LIGHTNOVELSTORY Chapter 8: Prey
After my shower and a good night's sleep, I woke up in the morning. With nothing else to do, I grabbed this laptop the guy had left behind... though I really don't know how to use this thing.
"Finally! Now let's see what we have here."
After spending an embarrassingly long time just trying to get it running, I can finally use the thing. And oh boy, it's weird—and I'm surprised it even works! I thought it would need a tech-priest or something... sigh.
Anyway, after figuring out this internet thing, I searched for random stuff like "how to make a bomb" or "is it legal to eat humans?" along with things about making weapons. These things aren't monitored, right? I hope not...
Just like that, I did literally nothing all day! I can't even remember the last time I had this much free time. Back when I was a Guardsman, I didn't even have time to take a shit! But now? I'm completely free... I should spend my time making weapons and learning about them. Lucky for me, the former owner of this laptop left behind some interesting books on engineering. But for now, let's focus on what I need to do tonight.
At 2 AM, I left my place and headed back to the slums. I'm dressed head to toe in black, with a mask covering my mouth and nose—a skeleton pattern on it, of course.
Finding a gang around here isn't hard; they look like they'd slit your throat if you got too close. Lucky for me, tonight there are only three of them, sitting around a fire in an abandoned house. This is going to be easy.
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"Hey, did you hear about Div?" asked Homan, a bald, well-built man, turning to his three friends as they sat around their little campfire.
"Div? What the fuck are you talking about?" Mohammed, a guy in his twenties, replied, pausing after inhaling a hit of opium and looking at Homan, waiting for him to continue.
"I'm talking about that killer making a mess in the city. Boss literally told everyone about it in the gang... wait, don't tell me—" Homan started to say, looking at Mohammed suspiciously.
"N-no, no, no, I'd never get high at one of those meetings! Never, man, don't even worry about it..." Mohammed stammered with a nervous grin. "Anyway, just tell me about this Div guy. And why the fuck 'Div'? Couldn't they come up with a better nickname for a killer?"
"We call him Div because he's literally eating his victims," Ali, a man in his 30s, says. "And stop inhaling that shit," he added, his voice sounding annoyed.
"Sorry, dude," Mohammed mumbled, not out of fear, but more out of respect—and embarrassment. "And what about that meeting?"
"Our people in the police found out about this killer, so the boss doesn't want this getting out. It could jeopardize our people on the inside. Got it?" Homan said, waiting until Mohammed nodded. "Good. As for the meeting, in simple terms, we're going to kill this Div."
"And why should we—" Mohammed began to ask, but Ali cut him off.
"Because of Death Watch."
The mood changed instantly. The air was thick with silence.
"T-the Death Watch? N-no way..." Mohammed said, becoming more anxious by the second. He quickly reached for his opium again.
"We need to take out Div before Death Watch gets here and purges us," Ali said grimly.
Everyone wore a similar grim expression at the mention of Death Watch.
Death Watch: an elite unit under the Iranian government, tasked with purging anything that threatens them. And by "anything," they mean anything—from petty thieves to corrupt politicians. They can execute anyone on the spot with no consequences.
Not much is known about them publicly, but it's said they are enhanced super-soldiers, capable of destroying buildings with a single punch. Some say they even have powerful quirks—most of them with two quirks, and their leader with three—but none of this has ever been confirmed.
The idea that Death Watch might be deployed in Tehran was enough to make life harder for everyone, and could mean the end for many gangs and drug-dealing operations.
"Since we haven't had a serial killer since the 2000s, this Div is an insult to the government. They want a clean record, and they're definitely sending Death Watch, sooner or later," Ali says, lost in thought. Homan stayed silent while Mohammed continued puffing on his opium, trying to calm his nerves.