Preparations for the contest proceeded at a rapid pace.
Every resource of the CCAD (Center for Culture and Arts Development), which was in charge of the contest, was poured into it.
The CCAD was an agency under the Bohol provincial government, responsible for preserving and developing Bohol’s culture and arts.
Two months.
In two months, submissions for the contest would begin.
Until then, participants only had to create and submit their works.
They could go around discovering new tourist spots and take photographs,
or reinterpret existing tourist attractions in their own style.
It wasn’t that we wanted somewhere new.
Even an ordinary street scene we saw every day would be enough, if it contained the artist’s reinterpretation.
What we wanted was a perspective different from the existing one.
Did Bohol not have merch? No, it had more than enough.
And yet the reason it had never become popular was that it failed to express the unique color only Bohol possessed.
Because there was only merch like “I♥BOHOL,” the kind you could find anywhere, people didn’t seek it out.
Through this contest, we intended to find that color.
We were looking for works that would make people savor Bohol’s charm once more.
With those, we would produce merch and create various souvenir shops.
Not the same old Bohol, but a slightly different Bohol.
In that sense, we decided not to be the ones to choose the prize-winning works.
There was no need to trouble ourselves over the difference between winning entries and merch.
Among the submitted works, we would separately select the pieces to turn into merch,
and as for the prize-winning entries, we told the organizers to handle that themselves.
Our goal was solely new ideas that could be made into merch.
When the governor heard that we would not be involved in selecting the winners, he looked as though the gears in his head were turning rapidly.
He seemed to be calculating who he should give prizes to,
who he should give an award to, and what he should receive in return.
As expected, he was easy to read.
Put money and power in front of him, and he was the kind of bastard who would walk into hell on his own two feet.
********
“To the successful launch of Candy Coin and TrustBit!!”
“To it!!!!!”
Clink.
The sound of glasses striking together rang out brightly.
“Everyone, you worked hard. Thanks to you, we barely held it together. Today, eat until you can’t eat anymore, and tomorrow, get plenty of rest.”
“You worked hard too, Chief.”
“You worked hard too, Anna. And the coin team and exchange team did great as well. Eat a lot.”
The employees of Gogo Casino, Candy Coin, and TrustBit.
The so-called online team was having a company dinner at a hotel.
Not long ago, the coin and the exchange had been launched.
In case something went wrong, they hadn’t even been able to properly leave work and had spent more than two weeks living at the office.
And those two weeks had been like war.
“Chief, traffic is skyrocketing. At this rate, the servers will crash.”
“Didn’t we prepare servers? How are we already in this state?”
“We prepared with plenty of margin, but it’s beyond that. It’s traffic we never even imagined.”
“Secure servers right now. Right now.”
“We’ll have to use cloud servers, but then the cost…”
“Don’t worry about the cost and just get them. That’s the most urgent thing right now.”
“Yes, sir.”
“A DDoS attack is coming in.”
“We don’t have enough servers.”
“The hackers’ attacks are continuing.”
“Raise the WAF! Cut off all bypass traffic. Max out CDN distribution too.”
“Applying now. It’s stabilizing a little.”
“What’s the server status?”
“There’s a bit of delay, but it’s fine.”
“Traffic has stabilized.”
Every day, every hour, they spent their time as if at war.
No one could leave the monitors,
and they endured by replenishing themselves with coffee and pizza, dozing off with their heads on their desks.
After desperately holding out like that for two weeks, they finally gained a little breathing room.
During that time, they continued patching up problems.
Now they could finally catch their breath.
A company dinner had been prepared for the employees who had suffered through it.
It was the first company dinner after the launch.
Their faces were full of exhaustion, but there was a sense of accomplishment in having pulled it off.
Gogo Casino, Candy Coin, and TrustBit were all being serviced stably,
and the number of users had increased significantly.
After the initial confusion, they entered normal operation.
The system was on track.
The service had entered a stable phase.
*********
Dennis, who was guarding the armory in Zamboanga, contacted me.
“Boss. We’ve received a weapons purchase request from the rebels.”
“The rebels?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“A rough mix of MP5s, AK-47s, and M4s. About two hundred guns.”
“You can handle that much yourself, Dennis.”
“I was going to, but the representative from their side insists on meeting you, Boss.”
“Then don’t sell.”
“Pardon?”
“What, are they buying something so impressive that they’re pulling a ‘bring out the boss’ routine? Just don’t sell. Tell them to go buy elsewhere.”
