Gamers Are Fierce
Chapter 93 Balcony

Chapter 93: Chapter 93 Balcony

In the apartment building, the number of addicts slightly exceeded Li Ang’s expectations.

Drug-related crime, corruption, and poverty are often called the three chronic ailments of Philippine society.

Even before Duterte launched the war on drugs, drug lords had already used money and power to knock on the doors of high society.

From grassroots Philippine police officers to Justice Secretary Leila de Lima, half of the country’s law enforcement agencies were involved in the drug profit chain.

Out of the Philippines’ total population of one hundred million, three point seven million were involved with drugs, and this number was growing wildly every day.

Poverty, corruption, backwardness, and ignorance—each factor contributed to the proliferation of drugs.

A large portion of Filipino youth, even teenagers, became addicts. They often lacked basic education, proper parental guidance, regular jobs, and any semblance of hope.

Many, desperate for funds to purchase drugs, even joined various gangs, proactively entering this dark profit chain.

It was difficult to determine whether the so-called "civilians" living in this apartment building were merely ordinary people peripherally involved with drugs or actual members of the drug profit chain.

Seventeen- or eighteen-year-olds, fourteen- or fifteen-year-olds, and even twelve- or thirteen-year-old Filipinos wandered the corridors.

They clutched either pistols or machetes, shouting loudly in groups of three or five.

When Tama Riyadi’s special operations squad initially entered the building, he had used the public address system to try and minimize his men’s casualties. He announced to all residents that anyone who killed or eliminated a special operations operator would be exempted from all rent and receive one million Philippine Pesos or an equivalent value in drugs from him.

Under the promise of huge rewards, brave men will always emerge. After the special operations squad was scattered by regular gang members, these skinny, short youths mustered the courage to leave their rooms and loiter in the corridors.

They carried pistols and machetes, continuously striking the ceramic corridor walls with their blades, creating a crisp ringing sound, their eyes filled with a desperate hunger for money.

A thin teenager in a red shirt violently kicked open a door.

Machete in hand, he rushed into the room, scanned his surroundings, and saw faint traces of blood on the floor. The blood trail led to the bedroom.

The teenager in the red shirt, still holding his machete, silently lay on the floor. Peering through the crack of the bedroom door, he saw something.

He scrambled up excitedly, ran to the corridor, one hand still gripping the doorframe, and shouted to his wandering companions, "Someone’s in here!"

"Where? Who is it?"

"Coming, coming!"

A noisy crowd began to shout and swarmed into the room, cramming together. They brutally smashed open the bedroom door with the hilts of their knives.

Behind the bedroom door stood a young woman; on the bed lay an elderly woman with a yellowish complexion. The air was thick with the scent of herbs.

The young woman glared and shouted at the group of youths, "What do you think you’re doing?!"

Her name was Ligaya, and according to Philippine custom, she was often referred to as "Joy."

(Filipinos, regardless of gender, age, or status, all have a catchy nickname, such as Junjun, Big Ghost, Ding Dong, Lingling, Jojo.)

The teenager in the red shirt stared at Joy for a moment, a smile flickering across his face. He pushed her aside, moved to the bed, and crouched down.

Under the bed lay a special operations operator.

His right arm and left leg had been shot; blood pooled around him.

The operator struggled to lift his gun, but the teenager in the red shirt quickly sprang up, grabbed Joy, and shouted towards the space under the bed, "If you dare to shoot, she’s dead!"

After speaking, the teenager in the red shirt signaled his companions. Two youths jumped onto the bed, rolled to the other side, and dragged the operator out from under it.

The operator attempted to raise his gun to counterattack, but someone kicked it from his hand. His face then met with several kicks; a tooth flew out, and his cheek instantly swelled.

"Strip off his jacket!"

The teenager in the red shirt released Joy. The youths gleefully dragged the operator into the living room.

Some eagerly donned the operator’s bulletproof vest. Others played with his walkie-talkie, while a few tossed the heavy handgun back and forth.

The teenager in the red shirt watched his excited companions, then turned to Miss Joy, who was struggling to feign composure. He said with a wicked smile, "Were you hiding him?"

Joy shook her head. Looking at the face that was once familiar but now utterly strange, she said in a strained voice, "He had a gun; he forced me. Kaka, you should go home."

