I was sitting in a suite at Emerald Resort, looking at statements?
Starting with Raymond, I took care of every last bastard who showed up for the raid that day.
I brought them onto a private jet and opened the jet door.
Then gave them paper and ballpoint pens.
Then they wrote away on their own.
Lots of words, but no substance.
Of course.
These guys were bottom-rung.
They didn't know anything.
They just did as they were told, all of them.
I'd expected as much.
So what?
Just climb up.
If I climbed up one by one to the bastards who gave the orders, I'd catch someone eventually.
We've got time, and we've got money.
We just have to take it slow.
After I roughed up a few of them, Manila came out right away.
They said they'd received orders from guys working in Manila.
I went on a business trip all the way to Manila.
By private jet.
I'd brought it along because I thought we might need a private jet.
I arrived in Manila and checked the list.
I was already pissed anyway, so I didn't bother reading the room and just grabbed them.
Before this, I'd at least tried not to touch civilians.
If problems arose, I'd tried to solve them among ourselves, but the current atmosphere wasn't like that.
Those 'La Camara' bastards were using state authority and infrastructure for private gain.
They punished and regulated people they didn't like using state power.
But we couldn't exactly deal with those bastards while following proper procedures to bring them in.
We didn't have the authority for that either.
And our original job is gangsters and rebels.
In other words, doing bad things is our main line of work.
Bad guys doing bad things. Why? Is that strange?
That's why I invited them here.
We hadn't coordinated with each other, so they might mistake it for kidnapping, but I still brought them here.
I did put a gun to their sides, but it still counts as bringing them here.
The Manila bastards we caught were a bit different.
These bastards were extremely uptight.
Did that mean they had a certain rank?
That they had some seniority?
"Do you know who I am?"
"You guys are going to be in big trouble."
"Let me go while I'm asking nicely."
"Let's stop here. I'm tired too."
The Bohol guys trembled just looking at us and cranked their brains into overdrive, writing down everything they had and didn't have, but the Manila guys were different.
Was it because they didn't know us?
Or because they'd never been threatened before?
I had no choice but to scare these bastards a bit.
To loosen them up before proper intimidation, I hung them upside down for a bit, but they were already making a fuss saying they were going to die.
I hadn't even hung them for an hour.
We hadn't even started yet.
This is athletes warming up before a game.
It's stretching.
If the body is stiff, even a knife won't go in.
I'm just loosening them up so it goes in smoothly.
They were already begging for their lives right then and there.
Weak Manila bastards.
I gave them paper and pens right away.
They started writing the moment they received them.
I thought they were printers.
They wrote away so smoothly.
Maybe because they were smart bastards, their memories were good too.
They wrote down well when and where they'd met whom, and who was present at those gatherings.
Sure, write it all down.
I'll pay every single one of them a visit.
We're people with plenty of time and money.
And at the end of the statements? they'd written, there was Bituin.
This bastard was the ringleader.
"Got him. This bastard."
.
.
.
Bituin was on his way home from work.
He was exhausted.
His body was tired, but his mind was too tangled.
He was worried because he felt like things kept going down the wrong path.
It kept weighing on his mind.
Lately, he'd done too many things he shouldn't have.
He'd given too many orders he shouldn't have given.
He knew.
But there had been no other choice.
It was La Camara's order.
It was Celeste's order.
He hadn't known Celeste was that kind of person.
He'd just thought she was a pretty noona.
He'd been close with Celeste since childhood.
He'd liked being with that noona.
She was pretty, but she also understood Bituin's heart well.
As if she were a ghost, she knew what Bituin wanted.
Whenever Bituin struggled, she was always by his side, shielding and comforting him.
Bituin trusted, relied on, and leaned on such a Celeste.
Majoring in business administration had been Celeste's suggestion.
His family had been in the legal profession for generations, but Celeste had recommended business.
Because he had a good head for numbers.
So he entered the business school.
He followed Celeste and joined La Camara.
La Camara had been a good place.
They did volunteer work and provided scholarships.
He followed Celeste to gatherings.
Little by little, he came to know people from the Philippines' political and business circles.
The world turned according to the conversations at those gatherings.
It was fascinating and fun.
Thanks to that, his promotions came quickly.
At a somewhat early—no, young age, he'd become the Commissioner of the Bureau of Internal Revenue.
He'd been satisfied.
The world had felt like it all belonged to Bituin.
But recently, Celeste had started making excessive demands.
She ordered him to find Melchor's assets and to arrest people who were guilty of nothing.
