Season 3 chapter 9
"I am going to buy this town, Kniya. Don't worry," Malesh sighed, rolling his eyes. "I am going to spend the money from my own energy treasury. Because, Kniya, I know that you are an absolute, pathetic cheapskate."
Kniya's jaw literally dropped. The insult hit him directly in his massive ego.
"Okay! Okay! Do not call me that!" Kniya screamed, slamming his fist on the table. "I am contributing fifty percent of the funds right fucking now! I will wire the billions! Just don't call me a fucking cheapskate, you idiot! I am a philanthropist!"
"Excellent," Malesh nodded, having successfully manipulated Kniya into paying half the bill.
"But wait," Salesh interrupted, leaning forward and tracing a circle on the table. "Okay, this thing is really soundful, Malesh. You told us we will bribe the government, and we will say that the soil is not effective. But after two to three years, they will definitely come again. By that time, four years will have passed since the military operation. Then what will you say as an excuse? You can't fake a soil report forever."
Malesh looked out the massive boardroom window, staring down at the sprawling, smoggy metropolis of Seistain.
"That would be more than enough time to execute a regime change," Malesh stated coldly. "Because we need to violently remove this fucking President out of the country. This government is so rigged now. We will replace him."
The entire boardroom went dead silent. Filoska choked on her water. Salesh's eyes went wide.
"What the heck literally is that?!" Kniya yelled, jumping to his feet. "So we are going to do a massive, federal regime change in the period of four years as the actual plan?!"
"Absolutely," Malesh confirmed, his voice devoid of any hesitation. "I am sensing some highly unusual, incredibly dangerous things happening in the whole country, and this military massacre is one of them. Whatever it is, we need to do something about it. We are buying time until we can buy the throne."
"Why are you saving this thing so much?!" Kniya asked, completely baffled by his friend's sudden moral crusade. "Why do you care about this town?"
"It is because, you know, we should save the religion," Malesh stated flatly.
Kniya stared at him for exactly two seconds. Then, Kniya reached into his pocket, pulled out a small, heavy brass audio recorder, and slammed his thumb on the play button.
"...I have visited a temple once in my entire life. And you know, I do not love being an atheist, but you know... I don't love God that much..." Malesh's own deadpan voice echoed out of the tiny speaker from the hospital room argument earlier that day.
Kniya clicked the recorder off, a massive, obnoxious grin on his face.
"You are literally an atheist!" Kniya cackled. "Well, Atheist Malesh, why did you visit the temple once in your entire life?! What was the reason behind that?!"
Malesh glared at the brass recorder with pure hatred. "Basically, it was because of the reason my parents violently forced me to visit the temple. And because of my parents, I had to visit, otherwise I would not have visited. And Kniya, delete that recording right now."
"Never!" Kniya laughed, pocketing the device.
"Okay, whatever," Malesh sighed, rubbing his temples to fight an incoming migraine. "There is one more thing. We also have to use our funds to give a proper, highly expensive funeral to all the deceased members of her family. We need to honor the town."
Kniya stopped laughing. He narrowed his eyes, leaning over the table and looking at Malesh with deep, mocking suspicion.
"Yeah, you know... fuck this thing," Kniya sneered. "You are doing a lot of things in support of her for absolutely free. You are paying for funerals, buying towns, starting regime changes... Are you having some kind of chemistry with her?"
"What?" Malesh asked, entirely confused.
"Romance, Malesh!" Kniya accused loudly. "Are you in love with the Yatsua priestess?!"
Malesh's face went completely blank. He looked at Kniya, then at Salesh, then at Filoska. He took a slow, deep breath, preparing to deliver the most awkward sentence ever spoken in the history of Kavilson Steel.
"Kniya, you really lack absolute human dignity," Malesh stated, his voice completely robotic and deadpan. "And yeah, I have some news for you. I am not into romance. Because of the thing I told you once before... I literally lack any kind of romantic feeling due to the specific thing. I have watched and basically read way too much amount of degenerate content in the books, and that is exactly why I cannot have the thing. It completely ruined my brain's biological reward system. You know, that is really weird and awkward to say this thing in between you, I, Malesh, and Filoska. We all are present in the Seistain main hub office."
The room fell into an agonizing, horrific silence.
Salesh stared at the ceiling. Filoska buried her face in her hands, deeply regretting ever asking for a promotion.
Kniya stared at Malesh, his brain completely short-circuiting.