“B-but still…”
“If we’re distributing weapons this cheaply, they should be grateful, buy the weapons, and fight among themselves. What’s all this about seeing my face or not? I don’t care if I don’t make a measly six hundred million won. So don’t sell.”
“Th-that’s…”
“What?”
“That faction is very powerful here in Zamboanga. If we make an enemy of them, business here could get a little worse.”
“I don’t care if it gets worse. There’ll still be no problem paying your salaries.”
“Boss, this isn’t something you can refuse so flatly.”
“Really? Then you go. Go and say you’re the representative.”
“I’ve already done business with them several times, so even if I say that, they won’t believe me.”
“Then tell them to come here. To Bohol. The thirsty man digs the well.”
.
.
.
“You the bastard who called me all the way here?”
“You actually came?”
“What?”
“I thought you’d be too scared to come.”
“Hah. Look at this bastard. What a funny guy.”
“Sit. Are we going to talk standing up?”
The rebel representative roughly perched himself on a chair.
“Food? Alcohol? Coffee? Since you came all this way, I can at least treat you to that much.”
“You think I can eat?”
“We’re doing all this to make a living, so we should eat while we do it. This place does good sisig. You don’t want any?”
I asked back while eating sisig.
“Aren’t you afraid of me?”
“What’s there to be afraid of?”
“With one gesture from me, you’re dead. I can tear you to shreds so completely there won’t be a trace left.”
“Try it.”
“What?”
“Bastards who start flashing their teeth the moment we meet aren’t scary at all. You’re no different from a dog barking about how damn scary it is.”
“What? You little—”
The moment the rebel representative’s hand moved toward his waist to pull out a gun,
there was already a gun in my hand, taken out of my inventory.
“What should I do? Shoot? Or not?”
“.........”
After confirming the gun I had aimed at him, the rebel representative stopped the hand that had been going to his waist.
“Answer.”
Instead of answering, the rebel representative raised both hands to show that he had no intention of fighting.
“Let’s take out the thing at your waist before we talk.”
At my words, the rebel representative carefully took out his gun and placed it on the table.
I picked it up, removed the bullets from the magazine and chamber, disassembled it, and placed it back on the table.
“If you came to work, let’s work. If you came to eat, then eat. I can buy you a meal, at least. Eat that and leave. Buy your guns somewhere else.”
The rebel representative couldn’t say a word.
“I’m done eating now, so if you have nothing more to say, I’ll get up.”
“That’s…”
“Don’t trail off. Speak properly.”
“W-we need a partner.”
“What kind of partner? Are you going to a graduation party? If you’re looking for a female partner, you’re in the wrong place. You came to the wrong place by a long shot.”
“Not that kind of partner. Strategic partnership, you could say. I’m saying we become comrades who share the same cause.”
“Mm… Are you and I in a relationship with enough emotional connection to have that kind of conversation?”
“That kind of thing can be built from now on.”
“Oh~ Is this some kind of sex first, feelings later thing? If I become partners with you, what benefit do I get?”
“First of all, we’ll buy weapons from you.”
“I don’t care if you don’t buy them. So leave that out.”
“If we take power, we can help your business.”
“Pffft! Sorry. I wasn’t trying to laugh, but that was just too absurd. Sorry. So you’re going to take power? And if you take power, you’ll help us?”
“Yeah.”
“Then what are we supposed to do?”
“We’d like you to support us with some weapons.”
“Puhahahaha. Would you look at this son of a bitch.”
“What? Watch your mouth.”
“You’re the one who should watch yourself. If you go around with that kind of brain, you’re just asking to get shot dead. This isn’t Mindanao, where you people were hiding. This isn’t your home turf where everything goes the way you want.”
“Anyone with even half a functioning head would never let words like that come out of their mouth. Because there’s no possibility. You bastards can’t even control Mindanao—no, you can’t even control Zamboanga—and what? You’re going to take power? Hahahahaha. I think this is the funniest thing I’ve heard all year.”
As I cackled and mocked him, the rebel representative’s face flushed red and dark.
As if his pride had been wounded, the rebel representative’s voice changed.
“I’d rather you not test my patience.”
“Kekeke. It’s funny. You should laugh too. Wasn’t that supposed to be a joke?”
“.........”