In fact, there had been excessive demands before then, too, but he'd been unable to speak up.
Intoxicated by the sweetness of promotion and the delusion that the world was his, he'd pretended not to notice.
As a result, they started making increasingly excessive demands.
It differed from Bituin's thoughts, but he couldn't refuse.
Because he knew what happened to those who'd stormed out of this position.
He'd wanted to leave.
He'd wanted to quit now.
But he couldn't.
Now Bituin had become a puppet.
He had to do as Celeste said, as La Camara said.
La Camara hadn't needed Bituin, but the Bureau of Internal Revenue Commissioner.
A Bureau of Internal Revenue Commissioner who did as he was told and listened well.
Or perhaps Bituin had been able to become the Commissioner precisely because he listened well.
Unable to sort out his complicated thoughts, he got into his car.
The moment he got in the car, he felt an atmosphere unlike usual.
He felt the sensation of a gun pressing into his back.
"Drive."
A masked man in the back seat spoke, aiming a gun.
Bituin started the engine and began to drive.
"Keep going."
The masked man told him where to drive, and Bituin simply followed the man's words.
He was Bituin, the good boy who always listened well.
After driving for quite a while, Bituin's car entered a dark alley.
A dead end.
"Stop."
When the car stopped, a van pulled up right beside it.
"Switch cars."
Without any resistance, Bituin moved to the van.
The moment he got in the van, a blindfold was put on him.
His vision was blocked.
And he felt a sharp sting in his thigh.
That was all.
As far as Bituin remembered.
.
.
.
The place he opened his eyes was on a plush bed.
Where was this?
A plush bed?
A large TV and a small cabinet.
Judging by the interior, it seemed like a hotel.
When he opened the curtains, a breathtaking sea stretched out before him.
Bituin stared at that sight for a long time.
He couldn't remember when he'd last seen the sea.
Looking at that sea, he felt like something was sorting itself out a little.
His throat was parched.
He quenched his thirst with the bottled water left there.
On the muted TV, the news was on, and Bituin's face appeared.
'Huh? Why am I on TV?'
He raised the volume and focused on the news.
The news was reporting that Bituin had been unable to overcome stress and made an extreme choice.
That he'd driven his car straight into the sea.
That a search was underway to find the body.
Bituin couldn't hide his shock.
I'm dead?
He couldn't believe it.
There was even a suicide note.
A suicide note he had never written.
He couldn't believe it.
He himself was alive, yet they said he was dead.
He was bewildered.
No, he might be dead.
Was he dead?
He wondered if this was heaven.
No, at least Bituin knew.
That he wouldn't be able to go to heaven.
Yet on the other hand, he thought it was a good thing.
It had been hard, so he felt that dying was actually better.
He wouldn't have been able to muster the courage alone, so he was almost grateful to be sent off without pain like this?
He lay back down on the bed.
His heart felt at ease.
Thinking he was dead, all his worries disappeared.
All the sensations felt too vivid, but he'd never died before, so he couldn't tell if this was right or wrong.
"Did you sleep well?"
Just then, the door opened and a man in a Hawaiian shirt appeared.
"Huh?"
He hadn't thought he'd be alone in hell, but he hadn't expected someone to come in without knocking either.
"Excuse me, am I not dead?"
Bituin asked cautiously.
"You are dead. Officially, anyway."
The man in the Hawaiian shirt answered with a mischievous expression.
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.
.
Bituin looked as if he'd given up on everything.
"Do you know who I am?"
"I don't know exactly, but I think I have a rough idea."
"Who?"
"Aren't you associated with Emerald Resort?"
"Huh? How did you know?"
"Since the day I ordered the crackdown, the people I contacted have been unreachable one by one. They either avoided my contact or couldn't be reached at all. I thought then, I've touched something I shouldn't have. I had a feeling they'd come for me soon too. And that prediction was correct."
"But why didn't you resist?"
"I figured this was bound to happen. I was struggling too, so I actually thought it was a good thing. Because I'd been thinking it would be better to die."
Perhaps that was why? Bituin obediently told everything about La Camara.
"It's a pyramid-shaped organization of sorts."
"There are no restrictions on who can be recruited. Most join thinking it's a scholarship foundation."
"But as you advance to stage 2, 3, and 4, the organization's form changes."
"At each stage, they select people to move up."
"Mainly the children of the upper class are the targets. Because to maintain their current status, the Philippines must not change."
"To protect what they have, they create laws, adjust policies, and use the law and public power."
"They promote those they need, and those they don't need