I AM AN ATHEIST

Underlying Currents

In the balcony of a house made up of marvellous white stone, a man was standing, while seating on the half knee, there seemed to be a few men bowing to him.

The man was holding a teacup in his hand, after taking a sip of the tea he asked: " what happened? Did the prince die?"

Exactly opposite to him, another man was bowing, he was at the forefront compared to others, when he heard the question, he looked to be hesitant before replying: " No".

Clutch

Breaking the teacup in his hand the man shouted: " How is he ok? When all my men who were sent to kill him died under butchers hand? and nothing happened to him".

The man seemed to be in enraged, his hand was bleeding due to the injury he got in the process of breaking the cup.

" Sir Tewa, please calm down"

The man in black clothes tried to convince Tewa to calm his anger.

" Calm down my ass, I lost more men and could not even kill a mere prince"

Tewa roared.

"But sir Tewa, why are you so insisting on killing the prince? "

The black-clothed man asked.

"Because he is a devil, I once saw him cursing the goddess Anoushka in front of her statue"

" He must never become the king, if he did become the king, then he would just demolish our faith and take down the cathedral and churches of the goddess"

" You have seen with your own eyes right, how he went against the teachings of the holy book and also built a brothel next yo the cathedral"

" For the sake of the people of the kingdom, and for the sake of the goddess, we should not let him become the king at any cost"

Tewa said as he walked towards the supporting walls of the balcony.

" Sir Tewa, Forgive me, I did not realize your good intentions"

The man in black clothes replied.

Although Tewa was angry, he was no i***t, he was a scholar and he knew that his plan failed due to unusual circumstances.

"Did you say the prince reached the Gurukul? Tell me more "

Tewa asked the black-clothed man.

" Yes sir Tewa, not only he reached the Gurukul, but during the first day he had a conflict with Mojo, the reason might be the food " The man replied in a sincere tone.

" Food? Why do you think so?"

Tewa asked out of curiosity because men only fight for food if there is scarcity, and now despite no scarcity, they were fighting over the food.

As a scholar, it did not take even more than two seconds for Tewa to realize that the food they were talking was not simple.

" We dunno yet" The black-clothed man replied.

" Then what the hell were you doing

? Hurry up and investigate it, get me more details about this food "

Tewa roared in anger.

" Yes, sir "

The black-clothed man replied then he stood up and left the balcony through the door, the rest of the men followed him.

Tewa walked towards the edge of the balcony and looked out at the sun.

" This food must be special, it should not be waste to investigate it", Tewa thought.

At the same time, Inside the cathedral in a room which seemed to be located under the ground, a big table was laid and around it, most of the priests were sitting.

Bishop Zen was also among them.

A priest stood up, he had a letter in his hand, he started reading it in front of everyone.

The butchers are on the move, the reason is yet unknown, they targeted the travellers who were going to Gurukul, especially the new batch of trainees.

But I don't believe that they came out of the ocean just to kill these newbies, their purpose of living their home, the ocean must be much greater.

Not only this, but I also observed that the disciples of the Guru were also searching for something in Harbinger Valley.

They were doing it secretly, so it took me some more time to notice.

If I am not wrong, there might some sort of secret or a treasure is in the Harbinger valley or the places around the Gurukul.

And this treasure is not something small to be ignored when it can garner the attention of the Guru and Butchers.

I highly recommend high priest Zen to send a few blessed ones to search for this treasure.

Yours sincerely,

Priest Yodha.

The priest finished reciting the letter and looked at Bishop Zen awaiting his decision.

Bishop Zen looked at the priests and asked " what do you think? "

The man who was reading the letter replied: " High priest, we should do as priest Yodha suggested"

" I disagree " another priest stood while opposing the proposal.

" Can you explain?" Looking at the man who stood up now, Bishop Zen asked.

"High Priest, We dunno if it's a treasure for sure, it might just be a feud, sending a few blessed ones for an uncertain task would not worth it "

The priest explained himself.

" But priest Zaira, What if there is really a treasure? It even caught the attention of the Guru, so it might not be something which can not be ignored"

Another priest said while remained seated in his chair.

