Arrival

"I'll take care of this for you…" Kyle muttered as he helped himself take the necklace.

The necklace looks simple with only a rough black thread, perhaps it was made of a few strands of nylon, but its pendant was quite interesting. It is a creamy pearl that wasn't even a perfect sphere and was tied clumsily on the black thread.

Nevertheless, it is still dimly glowing in the dark, which has helped him quite a lot.

He inspected it for a while, but he couldn't tell the reason why it was glowing. He decided to just wear it on himself.

It felt refreshing to him… It also feels like he could see better in the darkness. It is a magical experience…

'The system didn't get triggered… Is it because it's not a corpse or there are not enough mystical properties on this?' Kyle thought for a moment.

After not getting any results in his inspection, he decided to check his attributes to confirm the improvements in his body.

[ Name: Kyle Marshall ]

[ Attributes: Strength 0.68, Agility 0.94, Intelligence 0.89 (+1), Vitality 0.52 ]

[ Available Energy: 110 ]

"The improvement wasn't much… But what's with this plus one?" Kyle muttered after seeing the addition in his intelligence attribute.

Of the 22 corpses, fourteen of them gave him Intelligence Attributes. Three of them gave Agility, and the last five provided him with Strength attributes.

All of them were only 0.01 points except for the last one, which gave him 0.05 points.

Kyle pondered momentarily before removing his necklace and placing it on the floor.

As expected, the refreshing sensation disappeared together with the +1 points in his intelligence.

With this experiment, he confirmed that the necklace he's wearing is a mystical tool.

'Even this guy didn't survive drinking that potion? What the heck is that potion anyway? Why is it so deadly?' Kyle frowned after recalling that painful experience.

Unfortunately, aside from the attributes, he can't tell anything else that has changed inside his body.

Gurg… Gurg…

Suddenly, his stomach rumbled as he hadn't eaten yet… The last decent food he had eaten was the boiled sweet potato he bought at the market. It was delicious when they were freshly boiled and he can't help but swallow his saliva after recalling it.

Then, the next things he ate while running from the robbers were leaves and moss. He found several mushrooms at that time, but since he had zero knowledge about them, he didn't dare to eat them as it might cost him his life. He was lucky at that time that it was raining, so he was able to drink plenty of water at the very least.

Kyle gritted his teeth as he decided to check all the belongings of the corpses around him.

"Please, excuse me…"

After several minutes, he noticed that all of them were missing their applicant's token, so Kyle was able to guess that it was all taken by Lesley.

He even found several zen notes and coins. He didn't count them yet, but it should be more than a thousand zen.

What's even more important is the food he found… He got a couple of hard and already bitten granola bars in one of the pockets of the dead.

It was difficult to eat, but it at least put something in his stomach. He can't complain right now… After a few bites, he adjusted his breath and covered himself with more jackets.

This room, or perhaps the mortuary, was really cold. Even with his increase in strength, it didn't help at all.

He tried to conserve his energy as much as possible since once they landed, someone would certainly open the door, and he would be discovered. He had no idea what was going to happen to him, but he knew that he needed energy for that.

He looked at the tightly sealed iron door before looking at the entire room with the help of the dimly glowing necklace.

He confirmed that aside from the tiny ventilators in the ceiling, there was nothing he could do in the room that could help him see the situation outside.

He remained in his position for several hours until he fell asleep… The moment he woke up, he had no idea how much time had passed.

Without anything to do, he fell asleep once more, and the moment he woke up again, he was already feeling warm.

'It's warm... What happened?'

He wasn't able to immediately open his eyes since everything was bright… He guessed that while he was sleeping, he arrived at the destination of the airship and was now being transported somewhere.

He adjusted his body to a more comfortable position before he slowly opened his eyes. It was already morning, and he realized that he was being moved using a cart together in a pile of dead bodies.

There were 7 or 8 bodies in each of the three carts.

'Did they not notice that I have several coats covering my body and I was breathing before they carried me out? What the--?'

Kyle's eyes widened as he realized that the one pulling the cart behind him appeared like a zombie. No, it appears like a human that was patched together. There were stitches everywhere, and the color of the skin differed in every other patch.

Suddenly, their eyes met.

Kyle held his breath and didn't make a sound. He felt truly frightened and unsure of what to do in front of this abomination.

'Don't eat me…' Kyle thought, but he realized that the being had a stitched mouth.

It means that they won't likely bite him.

After a few seconds that felt like an eternity, Kyle realized that the being was no longer looking at him.

The abomination continued working like he didn't see Kyle moving.

Kyle heaved a sigh of relief as he looked at the being once more.

'I know that there are magical things in this world… However, I didn't expect it to be like this. It looks disgusting. No wonder Dark Arts aren't welcome in society.'