Roy and max were unloading the supplies, their carriage was of no use to them. Instead, they loaded everything on the back of the horses. Dave was silent after the enemy had retreated, a lot of things were going through his mind.
Were they going to leave everyone behind like this? Shouldn't they try to save others? What would happen to the people of the town? What would happen to the kids and to... Emily?
A lot of things going through his mind, if not for Conan and his other escorts. He would have already made up his mind out of anger to fight back. They held him back to protect him, and Conan was keeping an eye on him so that Dave doesn't do something stupid.
' I should...save my life and let others die?' He questioned himself on his decision. These people that he wanted to save were just strangers to him, if he goes to fight them then that would mean risking his life. Yet he wasn't that selfish,
" Mr. Jin, we are ready to leave," Conan informed.
" Conan, I want to save them," Dave spoke in a weak tone of voice.
" Don't be a fool, we were barely been able to survive. There are mages among these people, we can not fight against them!" Conan spoke loudly.
" You can leave me behind, I want to fight, I don't want to run away," Dave spoke as he gathered the courage to look at Conan, who had a very angry face at the moment. His body was larger than normal because of his skill and his appearance made him look like a humanoid monster.
Seeing that the [strong body] skill was also a strengthening skill and it resulted in changing Conan's appearance into something like this. Dave wondered how will the [Mark Of Death] will affect his physique because it was supposed to be a permanent change.
" You are..." Conan tried to say something again.
" I am not a fool Conan, I don't want to leave these people behind." He spoke.
*****
Dave didn't change his statement no matter how much the three of them told him. In the end, Conan decided to let Dave do as he wished.
He told him that his party would be waiting outside of the town for him to come, for a few days only. They were not going to risk their life by participating with him in a suicide mission.
Dave agreed and headed toward the center of the town where he had last seen those kids. Conan and the others just watch him go and didn't move.
" I think we should go and help him...at the very least we can pull him out if he finds himself in trouble," Max spoke.
Conan turned toward him and looked down with a serious face.
" Max, One's luck rarely gives one opportunity to run away from death. We have already got this opportunity, now, it would be foolish to try your luck once again." Conan answered, " No matter how kind Mr. Jin was, he had just made a wrong decision unless he is hiding something that we don't know."
Conan replied to Max, he doubted that Dave would return alive and slowly walked towards the exit of the town. The other two can only follow the orders of their leader so they too were not going to let themselves get involved in this matter any further than this.
*****
Jin stood in a small alleyway alone, there was no sign of any human or any other living being around him. He quickly opened his status window and opened the skill tab to look at the [ Mark Of Death] skill. He was checking what things would change when he activates this skill in the description.
Only his physical stats would change depending on the death energy used by him. Now that he had made a decision, it was time for him to activate this skill.
" Activated [ Mark Of Death]" After saying that several notifications were popping out in the system window.
=====
[ The Death Energy will spread and sync in your body]
[ Progress - 5%]
=====
Dave looked at these notifications that appeared after the skill was activated. It felt like something was interrupting the blood flow in his veins, as expected it was painful but what he didn't expect was that it will almost be the same experience as dying because of poison.
The energy was mixing in his blood and strengthened his blood vessels first. Then they spread into his flesh evenly, and the hair on his head stood up like he was being electrified. His entire body felt like it was melting. His nails cracked and blood came out of his eyes, the entire frame of bones in his body was expanding. They thicken causing the muscles to stretch, the pain increased just when he thought that he would be able to endure the rest of the process. However, throughout the process, Dave didn't scream, he didn't want someone to come and kill him while he was going through this. Since it was just 11 units of energy, the progress was fast, Dave kept his eye on the progress bar, waiting for every 1 percent to finish.
=====
[ Progress- 99%]
=====
The pain started to subside as the progress finally reached 99 and then 100%. Finally, Dave was able to breathe freely, his eyes were filled with tears and his lips were bleeding badly because he bit them to prevent himself from screaming.
" Stats, Show me the stats!" He spoke in an impatient tone. It appears that his body shape didn't change as much as it did with Conan when he used his strengthening skill.
=====
[ Strength - 1→4]
[ Speed - 1→4]
[ Defence - 1→ 4]
[ Endurance - 2→4]
=====
One unit of death energy was exchanged for boosting 1 unit of each stat. He had 11 units of death energy. His strength, speed, and defence increased by 3 while his endurance increased by 2. Completely balanced growth of his stats, Dave was impressed by this skill. However, he wondered if he alone would be enough.
' I need to kill more to become stronger for this fight.' He thought.