"What is the requirement of saying this thing?!" Kniya screamed, completely losing his mind. "You literally do not need to say this thing! And why the fuck are you announcing our location?! 'We are present at Seistain'?! Everyone knows about this thing! We are in the boardroom! Ah, fuck this shit! You are a complete psychopath!"
"I value transparency," Malesh replied simply.
"Okay!" Kniya yelled, waving his hands to dispel the horrific awkwardness of Malesh's confession. "This is going to be a really long game! We need to first know about the government's real game, what is actually going on with these statues, and then we can do anything about it!"
"Yeah," Malesh agreed, swiftly moving past his own psychological trauma. "It is really important. We need to know about everything. Call the intelligence brokers."
The Reunion
The sterile, quiet hum of the hospital room was a sharp contrast to the deafening roar of the military helicopters that had haunted the young priestess's mind for the past forty-eight hours.
She sat up slowly against the crisp white pillows, wincing as the sharp pain in her bruised ribs flared. The heavy wooden door clicked open.
Two towering men in black suits stepped into the room. Between them, a small boy was thrashing and fighting against their grip.
"Let go of me! Let go of me!" the boy shouted, kicking his feet.
The men silently let him go, stepping backward and quietly pulling the heavy door shut, leaving the siblings entirely alone.
The little boy stumbled forward, catching his balance. He looked around the sterile room, his eyes finally landing on the bed. He took a hesitant step forward, his eyes going wide with fear as he took in the bandages wrapping her arms and the deep, purple bruises covering her face.
"Sister?" his voice cracked. "What happened to you? Why are you here? Why are you filled up with so many wounds and scratches?"
He hurried to the side of the bed, his small hands trembling. "What happened? You only went to the hometown for getting the statues, just to protect something that we owned! What happened to you? Why are you like that?"
She tried to answer him, but she couldn't. Her throat was completely choked up, a thick, suffocating wave of emotion sealing her lips. She ignored the searing pain in her chest, throwing the blankets aside and sliding off the mattress. Her legs wobbled, but she dropped to her knees right there on the cold hospital floor and threw her arms open.
Her little brother collided with her, burying his dirty face in her shoulder. He gripped her hospital gown so tightly his knuckles turned white.
"I thought you were never coming back," he sobbed, his small frame shaking violently against her. "You left, and you never came back. And then... the elders who stayed with me started panicking. When you and the others didn't return, they left to search for you. But they never came back either."
He pulled back just enough to look at her, tears cutting tracks through the soot on his cheeks.
"I waited for days," he cried, his voice breaking with deep, childish betrayal. "I didn't have any food. You literally abandoned me! I didn't have any way to communicate with you! Only I know how I managed to survive for that long all by myself!"
Tears streamed freely down the priestess's face. She pulled him back against her chest, holding him as tight as her injured body would allow.
"I am here," she whispered fiercely, her voice shaking. "I am right here, my dear. Don't worry. I know there are so many times you had to survive all alone... but I am here now. I am never leaving you again."
He sniffled, resting his head against her shoulder as he let the exhaustion of the past few days wash over him. He took a shaky breath, looking around the quiet room.
"Where are Mom and Dad?" he asked softly. "Where are they? Why are they not with you?"
Her breath hitched. The world seemed to stop spinning. This was the exact moment she had been dreading. She slowly raised a trembling hand and gently cupped his cheek, looking into his innocent, terrified eyes.
"Mother and Father..." she sobbed softly, fresh tears blurring her vision. "They stayed behind. They have joined the God in the holy soil. They are not coming with us."
He didn't scream. He just let out a quiet, broken gasp as the sheer weight of the loss crushed him. He collapsed forward into her chest, weeping with an agonizing grief that no child should ever have to carry. She wrapped her arms around him, resting her chin on the top of his head as she let her own tears fall into his hair.
After a long time, the heavy wave of tears finally slowed. She gently lifted him, carrying him over to the edge of the bed and tucking the warm blankets around his shoulders.
He rubbed his swollen eyes, looking nervously toward the closed wooden door.
"Sister..." he mumbled quietly. "Do you know who those scary men in the dark suits are? The ones waiting outside our room?"
She smoothed his messy hair, wiping a smudge of dirt from his forehead.
"When they first arrived at my place, they literally broke our door down," he whispered, shivering at the memory. "I thought they were going to hurt me. They were acting so weird... and they were using a lot of cuss words."
She thought of the two strange, vulgar men who had found her on the asphalt. Men who argued and swore constantly, but who had instantly mobilized a team to save her brother the second they heard her story.
"I don't know exactly who they are," she whispered softly, a newfound determination hardening her voice. "But they are not going to hurt us. They promised they would fix this."