“Do you know why UN peacekeeping forces don’t come into the Philippines? Have you ever thought about it? There’s one answer. Because the rebels aren’t worth shit. Because they think bastards like you will destroy yourselves if left alone. Or they think the Philippine military is enough to handle you. That’s why the UN doesn’t bother sending peacekeepers. Because there isn’t even a one percent chance that things will go well for you.”
“You heard the owner of the arms business changed to some young guy, so I looked easy, huh? Did you think if you came here and roared a little, I’d tremble in fear, form a partnership with you, and open up the armory? Did the world look that easy to you? You must have grown up nice and sheltered without hardship. Are you from a rich family?”
Tremble, tremble.
The rebel representative trembled with humiliation.
If he’d had a gun, he would have wanted to shoot me right away, but his gun had been taken.
The confiscated gun lay disassembled on the table, and the bullets were rolling across the floor.
It had been a mistake to leave his bodyguards outside the restaurant for security.
If he’d known this would happen, he would have kept them glued to his side.
The rebel representative regretted it, but it was already too late.
When he thought it was all over, the strength drained from his body.
There was no point in having come all the way to Bohol.
To be honest, what that young man said was right.
The organization had no money.
That was why he’d tried to coax the arms dealer, who was supposedly young.
He thought the promise of helping him once they seized power would shake him, at least a little.
At the very least, he thought he would show interest.
So he had planned to get weapons sponsored,
and if things went well, take the credit; if they didn’t, then oh well.
But he had failed completely.
Words wouldn’t work on him.
It didn’t seem like there was anything he could get.
The rebel representative stood up.
“You leaving?”
“I have to. You’re not going to give me weapons, are you?”
“Do you usually give up that fast? Are you the type who doesn’t even talk properly and runs away with your tail between your legs the moment you think it won’t work?”
At those words, the rebel representative could no longer hold back his anger and swung his fist at me.
But I wasn’t about to let myself get hit by a punch like that.
After dodging a few blindly swung punches, I hit him hard in the abdomen and dropped him.
The rebel representative, struck in the stomach, immediately vomited up what he had eaten.
“Uegh!! Ugh!!”
“Ah! Shit! That’s filthy… Man, why throw punches so recklessly when you can’t even fight? Now I feel bad for no reason.”
“Kahaha. Kahahahahaha.”
The rebel representative, who had been vomiting, started laughing.
Has that bastard lost his mind?
There isn’t a single normal person here in the Philippines.
They all seem to be lunatics.
I held out a bottle of water.
“It’ll taste bitter, so rinse your mouth.”
The rebel representative looked at me strangely.
Is it strange to give water to someone who vomited?
Doesn’t your mouth taste bitter after you throw up?
That’s why rinsing with water is good.
“So, you see, something we could have solved by talking, you had to pull out a gun and then your fists, and now you’ve only made things hard for the cleaning staff here. Pay the cleaning fee before you go.”
Even at my words, the rebel representative kept his head lowered and did not raise it.
“What’s your name?”
“Simon.”
“Simon. I’ll only say this once, so listen carefully. Simon. I fucking hate rebels. I lost my family to rebels.”
Only then did Simon raise his head and look at me.
“If I followed my heart, I’d grind every last one of you up and drink you down. Even so, the reason I leave you alone is because I know that no matter how many I grind up, more will appear from somewhere else. Like how no matter how many cockroaches you kill in your house, they keep coming out. In that situation, what should I do?”
“What?”
“If I want to get rid of the rebels I hate? What should I do?”
“.......”
“Make one insanely strong rebel group. Make a rebel group so damn strong that it can devour all the other rebels.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because even though you’re stupid, your nature doesn’t seem vicious, so I thought I’d give you one chance. A chance for you to become a damn strong rebel.”
“What?”
“How long would it take you to gather information on the rebel groups within the Philippines? The leaders, manpower, forces, bases, and so on—all of it?”
“O-one month? Two months?”
“Too long. I’ll give you ten days. Bring me the information. And a plan to deal with those rebels. If I like it, I’ll sponsor you. No, I’ll buy you.”
“What…”
I took twenty thousand dollars out of my inventory.
“A down payment? No. Just think of it as a contribution. You’ll need money to investigate, won’t you? You’ll need to hire people too. Don’t ruin your health; take breaks while you do it. Just bring it within ten days. That’s enough, right? Put it neatly into a PPT and bring it. If you scribble it by hand, I’ll get angry.”
“Uh… uh… uh.”
“Then go. I’ll see you in ten days.”