humanoid creature, standing on two legs, with a mouth that could swallow Kuno whole. He was dressed in a burgundy robe, plated with steel armor on the torso and appendages.

Casually, Don walked to Kuno and Walt, resting his sword on his shoulder, keeping his eyes on the Hippo captain and hogmen, who stood thirty feet away.

‘Kuno, can you still fight?’ Don asked, with Kuno nodding in response, although he’d rather not.

‘I was disappointed,’ the hippoman said with a smile. ‘When I found out, our attack was deemed as a beginner quest. But what a pleasant surprise. Not only has the infamous Mister Donovan Jackson come, but also…’ he looked at Kuno, his smile fading. ‘Anyway, I think it’s very cute that you gave your students a chance to develop, Donovan, but I’ll be ending things now.’

Don was on guard, having never met a hippoman, and getting the feeling this guy wasn’t a small fry. ‘Stand behind me, Kuno, Walt,’ he said, readying his sword.

The hippoman stretched his arms high, showing his glistening gray skin in the afternoon sun. ‘Man, this stuff is so tiring,’ he said, unhinging his jaws to yawn. But as he started his yawn, upon opening his mouth, revealing his four long fangs and the depth of his humongous throat, he opened his eyes – Don seeing the murderous lust in his dark pupils.

The hippoman gave no warning, disguising his attack as a simple yawn. From the shadow of his mouth grew an even menacing darkness, one that put fear in the hearts of any witness.

‘Shit – I fucked up…’ Don said, but with a calmness to him, showing no shred of fear. He didn’t raise his weapon, he just waited.

Kuno, however, upon realization, got ready to blast off, but sadly wasn’t fast enough to do so.

The hippoman didn’t speak, but Don felt his thoughts like a faint whisper in his ear.

‘Shadow Ball.’

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More a boulder than a ball, a giant sphere of pure darkness made its way to Don and the others at tremendous speed.

Kuno bent his knees, holding Walt tight in arms, saying: ‘Teach!’ but when a sudden shadow cast over him, he knew it was too late to run. He heard the smallest peep, like a newborn mouse, utter the words:

‘Expand.’

But too worried about the impending end, gave no second of thought to it.

The Shadow Ball hit, creating a boom, together with a shockwave of darkness, surrounding the party, causing Kuno to close his eyes in fear.

When he opened his eyes again, wondering how the afterlife was looking like, he saw Don standing motionless, with in front of him a giant crack.

The hippoman’s eyes showed all the white, together with those of his henchmen hogmen. What happened was as clear as day, but they just couldn’t believe it. The hippoman’s Shadow Ball had connected, but instead of Don, it had hit a girl – a gigantically bloated girl the size of five people.

Her whole body was naked, the clothes having been ripped off, following her transformation. She didn’t grow by the normal means, no, not at all. She gained fat, and a lot of it, to the point where her belly had nullified the impact of the Shadow Ball, as it now stood, spinning amid her stomach.

‘Rebound,’ she said, causing the Shadow Ball to shoot back at the hippoman.

His distress peaking, he shouted:

‘Teleport!’ vanishing, together with his hogmen, a split second before the Shadow Ball would hit them, exploding a few yards further.

‘Is that…’ Kuno thought.

‘You did well,’ Don said as the girl shrunk bit by bit, with Don quickly throwing his blazer over her shoulders, after which she picked up the pieces of her ripped dress.

‘Sammy!?’ Kuno shouted after she turned into her skin over bone self again.

Don’s blazer was more than enough to cover her naked body. She stood up with her head down, too embarrassed to look anyone in the eye.

‘This should be the last time,’ Don said, giving her two taps on the head. ‘All three of you have done great, I’m impressed.’

‘She must be able to manipulate her fat…’ Kuno said with his mouth still half open.

Walt raised his thumb at Don, saying: ‘Can we go to the palace now…?’

‘Almost,’ Don replied. ‘First, we need to find the citizens of this village, if they are even alive, that is…’

Don had Kuno lay Walt against the church wall, after which he went to the black smoke in the distance, coming from the flaming barn. Having kept his exertion at a minimum, he extinguished the fire with a river of blood before returning to his party members. Both of them had joined Walt next to the church, with Sammy being the only one not sleeping.

‘Didn’t I tell you to look for the citizens?’ Don said, with the sun beginning to set.

