"Leah, did you get the wild boar?"
‘Your sister’s a wild boar, you are a wild boar, and your family is all wild boars!’ Jonathan screamed in his mind.
Jonathan turned his head to look at the approaching young man wearing a standard swordsman's light armor. The guy was holding a big sword in his hand, and he looked a little bit brave. And beside him was a young male mage holding a staff, a middle-aged shield warrior in heavy armor, a spear warrior in medium armor, plus the girl holding a crossbow, a very standard adventure team configuration.
It was the somewhat feminine male mage who finally said something:
"It's actually a human..."
Regardless of the urge to curse in his heart, Jonathan had to pull the corners of his mouth, forcibly endure the bad situation, and continued with the harmless smile, enough to fool humans and animals alike:
"Well, brave heroes, I accidentally got lost in the forest. You guys, can you take me out of this forest, I can't thank you enough, brother, and I will thank you again in the future!"
He was someone who needed help so he had to appear weak. He couldn’t help but bow his head towards them. Jonathan kept his posture very low. For now, he had to walk out of the forest first and then think about anything like revenge. He needed to level up and be strong fast in this unknown world.
The somewhat feminine mage in their team took a look at Jonathan and said,
"Leah, I don’t think this person has a clear soul conscious. He is all alone in this forest and lost. Looking at him, he could be a thief. He might be taking advantage of us to get out of this forest. This is suspicious.”
The mage spoke very well, and the others nodded along. The middle-aged shield warrior also stepped forward, holding his chin and pondering,
"If it is what he said, he is just like what he looks like, someone weak. He doesn’t seem like he has much ability. We don’t have time for ourselves. We need to go into the depths of the forest and do our work. If he tags along, he might instead rob us.”
It was obvious but both of the men were talking to Leah. It seemed that these men respected her opinion, especially the mage and the swordsman.
Leah was a soft-hearted person but even then she was still concerned about the safety of the party. The whole party lowered their heads as the started to discuss amongst themselves. Once finished, they looked towards Jonathan with slight hesitation before asking:
"Then tell me something to prove your identity and innocence. Then we might consider helping you out. If you’re really a thief or someone useless as you appear on the surface, then fuck you and we won’t help you out. The forest is dangerous and we can’t risk our lives.”
"I am a Priest and I can heal. If any of you is injured, I can treat your wounds," Jonathan explained hurriedly, putting on a pitiful face to increase sympathy: "Can’t you see that I am just a good person who rescues and heals wounded people but just unfortunately trapped in this damn forest.”
"Are you a Priest?"
Hearing Jonathan's answer, the girl and his teammates all looked surprised. In the continent of Casilla where they are, priests were a sacred profession. They didn’t have much-attacking power but they had piety to their gods and could heal the injured. It can be said that many high-end adventure teams will be equipped with a priest to ensure the safety of teammates.
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Hearing this, everyone looked at Jonathan's expressions and couldn't help doubting a bit. The mage frowned and said, "Are you really a priest?"
Jonathan observed the faces of everyone and wondered if the priest, the support class profession in the game was so respected in this new world.
Thinking of this, his figure couldn't help but straighten up a bit, and immediately had the temperament of a godly man. He then used his healing spell on the shield warrior who had a few light injuries on his body from some previous encounter.
A white light flashed on the shield warrior's body, and only a few small scratches on his hand were repaired at a visible speed, regaining his new tender skin.
The shield warrior said in surprise: "Really a priest..."
After Jonathan showed this, everyone's eyes on Jonathan become less hostile and more respectful. Even the beautiful girl named Leah could not help but breathe a sigh of relief and said to her teammates:
"Now that he is a Priest, and seeing how skilled he is with this healing technique, it seems that he has helped people a lot. We should help him. "
"Thank you so much." Seeing that everyone did not refuse to respond, Jonathan thanked them again and again. He was very excited when he thought of the opportunity to leave this damn forest of high-level monsters.
Speaking of being proficient in healing, he had been a priest for so long, and this was the signature skill of the priest. He had used this million of times on his teammates.
‘Only shameless people are able to survive the longest in any world. Still, it’s a surprise that Priests are so respected here. This is a good opportunity.’
Jonathan stared towards Leah as he wondered that in this new and unexplored world if everyone was as beautiful as Leah. Maybe he could break his “being single” streak that had been going on for quite some years.
Jonathan who had come from another world finally began his real adventures in the unknown world. This was his first step.
***************
The forest where Jonathan was located s a small and famous forest.
As for the rest of the team, apart from the bowman Leah, the feminine mage was called Jack, the swordsman was Raul, the shield warrior was called Tyrese, and the spear warrior was called George.
After a short observation and chat, Jonathan learned that this was a temporary team created by Leah. Their goal was to go to the forest to hunt high-level monsters. However, from Leah’s reaction, she wasn’t interested much in the precious monster cores from the monsters they hunted. She just wanted to go deep in the forest.
He also noticed how the Wizard Jack and swordsman Raul were fixated on Leah. They appeared strong in their own might and tried their best to gain her attention. It was obvious they those two wanted to woo Leah.
Jonathan maintained his identity. He just wanted to get out for now so he didn’t pay much attention to the spoils at all. He just wanted this group of people to be satisfied as quickly as possible so that they could leave the forest earlier.
Of course, he still found them cool as they hunted monsters. Maybe it was because he knew this was real life and not a game where he had seen monsters stronger than the ones in the forest that he felt it was cool. The fact that this was real life added thrill that wasn’t in a game.
When the first monster was killed, Jonathan finally understood his upgrade mechanism in this world.
Whenever someone killed a monster, what one got was not the experience but their life energy. The blood-like life energy that only he could see flowing into his body. It felt like a jar inside of him was filling up slowly and after a certain period, he would reach a bottleneck. Then he’ll need to break that bottleneck to achieve the next level.
With the recovery Jonathan offered using his healing spells, the party hunted more efficiently than usual with less fear of injury.
There wasn’t a party system in this world and the life energy of the beasts they killed was all absorbed into Jonathan’s body.
‘It’s maybe cause I am the only player in this world and they are the NPC’s who can’t benefit from life energy to grow strong?’
(Note: It’s just all exp to level up)
Jonathan didn’t care for the loot but looking at his character sheet, he could see his experience bar rushing up, filled with the life energy of the dead beasts.
He still complained in his mind as to why the monsters and beasts were not as abundant as they were in the game as they had to work to find them. The wizard in the team wasn’t capable of ranged magic so for him, everything was still inefficient compared to a game party.
He wanted more and more mobs to spawn