" Of course, priest Dane you are not wrong, that's why I said sending a lot of blessed would not be necessary instead we can send only one capable blessed one"

Priest Zaira expressed his opinion.

" But how can a single person handle tons of butchers? and disciples of the Guru?"

Another priest objected.

" But the strongest one can"

Priest Zaira said.

" You mean you wanted to send that eleven-year-old kid, no way"

" Priest Zaira, do you understand that it is not a children's game?"

The priest, who was holding the letter said.

" Of course it's not, but don't you guys think that the guy also needs some real-world experiences ?"

" its good opportunity for him to hone his skill, the only thing he had to do is tailing these butchers and the disciples of the Guru"

" As long as he won't face them all head-on, he would be fine with his strength alone"

Zaira said.

Hearing his explanation, all the members were dived into their thoughts.

Even Bishop Zen thought about it, he found nothing wrong with the proposal of Zaira.

It took Bishop for a while to announce: " We go with Zaira's proposal, Does anyone got a problem? "

When the announcement was heard, no one replied, then everyone sat down to their seats.

Bishop waited for a while before asking: " anything else"

Zaira once again opened his mouth and said: " High priest, about that devil prince, what should we do about him?"

" Nothing, he would die there, we should not do anything, and in case he survives we would take care of him later" Bishop replied.

"Anything else"

Bishop asked for confirmation.

After a while getting no answers the Bishop announced: " So we will be ending the meeting here".

At around the same time, In the prison of the Royal Palace.

In a certain cellar

" Tell me, why were you peeking at the brothel?"

Chief general Wenton interrogated the two people in front of him, their face was swollen, the skin under their eyes was black, they had brushes of a whip all over their body.

It looked as if they were tortured day and night for a full day.

" Sir, how many times should we tell you? We were just doing it to have look over the beauties out there"

One among them said while directly looking in the eyes of Wenton.

" How dare you to lie? You are from the kingdom of Gala, of course, you were planning something, tell me the truth"

Wenton lashed at him with his whip.

" Aaa mercy, mercy "

The man pleaded but the chief general did not stop, he continued to whip him.

" Tell me the truth"

Chief general yelled as he continued to beat him.

" I told you the truth"

"Aaaa"

" Are not you man too?

"Aaa"

" Don't you understand the hidden desires?"

"Aaa"

The man said while weeping and yelling out in pain.

While others did not even utter a word.

But the only word came out of chief's mouth was: " tell me the truth" and a lash of a whip followed it.

After about an hour, the chief general was tired while beating these guys and finally gave them peace, Chief general then walked out of the prison and headed towards the throne room.

In the throne room, King Alfred was sitting on his throne while attending the scholars.

" Your majesty, how about we increase the taxes on the food "

A minister suggested while standing in front of the king.

" Jiva, what the hell are you spouting? Common people would suffer if we do that "

Another minister objected as he came forward.

" But if we don't increase the tax, how are we going to feed the new recruits "

" Minister Riya, don't forget that enemy is sitting on our throat, and we can be at full war with them at any time"

The enemy that minister Jiva was talking about is the kingdom of Gala, the king of Gala somehow seemed to have gone mad as he was building a massive camp on the borders of both the kingdoms.

It was apparent that he was preparing for war and a big one at that.

These sudden moments from the kingdom Gala introduced fear into the hearts of the people in the kingdom of Replica.

Especially those who reside near the borders were not feeling safe at all.

Indeed it was noticed by King Alfred, so he immediately announced the recruitment of the troops ahead of 6 months which should have happened after 6 months.

As a result, a financial problem was created, that's having not enough money for future usage.

" Minister Jiva, Riya is right, we can not do that"

King Alfred spoke as adjusted himself on the throne.

" But your majesty, then how should we generate the revenue?"

Minister Jiva asked.

" We will think about it later"

Alfred said, but he also could not figure out a possible solution right now.

At the moment, chief Wenton entered the room.

He walked towards the throne and stood beside Jiva and said " Your Majesty, sorry to disturb you I want to report something"

Alfred nodded without speaking.

" Your Majesty, the spies from the kingdom of Gala were not uttering a word no matter how much I torture them"

" They were just spouting out the nonsense of being a man I should know, I should feel "

" I did not understand a single thing ".