‘They’re in the church’s basement… They don’t want to leave, thinking we’re the enemy in disguise,’ Sammy said.

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When Don entered the basement, he saw a closed door, from behind it hearing the weeping of a hundred people. He knocked on the door, opening it before getting a response. There wasn’t any surprise to it, just a village stuffed in a room, fearing for their lives, even more with him entering.

‘D-Donovan Jackson!’ a man shouted, stopped by his friend from running towards him.

Don’s heart took a hit, maybe he shouldn’t have let his pupils train, seeing now that the people were suffering as they did.

Don summoned his blade with a melancholic look on his face, one made of both pity and shame. ‘It’s over,’ he said, and with those words, it was.

Holding onto each other, the people left the church, scared to enter the village they’d lived in for ages. An older woman walked up to Don, who blankly stared at the setting sun. She put her hand on his arm, causing him to turn to her.

‘Mister Jackson,’ she said. ‘Is this all the damage the village has received?’

The slits of Kuno’s eyes slowly opened, hearing her question.

Don shook his head. ‘Sadly, the barn has burned down,’ he said. The look on her face went from scared to defeated as she silently stared at the bloodied floor, surprising Don, since barns should have little use in the Kingdom of Regnum.

Kuno took a deep breath and exhaled through his nose, but before the emotions could fully get to him, a man shouted: ‘Hey! Hey-Hey, look at this ball, look!’

Everyone turned to the man, who stood next to the first magical shit Kuno had released in this realm. The man smelled the poo, then put his finger on it, releasing and pressing it on his tongue, causing Don, Sammy, and Kuno to gag, on the brink of puking.

‘It’s shit!’ he said. ‘He…! Oh my God, he has returned!’ the man shouted. The village erupted in chaos, looking at each other, all of them saying: ‘He’s here!? Where is he? He has returned!?’

They all looked around in search of a certain man. The same woman touched Don’s arm again, a gleam of hope in her eyes after hearing her fellow villager. ‘Where is the man who made that poop?’ she asked. Don, confused, turned to Kuno and pointed at him as Kuno, equally confused, looked around him to get what all the fuzz was about.

She noticed his lack of pants, and in the midst of chaos walked up to him and asked: ‘Did you really make that poop, young man?’

‘Y-Yeah…’ Kuno said, not sure if that was a good or bad thing.

She took a step back, reminiscing about the past, sorting the memories and making room for new ones. ‘Can you show me, please?’ she asked.

Kuno stood up before squatting, gently pushing out a ball of shit equal in size to the one they referred to.

Her eyes glistened in the orange hue of the setting sun. ‘He’s here!’ she shouted, her voice cutting through all the others.

‘The new Shitman!’

Before Kuno knew it, his body rose in the air, thrown up by all the people in the village as they shouted: ‘Shitman! Shitman! Shitman!’ celebrating his arrival in Vermillion Village. The fear they had just minutes ago faded into twilight.

The hero of Terra Two had returned.

All from Earth had no idea what was going on, looking up to Kuno, who shouted with the people: ‘Yay! Shitman! Woohoo!’

‘A-Aren’t you curious why they are doing this?’ Don shouted.

Kuno laughed. ‘If they were doing this to you, maybe. But people don’t need a reason to celebrate my existence! They must’ve heard of my countless achievements!’ he said, drowning in the joy he accepted wholeheartedly.

Another dozen throws later, the woman asked Kuno. ‘Shitman, our barn has been burned down. Could you please leave some feces for us before you leave, so we may use it as manure. Our magic is of low quality, our use of magical alchemy is limited… Now that the hay is gone, we’ll have trouble farming…’

‘Pffff,’ Kuno blew out. ‘You want me to shit? Sure thing, lady,’ Kuno said before he got guided to a warehouse to relieve himself.

‘Is the Order not supplementing you enough?’ Don asked the woman, who turned out to be the village chieftess.

She nodded. ‘And we’re not the only ones… All the civilizations at the border are of minimal value to the Kingdom. All those with strong magical ability are in the big cities. It’s surprising you were sent here, Mr. Jackson. Your reputation is quite impressive.’

Don was aware of the latter, but the former did surprise him. The people near the border never complained about their lives, or maybe their complaints never reached his ears? He already wondered why they were so content living such less advanced lives while the inner city is almost utopia-like.

