Compared to the people of Ursus, who constantly had to face the threats of war, famine, and death, the people in the prosperously trading, capitalistic city of Lungmen only feared one thing: not having money.
Lungmen's variety of goods and commercial services was extremely rich. As long as you had enough Lungmen Dollars in your pocket, you could enjoy convenient transportation, abundant supplies, and live a decent life in the Upper City.
However, as a mature capitalist region, Lungmen's cost of living and consumerist traps were also easily imaginable.
In short, Lungmen was an ideal paradise for those whose financial situations were operating smoothly. But for the working class and petty citizens whose savings weren't thick enough, once they fell into unemployment, stopped paying their mortgages, and went bankrupt, they had no choice but to plunge into the Lower City—a place teeming with the Infected and gangs.
It was said that the mortality rate there even exceeded the Ursus tundra.
After all, for the residents of Ursus and other parts of Lungmen, if they couldn't survive, they could at least return to their hometowns to farm or work as hired hands for landlords. No matter how miserable, they would at least have a bite to eat.
But most citizens who went bankrupt in Lungmen found it very difficult to accept the sheer drop of falling from a respectable person to a vagrant overnight.
Therefore, for the people of Lungmen, poverty was the most fatal curse of all.
And precisely because of this, this city was the Poverty Devil's favorite soil—the devil residing within Old Tree.
Old Tree was gripping a bizarrely shaped short blade, standing in a familiar living room.
The living room belonged to one of his fairly well-off neighbors. Old Tree's gaze swept over the familiar Eight Immortals table before him, and his heart vaguely recalled the scenes where he and the owner of the house, Ah Chuang, had drank and chatted happily at this very table.
A flash of reluctance crossed his face, but his feet didn't retreat even half a step.
"Old Tree... what are you doing?"
Ah Chuang held up a kitchen knife, his face full of disbelief. "I know your daughter is very sick. If you have difficulties, you can just tell me. Why resort to this?"
To protect himself in the chaotic Lungmen, Ah Chuang had practiced self-defense martial arts and armed combat for a few years.
Seeing that Old Tree didn't put down his knife, he gritted his teeth, swung the kitchen knife, and hacked towards Old Tree.
But Old Tree merely twisted his wrist slightly, and the bizarre short blade in his hand sliced right through Ah Chuang's kitchen knife, leaving a bloody gash across his chest.
Ah Chuang staggered backward, a phrase flashing through his mind: Originium Arts? At this moment, the emotions surging within his heart were not only fear but also anger and confusion.
"Old Tree, do you remember back then when we drank and cursed the profiteers and bullies on the street together? Now that you have skills, why don't you go seek revenge on those who bullied you, instead of pointing your Originium Arts at an old friend like me?" Ah Chuang roared unwillingly.
Should good people just have knives pointed at them?
"I tried..." Old Tree crouched down. The short blade pierced into Ah Chuang's neck, preventing him from making any more loud noise.
"This knife isn't an Originium Art, but a gift from a trade with a devil. Every use requires a price to be paid. The cost of robbing those rich people is too high, but robbing acquaintances is different..." Old Tree explained numbly, as various past events since he formed the contract with the devil flashed through his mind.
In the Chainsaw Man worldview, humans who contract with devils need to pay a certain price when using their abilities. Some shorten their lifespan, while others offer a part of their body to the devil.
But the Poverty Devil's conditions were very simple: all its gifts had clear price tags and could be measured in money and market value.
However, as long as the contractor used its abilities, it would be converted into debts, and they even had to settle interest.
To repay the debt, one needed to offer up their own wealth or other items of equal value to the devil.
The Poverty Devil loved forming contracts with people who had strong greed and would be driven by their debts.
Back when Old Tree was betrayed by his jewelry store robbery accomplices and fell to the brink of death, he relied on the devil's power to come back to life, killed those treacherous accomplices, and pocketed all the stolen money for himself.
At that time, Old Tree fully believed he could use this money to repay the devil's debt, cure his daughter's illness, and even occasionally perform acts of robbing the rich to help the poor while maintaining his financial balance.
However, after gaining powerful strength, the formerly honest and dutiful Old Tree could no longer willingly endure the everyday bullying and injustice.
Thus, he couldn't help but start a massive fight in a pharmacy that was hoarding goods and maliciously jacking up prices, drawing the pursuit of the Lungmen Guard Department.
Every time he stood out to cause trouble or settle a pursuit, he had to use the devil's power. Without realizing it, he spent all the previous stolen money and even incurred a massive debt.
