The Pathway Of Wisdom-Chapter 71: Maintaining the Agenda is the Top Priority! Part-2.
*Shing!* *Thud!*
Antonio was stuffed inside a cell, and finally his hands and feet were freed from restraints.
He hurriedly put away the cloth gagging his mouth and coughed loudly to readjust his breathing.
Before he could speak or say anything, a familiar voice jolted him out of his daze!
"Is he here?"
"Yes! The criminal has been detained in this cell..."
"Good, I will talk with him then..."
*step!* *step!*
Antonio heard the sound of two sets of footsteps; one faded away in the distance, while the other approached towards him.
The person who appeared outside Antonio’s cell was very familiar to him and seeing him Antonio immediately asked,
"Sir Jake! What’s the meaning of all this!? I wasn’t told anything about this!"
"You made me parade in the entire city and humiliated me! I never joined the organization for this kind of thing!"
"I was promised money and a better future! This is deceit! How can you who are associated with the God of Wisdom church do such a kind of thing!?"
"I will tell everyone about what you are doing! Everyone will know your reality!"
Antonio was very angry at how he was treated!
He was just a small-time fraud, and now everyone is mistaking him for a mass murderer and a black magician who can kill people by just looking at them!
Hearing Antonio’s complaints, Jake waited for him to vent his anger and calm down first before speaking in his usual calm voice.
"Mr. Antonio, we have never deceived you; the benevolent god of wisdom is still blessing you with his grace..."
"Moreover, all this is just a plan, a method of saving this city from the evil clutches!"
"Don’t worry; you will soon get your rewards and money as long as you keep working for us..."
Antonio’s anger exploded like a dynamite set on fire after hearing those words.
"Do you lot think I am stupid! You are just using me as a pawn! You are all just trying to use me as a sacrifice for your own sake!"
"I will never agree with all of you! I will let everyone know what you are doing, and you will be punished for your crimes!"
"All those dead people, all those bodies and those demonic rituals, and that monster!"
"It was all set up by you all, wasn’t it!"
Antonio raised his voice on purpose as he was trying to shout and make sure that at least someone listened to his desperate shouts, but it was all futile.
"Mr. Antonio... please don’t shout; there is no one to hear you. this is a prison that’s highly protected and only the most dangerous criminals are placed here..."
"There is no one but you alone in this underground floor; nobody will hear your shouts so please talk calmly and let me explain everything to you..."
Antonio’s eyes widened in shock; only after hearing Jake’s words did he understand that he was completely out of options.
His life had fallen under the control of powerful people who could easily make him restrain himself in any way they wanted to, and they could easily make him disappear from existence whenever they wanted to!
Thinking about how bad of a situation he was stuck in, Antonio deflated like a leaking balloon and collapsed on the ground powerlessly.
Seeing him like that, Jake shook his head and brought out a letter.
"This is the letter that Lord Saint himself wrote for you Mr. Antonio; in this he has mentioned everything to you clearly..."
"Whatever explanation you want is inside... let me read it out loud and make you aware of his holy words..."
Ignoring Antonio completely, Jake opened the letter and started reading it out loud.
{Mr. Antonio,
I know you might be confused and angry at the moment, but please hear my words.
The God of Wisdom’s Church and all of his believers are currently stuck in a major crisis that has been brought about by the count of Ilma and his desire to make his son a paladin of a foreign god order!
This cannot be allowed to happen, or the city of Ilma will fall into chaos, the people will forget the name of the benevolent god of wisdom, and the world will forget the existence of knowledge and wisdom!
The world will be shrouded in the darkness of lies and deceit! We need to destroy this darkness with the light of truth and wisdom!
For this to happen, Mr. Antonio, you need to harden your heart and help the citizens of the city of Ilma by making them afraid of what doom the count and his people are trying to bring to this city!
You need to make people believe in the truth! You need to make people understand that it was the count and his people’s negligence that a monster and a black magician appeared near the city of Ilma!
If you succeed in this mission, Mr. Antonio, you will be greatly rewarded!
Not only will you get many rewards, but you will also become blessed by the god of wisdom himself and will be granted a lifetime supply of healing potions!
I am expecting a lot of great things from you.
Your Greatest Benefactor,
Saint Alex.}
...
Hearing the content of the letter, Antonio could not find words to speak.
Alex’s long letter was filled with flowery words, and it seemed to be heavily focused on making the count and his people seem like the real villains of the incident.
He was trying to show that everything that was happening was all because the count was making his son a paladin of the church of the goddess of war and combat!
And the letter seemed to be instructing Antonio to keep deceiving the people to make them oppose the count even more!
By now it was clear to Antonio that all this was a tactic of Alex to make the Church of Wisdom more relevant by making the Church of War and Combat the villain!
But Antonio could not fully reject this proposal either, as he was being promised a hefty reward, and the word ’Lifetime Healing Potion’ supply was a major cause of Antonio’s hesitation.
Everyone knows about the miraculous powers of the divine healing potions, and everyone in the world dreams of having them so that they can use them on their loved ones when trouble arises.
Antonio was the same too.
He knew that having a divine healing potion was like having a second life! You can literally bring yourself back from injuries and wounds that would have normally killed you or would have made you disabled in just a matter of seconds!
And since Antonio was extremely obsessed over money, he knew that the value of a single diving healing potion was extremely high!
Just selling one would give him enough money to buy a house in the core area of the city of Ilma and still have plenty left afterwards!
If he sells these potions, he can get rich overnight and can become the wealthiest man in the city easily!
All he has to do in return is bear the burden of having a bad reputation and not walking out in daylight without guards protecting him from the people who might hate him.
And as a fraud who’s been to many places and has offended many people, Antonio has been living with a bad reputation for a long time now, so it didn’t have much of a mental effect on him either!
Even if the entire city of Ilma hates him, he can still stay happy if he has a lot of money in his pockets!
Moreover, he can just leave the city of Ilma with the money and live somewhere else where nobody would know him in case things go really bad.
"How can I trust you though!? You lot didn’t even tell me about it all before sending me for such a humiliating task!"
"How will the other members of the organization believe you if you keep deceiving me!?"
Hearing Antonio’s question, Jake put away the letter and replied in his usual calm voice,
"Don’t worry, we will never let you down Mr. Antonio... moreover, in your current circumstances, you have no other choice but to listen to us and cooperate with us..."
"Whatever the letter instructed you about was not a ’request’; it was a command. you must obey Mr. Antonio as you have no one else to rely on in this city..."
If the letter was a sweet bait, Jake’s words were a naked threat!
Antonio was inside the city of Ilma, and he was under the control of the organization right now.
And as long as he remains in the city of Ilma, he can never disobey the organization’s orders!
Otherwise, he would be abandoned and would end up in a worse situation than he already is!
"All the people of the city already hate you and many know you by face... you won’t be able to get out of city alive unless we personally help you and escort you out ourselves..."
"So please consider the proposal in the letter and try to fulfil whatever is demanded of you..."
Jake looked at Antonio with pity on his face before saying,
"Don’t try to oppose the great holy saint; making an enemy of him is very costly..."
With those words said, Jake left the underground prison, leaving Antonio behind without giving him any words of consolation!
Antonio was only getting an illusion of a choice; in reality, he actually had no choice but to obey and do exactly what he was told.
The very moment he entered the hidden organization, he had already sold his life to the organization; it’s just that he didn’t know it before.
