In the cool evening of the eastern district of the Republic of Zenith, an unusually fat man was laughing loudly while wheezing in between breaths like soone who had just discovered oxygen was optional.
He was sitting on a wooden bench at the edge of his wheat farm, overlooking the dramatic drop down from his elevated property.
From this vantage point one could see the lodgings scattered below, the bustling markets in the distance, and the town sprawling across the eastern district like a painting.
"Mister, you are too funny! Ha ha ha! I can’t even breathe properly anymore. And how do you even know these things about my personal life? It’s like you lived with us for decades! Ha ha ha!"
The fat man nad Thomas Miller in his overall farr dress clutched his chest and heaved heavily, his pudgy and fatty cheeks turning red as wine from all the continuous laughter.
In his fifty-eight years of existence, he genuinely didn’t think he had ever laughed like this before.
Hearing his roaring laughter that echoed across the hillside, even the goats grazing peacefully at the side of the hill looked up with expressions that seed to say what’s up with this pregnant cow laughing like a maniac?
"Ha! Thomas, a codian never reveals his tricks to the audience! Such is the sacred code. You will never know where my brilliant cody originates from. All you can do is laugh until you die. Ha ha. Should I say laugh until you pass off gas like sheep passing gas like they don’t even know what passing gas ans?"
Hearing the stranger’s absurd words, Thomas laughed out once more with such force his entire body shook.
His chest was seriously hurting from all the laughter, after all, a man who weighed over four hundred kilograms wasn’t supposed to engage in this kind of strenuous cardiovascular activity.
His heart was already working overti just keeping him alive, it wouldn’t be able to support this kind of intensive laughter session at all!
Thomas wheezed and coughed violently while clutching his heart.
"Stop it! I genuinely can’t take this anymore! And that cody about sheep passing gas is sothing only my late father told about when I was a child! How did you know about that specific joke, kind stranger? Ha ha ha. And besides, please stop making jokes! I will really die from laughter at this rate!"
Thomas wiped the tears streaming from his eyes caused by the hearty laughter and looked properly at the stranger who had just happened to sit down on the bench while gazing at the setting sun.
No strangers ever ca to these isolated hills, and no one had seen this mysterious man approach or sit on the bench since any person would have to walk directly through his house to reach this farm and the bench beyond.
Thomas had been little agitated at the prospect of soone trespassing on his property when his little girl of fifteen ca running towards him and told him about the unexpected visitor.
He had pulled out his mana-powered rifle and ca to investigate the situation, only to discover a young innocent man with a blanket wrapped around his head and neck like a scarf, wearing a calm smile while looking at him without any fear.
Thomas felt strangely calm when he saw the genuine smile of the young man, like he suddenly didn’t want to hurt this trespasser at all. Who would hurt such an innocent looking boy with kind eyes?
The stranger had then patted the empty seat beside him in invitation, and Thomas had complied without really understanding why, and then the jokes started flowing. The jokes gradually turned into jokes that were mostly said among his family mbers, sothing no stranger would possibly know.
But Thomas didn’t suspect anything sinister and just began to laugh for the next twenty minutes straight until he was feeling his heart physically ache from all the laughter.
"Now, now, Thomas, don’t you know that laughter is the best dicine for every illness known to man? And besides, when are you going to lose all of this excessive fat around your body? Aren’t you tired of getting called a pregnant pig by your lovely daughter, Miss Lily?"
Thomas wheezed again with renewed laughter! Pregnant Pig was exactly what his lovely daughter called him affectionately whenever she was slightly irritated with his behavior.
Lily was currently watching the far bench from inside her lovely ho.
"Momma, why is papa laughing like a pregnant pig having contractions? Is the stranger a professional codian?"
"Now, now, Lily, haven’t I told you repeatedly to not call your papa that? And besides it seems like there’s no danger from the stranger at all. Let him laugh. He’s been stressed about the harvest. Whatever that boy is saying, it’s good for him."
Lily’s mother said this calmly while laughing herself at the absurd situation, as Lily pouted and looked away dramatically towards the far away bench, then continued her baking.
Even after twenty more minutes passed, Thomas couldn’t stop laughing at the stranger’s perfectly curated words. The jokes were such precisely targeted observations from his personal life that all he could do was laugh out loud until his sides hurt.
"And if you die from happiness, Thomas, I will personally place this on your chest as a final gift."
The stranger looked at Thomas, who was red as hell from all the continuous laughter and suddenly produced a brilliant wine red rose from seemingly nowhere. It was large and ripe, with two or three perfect leaves along its stem. It was such a brilliant and oversized flower that Thomas was completely srized from looking at its beauty.
"That’s a remarkably big flower, kind stranger. Where did you even hide sothing that size with your skinny body? And you promise that if I die from laughter you will personally place it over my body? Well, kiddo, that honor will have to wait another thirty years at minimum because I don’t plan on dying before seeing my Lily get married! So you can keep that flower for yourself until then!"
The innocent man once again looked at Thomas and smiled like he was the most precious young boy in the entire world, soone that nobody should ever hurt. Thomas felt inexplicably protective of this stranger despite just eting him.
"A mistake there in the wordings, Thomas. Not over your chest but on your chest."
The stranger gently placed the flower directly on Thomas’s chest, and the big fra of the man made the flower look comparatively small, but it was perfectly positioned in his chest area. The stranger smiled with satisfaction.
"Perfect, just as the gods wished."
Thomas’s eyes widened at the ominous jinx of those words. Suddenly sothing cold gripped his stomach but he couldn’t seem to identify what exactly it was. His heart was paining too much from all the laughter to think clearly about sothing else.
"What are you saying..."
Suddenly, an evening cool wind breezed past the hill, sliding the blanket off of the stranger’s head and revealing very short platinum hair that glead in the dying light.
But it wasn’t what made Thomas’s eyes widen and completely forget about the strange wordings of this mysterious stranger.
It was the small coiling ivory goat horn protruding from his head. It was so small that it looked like it had just recently sprouted.
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