The teenager nicknamed Kaka looked at Joy’s blouse and the lean but well-defined body beneath it, licking his lips.

Joy was not involved with drugs; she lived in this building simply because of the cheap rent.

Kaka used to have a crush on Joy—back when he was an innocent youth.

But however wonderful the fantasy, reality was often cruel.

For a woman like Ligaya, unemployed, how could she possibly provide for herself, let alone find money for her mother’s expensive medical treatments for her severe illness?

The answer was self-evident.

Kaka stared at Ligaya, his eyes slightly red. As if realizing something, Ligaya’s trembling body stiffened.

She struggled to say, "Not in the bedroom."

Kaka grinned, tucked his machete into the belt around his waist, and pulled Ligaya toward the balcony.

At that moment, the group of youths was still pummelling the operator with fists and feet. When they heard no more screams, they lackadaisically picked up their machetes, preparing to decapitate him.

POP—

A gunshot, short and decisive, rang out from the doorway.

The dark barrel of a gun was visible there.

The youth poised to strike with his machete was shot in the head; his body convulsed as he fell to the ground.

Before the group of youths could process the death that had just occurred before their eyes, another shot was fired.

The second person fell, also killed by a headshot, a mist of blood filling the air.

A comrade, splattered with red and white matter, was about to scream when an unseen bullet hit him squarely on the bridge of his nose, caving in his entire face.

POP, POP, POP, POP.

One bullet, one gunshot, one life.

The youths in the living room had never faced such terror. Some crawled on the ground, scrambling towards the sofa; others stood up and bolted for the bedroom.

But the gun barrel by the doorframe, as if it had eyes, tracked their movements, delivering bullets with steady, calm precision.

Finally, the gunfire ceased. The living room was littered with bodies. Less than three seconds had passed since the first shot.

On the balcony, Kaka, who had been in the middle of tearing off his belt, quickly pulled Ligaya down to squat on the ground with him.

Fortunately, a pile of cardboard boxes filled with miscellaneous items stood in front of the balcony’s glass doors.

Thump, thump, thump.

The sound of military boots treading through pools of blood echoed in the living room. Li Ang, inhaling the thick scent of blood, muttered to himself, "One left."

The words seemed to echo in the sudden silence.

On the balcony, Kaka’s body suddenly trembled. He drew his handgun, aiming alongside the cardboard boxes, preparing to shoot.

However, the living room was empty. Kaka instinctively looked up and saw Li Ang, who had somehow appeared at the edge of the balcony.

The dark muzzle of the silenced handgun was pointed directly at Kaka’s forehead.

In that instant, Kaka thought of many things. His father, who had abandoned his wife and child and was carousing God knows where; his mother, who had earned money by washing clothes to support the family until she fell ill from exhaustion and died; the younger brother who always followed him around; the so-called ’gang boss’ who gave him a colorful sticker and dragged him into The Abyss... All those people, all those events. If, on that day, he hadn’t accepted the colorful sticker from the gang boss, maybe he wouldn’t have gotten hooked on drugs, wouldn’t have dropped out of school, and wouldn’t have moved his brother, who should have had a bright future, into this damned apartment. If he were given another chance, he would have heeded his mother’s dying wish to study hard and take his brother to the city to find a decent job. Ah, he almost forgot—his brother was dead too. Right there in the living room. He was the one who had just raised the machete.

POP—

The muffled sound of the silenced handgun echoed. A bullet hole appeared in Kaka’s forehead, his face frozen mid-smile—the eager-to-please expression of a youth.

Another body fell. Li Ang didn’t spare it a glance. He turned to Ligaya, who was squatting on the ground, her face splattered with blood, too horror-struck to speak. "Are you okay?" he asked.

"Ah, I... I’m fine," Ligaya stammered.

"Good." Li Ang nodded, walked back into the living room, and dragged the battered and bruised operator from the pile of bodies. After administering some rudimentary first aid, he laid him on the living room couch.

"Take care of him for me," Li Ang casually instructed. "When the gunfire stops completely, take him to the hospital. Can you do that?"

"Er, okay."

Ligaya nodded vigorously. She watched as Li Ang expertly stripped grenades, stun grenades, rifle magazines, and other equipment from the dead youths’ bodies before turning and walking out the door.