“You want me to bury you?” Terry asked.

“Yes,” answered a boy looking roughly the same age as Terry, maybe a little younger. It was a bit hard to tell his age given how puffy his face was.

“In shit?”

“Yes.”

“And wheel you out of the city?”

“Yes.”

“For three thousand gold?”

“And my undying gratitude.”

Terry leaned on his shovel, thinking. Between this guy’s offering and his current savings he could buy a much nicer house in Prairie Creek, or even upgrade to a mediocre house in a nicer district. Maybe one next to a bakery so he could spend his time at home smelling pleasant things to offset the time at work where all he ever smelled was…well, less pleasant things.

“Did you have something to do with the Emperor dying?” Terry asked, already guessing the answer was ‘yes.’

“No!” the fat boy protested, wringing his hands. “I mean,” he sighed, “it was an accident.”

“An accident?” Terry repeated. “You accidentally had something to do with killing the immortal Emperor?”

“He wasn’t immortal anymore! That’s why it was an accident!”

“The guy who’s been alive for thousands of years and puts on a yearly show during the summer festival where he lets random citizens shoot arrows at him for fun? That guy?”

The fat boy groaned and spoke quickly, defending himself, “That’s why I ran! I sound insane. I can’t just run around telling people I think some crazy cycle is at play and history is repeating itself and we’re all about to gain–”

“You ran?” Terry’s eyebrows raised, looking up and down at the boy’s physique.

“Well…hid,” the boy acquiesced. “I didn’t want him dead, you have to believe me. He was my grandfather. Technically, my great, great, great, great, great–

“I get the picture,” Terry raised a hand up to stop the boy. “And, I believe you, mainly because you seem irresponsibly unprepared for someone who was planning to kill the most powerful man in the Empire. I mean what kind of self respecting assassin’s plan is to escape in a pile of shit and lose an arm and two leg’s worth of gold in the process?” Terry chuckled, mocking the boy a bit. “I mean that literally, I once looked into the body parts market because sometimes, you know, they just sort of pop up in the line of duty and curiosity gets the better of us all once in a while. Fresh parts off the right person to the right buyer, and you’ve got three thousand gold.”

Did...did you try to sell body parts you found?” the boy asked, looking even paler.

“It’s irrelevant. Look, I don’t want the details of your story, I don’t even want your name, got it?” The boy’s face looked positively crestfallen. “But, I’m willing to consider this arrangement. Quite frankly there’s very little risk in it for me, I just don’t think anybody is going to sift through a pile of shit looking for you. Your plan is so ludicrous that it might actually work.” Terry paused. “I want the money upfront though.”

A glimmer of hope shot through the boy’s body like lightning, and he moved with surprising speed to pull a pouch of money from within his robes.

“And if we get caught I’m going to act surprised and say you must have burrowed into the cart’s shit pile like an enormous mole when I snuck over to the kitchens to beg for scraps. Got it?”

“Yes, yes of course, anything you say!”

“Right then, climb in.” Terry motioned to the filthy cart.

“Already?” the boy said hesitantly.

“Yeah, it’ll be easier to bury you as I go, and we need to know if the cart can hold…everything,” Terry gestured toward the boy’s frame.

“Right, not exactly small am I?” the boy jested as he began taking off his fancy red robe with gold dragons on it, then his under shirt, then his pants, and-

“Good gods, what are you doing, man?” Terry asked, holding up one hand to shield his eyes.

“I’m not getting in that filthy cart with my only set of clothes on! Think about the smell,” he said as he tossed his clothes at Terry, the robe jingling with coins as it hit Terry’s chest. “Put these on so they don’t touch the ground, I don’t want them getting any dirtier than they have to.”

“Just buy new ones when you get to another town!” Terry spat.

“Oh, yes, surely no one will remember the man in the fancy robes smelling of shit asking the local tailor in some small town outside of here if he can make a new set of clothes big enough to fit five grown men at once! That won’t draw any attention” he said as he clambered into the cart, which groaned and creaked in protest. The boy sat down in the middle, and stopped moving. “I think it’s going to hold,” he continued, his breathing heavy from this light exertion

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Terry shook his head, and began shoving his arms through the massive robe that could have been mistaken as the sail from a small boat. The other clothes he balled up and stuffed into an interior pocket alongside a huge number of pouches, some of which Terry was sure were full of coins. The boy was right about the clothes, but Terry wasn’t about to admit it after he’d been forced to witness this atrocity.

“Now, we need to know if I can move it,” Terry said, approaching the large handle at the front of the cart that let him steer the front wheels. With a great heave, Terry pulled the cart as he always did with one hand. The cart rocked a bit, but didn’t budge. Terry grabbed the handle with his other hand and pulled with all his might.