‘So they turn hay into manure with alchemy…’ Don thought. ‘Mimicking animals digestion…’ Don summoned his EMA, ordering: ‘Scan today’s events.’ After a minute of loading EMA replied: ‘Scan complete.’

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After an hour, Kuno exited the warehouse like he would have his bathroom, if didn’t get teleported here. He yawned: ‘Damn, dude, I’m all out,’ he said, stretching his back as three farmer walked him back to the village center.

‘Do you guys really need this much poop?’ he asked.

Kuno wasn’t the Shitman they knew, so a farmer explained: ‘Your feces is magical, Shitman. We can produce high-quality manure from it to speedily grow our crops!’

‘Well, I owed you guys, I suppose. I hope the animals can help you from now on,’ he said.

The farmers bursted out in laughter. ‘Good one, Shitman. I’m glad a good sense of humor is a recurring trait!’ one said.

Kuno had no idea what the farmer was talking about, but he was too tired to ask for an explanation.

Don carried Walt on his back, and the party went on their way home, the entire village bidding them farewell, but mostly Kuno as they shouted: ‘You’re always welcome here, Shitman!’

‘What a nice village,’ Kuno said.

‘I’d heard stories of him, but never knew he was this beloved among the people…’ Don said.

Kuno looked up at him. ‘Who?’

Don looked him in the eye. ‘The former intestines manipulator. The former Shitman. You got some big shoes to fill.’

‘About that,’ Kuno said. ‘Is my rank gonna go up?’

Don smiled at him. I’m sure it will. You made a lot of progress, but initial progress is always fast. Don’t expect a big leap.’

Kuno opened his EMA, getting greeted by two pop-ups:

‘You’ve leveled up! – You’ve leveled up!’

Current level: 3!

Don gave him two taps on the back. ‘Well, would you look at that.’

He took a big breath of air through his nose. ‘Aww yeah, baby!’ Kuno said. ‘What’s the highest rank?’

‘Uh…’ Don said, breaking eye contact. ‘Technically, S+, but-.’

Kuno cut him off. ‘I’m gonna be S+ in no time, watch me, teach!’

His mentor closed his eyes and tilted his head down with a smile. ‘It’s good to aim high, but there’s only one S+ among us people, and trust me, you don’t want to be like him…’

‘Why not?’ Kuno asked, but Don merely said. ‘We’ve done a lot today. Let’s just get to our rooms and rest. You had to sleep in the guest room last night, right? I’m sure they’ve prepared your own room for you now.’

They teleported back using the TelePole and after a quick stroll on the shell road; they arrived at a side entrance to the palace, connected to the park that had been made for people like them. The entrance was narrow, but with a high-arching ceiling. Built with dark and light brown bricks, this whole side of the palace had a Georgian feel to it, different from the marble and gold styled part they’d been summoned in.

Kuno danced his way into the entrance, with the other three behind him. ‘I get my own room! This is like going to Frogwarts!’ he said, after which he hummed the Barry Botter theme.

‘What an entertaining kid,’ Don thought, crossing the entrance.

But a fraction of a second later, the mood of the entire party switched as a body fell behind them, splattering their backs with blood as it lay there twitching, dozens of his bones shattered to pieces.

All of them, even Walt, turned their stiff bodies around, seeing the broken body of a man, looking at the party with terror, sadness, and desperation in his eyes.

‘D-Donovan… Please…’ he uttered, still alive, but with a creeping agony making its way to his mind.

Don took a breath, composed himself, and dropped Walt to his feet. He quickly took a knife out of his chest pocket, a simple, steel knife, and wrapped the man’s hands around it. He supported his hands with the knife in it, blood staining his whole body as the man smiled at Don with tears in his eyes, calling upon Don’s tears as well.

Kuno didn’t move a muscle, only thinking of one word as he looked at what was going on: ‘Suicide?’

‘Goodbye,’ Don whispered, mustering the strength to push the knife through the man’s heart as the sounds of footsteps arrived and began growing louder above him.

With his last breath, the man, barely audible, said: ‘Thank you,’ before departing from this mortal coil.

Don wiped his tears and, with his still bloodied hands, grabbed Kuno by the collar of his graphic tee and slammed him against the wall. The whole party just saw what Don had done, but he singled out Kuno. The seriousness in his eyes made Kuno forget to breathe, as Don said:

‘If you tell any soul what just happened, I’ll end you. You got that?’