At first, he only wanted to gather money to cure his daughter, but both his greed and his debts snowballed bigger and bigger, quickly crushing the breath out of him.
Because of this, he had begun measuring murder and crime by whether it was cost-effective:
Robbing a rich person or a bully, while yielding a bigger harvest, also required using the devil's power multiple times to deal with their bodyguards and thugs. If it attracted the attention of the Guard Department and gang bosses, the loss would far outweigh the gain.
In contrast, ransacking an acquaintance only required paying a few thousand Lungmen Dollars to exchange for a decently powerful small weapon from the devil.
The current Old Tree, under the alienation of debt and greed, had already turned into a monster who only knew how to calculate costs and profits.
Ah Chuang's pupils, gradually losing focus, looked at the wall clock: it was almost time for his son to come home from school.
"I'll tell you where the money is... I beg you, spare your nephew..." Ah Chuang was terrified that if the other party spent too much time searching for valuables, he would run into his son coming home from school.
Old Tree nodded. Following the direction Ah Chuang pointed, he began searching his old friend's house for cash and valuables with extreme efficiency.
By the time Ah Chuang took his last breath, Old Tree had almost finished packing.
At this moment, his gaze happened to fall upon Ah Chuang's robust corpse, and he asked as if possessed:
"How much is a healthy body like his worth?"
"Based on black market rates, it could probably sell for over a hundred thousand Lungmen Dollars. If the organs are a good match, it could sell for even more," a cold, evil voice echoed in Old Tree's mind.
"Then take it all to pay off the debt!"
Old Tree closed his eyes, allowing an invisible force to envelop Ah Chuang's corpse, devouring it almost entirely, leaving behind only some parts with inconsistent value.
After packing up the valuables and preparing to leave, another thought flashed through Old Tree's mind: "Ah Chuang's son is younger and has a sturdy body too. If..."
The moment this thought popped up, Old Tree remembered how, during holidays in the past, he would pick up that boy, and the child's innocent face as he asked him for candy.
"Am I even human anymore..."
Old Tree suddenly dropped to his knees, buried his hands in his hair, and broke down, weeping uncontrollably.
He didn't want to continue like this anymore; he didn't want to be driven by debt to continuously fall into depravity, didn't want to be the devil's puppet anymore.
"Is Ah Chuang's property enough to pay off the debt? If it's not enough, just eat me too and be done with it! I don't want to live like this anymore!"
"Don't overestimate yourself! How much do you think your aged and overworked body is worth? If you insist on dying to end it all, I'll have to go find your daughter to settle the debt."
The devil's voice sounded mercilessly.
Old Tree numbly stood up, ready to scout for new prey.
Under the continuously accumulating interest on his debt, even crying was on the clock.
He had already lost even the right to release his emotions through tears.
"However, I can give you an opportunity to completely turn your life around," the devil continued to whisper.
"As long as you bring me the Chainsaw Devil's heart, it will be enough to clear all the debt between us. There might even be a significant surplus, enough for you and your daughter to use for the rest of your lives."
Faced with the devil's seemingly sincere proposal, Old Tree merely sighed. These past few days, he had also been frantically asking around for the whereabouts of the "Chainsaw Killer."
However, how could a mysterious figure that even the Guard Department had no clues about be so easy to find?
Just as Old Tree was near despair, a brand-new movie poster by the roadside caught his attention.
The three blood-red words "Saw" (Chainsaw Scare) were exceptionally glaring, and the hideous puppet on the cover indicated this was a horror movie.
"Is some film producer trying to piggyback on the Chainsaw Killer's popularity?" Old Tree guessed using the mindset of a Lungmen citizen.
But the devil within him shouted excitedly, "Or it could be the real Chainsaw Devil, using the movie to amplify people's fear of him! Go see if there are any clues!"
Under the devil's instigation, Old Tree walked towards the theater indicated on the poster, preparing to gather some leads.
Judging from the discussions at the cinema entrance, the word-of-mouth for this new film was fairly excellent. Many audiences and movie fans were still discussing the terrifying scenes and details in the film with lingering fear.
"Then I'll go take a look!"
Old Tree walked towards the ticket booth, intending to investigate thoroughly. If the production team behind this movie was truly hiding the Chainsaw Devil, he would naturally overdraw his credit limit to root out his true body.
Behind Old Tree, a beautiful young woman—dressed in white with white hair, twin horns on her head, and fully tattooed arms—was looking at the crowd's enthusiasm discussing this movie with considerable dissatisfaction.
"Why is such a vulgar horror movie so massively popular, while my monster masterpiece goes completely unnoticed? Should I go investigate the tastes of mortals?"
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