“Gods, your back muscles are freakishly big,” the fat boy muttered.

The cart moved slightly, but quickly stopped without Terry’s constant effort.

Terry let the handle fall to the ground. “Shit cart,” he panted. “A shitty shit cart.”

“Oh dear,” the boy said.

“So, my thought is,” Terry said as massaged his hands, “if I have to do that to move the cart, people are going to notice.”

“Mhmm.” The boy stroked his chin in thought. “Maybe I can help.”

“Can you shed about a hundred pounds in the next few minutes?”

“What? No.”

“Then I do not see how you can help.”

“I can help you get stronger,” he said. “Maybe.”

“What?”

“Yeah! I used to sneak into my grandfather’s study and read his secret journals from before he was Emperor. In one of them he explained a bit about how he gained his power, well some of it anyway, his older brother figured it out and showed him and–”

“That’s absurd.”

“Normally, yes, it’s absurd, but I’m telling you something strange is happening, and it's a lot like what my grandfather wrote about. Before he was anyone that mattered, he was just a normal person. Then, out of nowhere people started gaining strange abilities while the strongest people in the world started dying off like flies.”

Terry stared at him, his face impassive.

“Okay,” the boy crossed his arms, his self satisfaction radiating off him like the stench from the pile of the unspeakable behind him, “if I’m wrong, then tell me how someone who looks like me could bring down a man who could literally punch a hole through a mountain.”

“I…” Terry trailed off, “cannot.”

“Precisely.”

“So what do I do?” Terry asked. He was ready to try anything, mainly because, if he could get this fat boy outside the inner city walls, he could set the cart down somewhere out of sight then take off running. He’d still need a cart full of shit to get by the guards at the service gate to keep them from being suspicious, but after that he was home free..Terry already had the robe full of gold, this boy didn’t know his name and he couldn’t chase after him. If he really did kill the Emperor then he couldn’t go running to the guards about Terry’s theft.

“Um, I think you sit and cross your legs, then rest your hands on your knees,” the boy instructed. Terry obeyed, feeling ridiculous, which was only exacerbated by the fact that the boy instructing him was naked.

“Now what?”

“Okay, so this part gets a little weird, and personal. I think you need to reflect upon yourself, and concepts and stuff that resonate with you.”

Terry frowned. “Concepts and stuff?”

“Yes, for my grandfather, he was focused on strength and its relationship to size, probably because he was pretty tall and strong. I think those two things sort of resonated with him because most of his life people remarked on his size and strength, so he really identified with it. Later on he started doing some weird contemplation thing about dragons and mountains, somehow that ended up leading to him creating the Fat Dragon Empire. Get it?”

“Not even a little.”

“Okay, close your eyes. Then tell me about yourself,” the boy instructed.”

“I…I’m” Terry thought about saying his name, then realized it was better if the boy he was thinking of robbing didn’t have that piece of information. “I work for the Waste Management Department.”

“Right, that’s your job, but what about you? Do you have hobbies or interests?”

“No, I just go to work, then go home.”

“Really? You don’t ever do anything else like see friends or family or go on dates or dabble in another trade for fun when you’re not working?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“People don’t like to hang around people who always smell like shit even after a proper bath,” Terry said, his throat caught in his throat a bit. It was one thing to know you were lonely and bury the feeling, but having that feeling brought up out of nowhere caught him off guard.

“That sounds sad,” the boy remarked.

“And doing all that other stuff costs money,” Terry added quickly, regaining his composure.

“And you need money, why?” the boy asked.

“So I can bring my family here, where it’s safe.”

“Are they not safe now?”

“They live in the Empire of the Sunset Moon.”

“A harsh place,” the boy said.

“It’s a shit hole. They mine sulfur, barely getting by, always sick. It’s...” Terry trailed off.

“Toxic,” the boy finished Terry’s thought..

“Right, and I want them out of there. So, I came here to earn money and create a safe place for them to start over.”

“Why didn’t they come with you when you left?”

“They were set in their ways, too afraid of doing what needed to be done to live a life that was more than just work and illness and going to bed hungry,” Terry’s voice sounded angrier than he’d intended. He could still feel a little resentment toward them about the way things were left when he set out on his own.

“Yet you did it anyway. They wouldn’t do it themselves, so you did it for them. Why?” The boy’s voice was quiet and pensive.

“Someone had to.”

There was a pause, Terry's breath caught in his chest, then everything went silent as the world had stopped turning for just one instant.

Terry blacked out.