Chapter 003: A Little Priest in Another World
“Lia, is the wild boar dead?”
Your sister’s the wild boar, you’re the wild boar, your whole damn family are wild boars!
Chen Ran turned, annoyed, to look at the young man in standard light swordsman armor walking over. The guy was holding a greatsword and looked rather handsome. Alongside him were a young male mage holding a staff, a middle-aged shield warrior in heavy armor, and a spear warrior in medium armor. Combined with the crossbow-wielding girl, it was a very standard adventurer party setup.
It was the somewhat effeminate male mage who finally said something human: “It’s actually a person…”
Ignoring the urge to curse, Chen Ran had to force a smile, swallow his anger, and maintain his harmless expression. “Um, heroes, this humble one has unfortunately gotten lost in the jungle. I was wondering if you could take me with you out of this forest. I would be eternally grateful and will surely repay you handsomely in the future!”
When you’re under someone else’s roof, you have to bow your head. Chen Ran adopted an extremely humble posture. He had to get out of this forest first; he could worry about revenge after he hit level 100.
The effeminate-looking mage in their party sized Chen Ran up and said, “Lia, I think this kid’s origins are suspicious. Anyone who can cross this jungle alone must have some skill. He might be a thief who’ll backstab us while we’re resting. Besides, how could someone who walked into the forest not know how to walk out?”
The mage’s reasoning was sound, and the others nodded in agreement. The middle-aged shield warrior also stepped forward, stroking his chin in thought. “If it’s really as he says, and he’s just an ordinary guy with no skills, then we’re heading deep into the Magical Beast Forest. Bringing a burden along might endanger the entire team.”
It was clear that the men in the group respected the girl’s opinion, especially the mage and the swordsman, whose words were always laced with an attempt to please the girl named Lia.
Girls were soft-hearted, after all, but she was still concerned for the team’s safety. She lowered her head and hesitated for a moment, then looked Chen Ran over again. “Give us something to prove your identity, and maybe we’ll consider taking you along. If you’re really as useless as you look, we absolutely won’t take you. It’s very dangerous inside, and I won’t joke with my teammates’ lives.”
“I’m a priest. I know Heal. If any of you get hurt, I can treat you. I guarantee not even a scar will be left,” Chen Ran explained hurriedly, putting on a pitiful expression to gain sympathy points. “You can’t just watch a good person who saves lives get trapped forever in this damned forest full of magical beasts, can you?”
“You’re a priest?”
Hearing Chen Ran’s answer, the girl and her teammates all looked surprised. On their continent of Casillia, priests were a sacred profession. They never studied offensive skills, possessing only their piety to the gods and the ability to heal the wounded. It was said that many high-end adventurer parties would include a priest to ensure their teammates’ safety.
At this, the group’s expressions toward Chen Ran became a bit more serious. The mage frowned. “Are you really a priest?”
Chen Ran observed their faces and thought to himself, Could it be that the useless priest class from the game is so respected in this other world?
At that thought, he couldn’t help but straighten his posture, instantly gaining the air of a holy charlatan. He then cast a Heal on the shield warrior, who had several minor cuts and scrapes on his body.
A white light flashed over the shield warrior. The few minor scratches on his hand visibly healed, his skin returning to its smooth, unblemished state.
The shield warrior said in astonishment, “He really is a priest…”
After Chen Ran’s demonstration, the group’s attitude toward him finally improved. Even the pretty girl named Lia couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief. She said to her teammates, “Since he’s a priest, and his Heal seems very practiced, it looks like he’s helped a lot of people. We should help him out.”
“Thank you so much,” Chen Ran said, bowing repeatedly when he saw they weren’t going to refuse him. The thought of being able to leave this damned forest, which was full of nothing but trees and high-level magical beasts, made him incredibly excited.
As for his proficiency with Heal, he had been a priest for so long that this signature skill was his specialty. But as for being a good person, he was ashamed to admit it. In his home country, a magical land where helping an old lady cross the street was considered meddlesome, only the shameless could live longer. The “good person card” wasn’t so easy to receive. It was because he hadn’t understood this point back then that he had remained single from college until now…
Speaking of which, in this pure, natural, and unpolluted other world, he wondered what the girls were like. Were they pretty enough? If they were all like this girl Lia, it would be perfect.
While lost in his fantasies, Chen Ran, now in another world, had finally begun his true adventure.
The jungle Chen Ran was in was a rather well-known magical beast forest.
In the party’s lineup, besides the crossbow user Lia, the effeminate mage was named Jakedo, the swordsman was Raul, the shield warrior was Tyris, and the spear warrior was George.
After a brief period of observation and conversation, Chen Ran learned that this was a temporarily recruited team. The organizer was Lia, and their goal was to hunt high-level magical beasts deep in the forest—at least, that was the objective of the two middle-aged warriors, Tyris and George. However, from Lia’s reactions, she didn’t seem particularly interested in the valuable magical beast cores they were hunting. She just wanted to head deeper into the jungle. As for the mage Jakedo and the swordsman Raul, these two pretty boys clearly weren’t short on money. Judging by how attentive they were to Lia, they were likely her pursuers.
Chen Ran maintained a detached status. He just wanted to get out of the forest and had no interest in the spoils of their hunt. He only hoped this group would be satisfied soon and retreat.
Of course, killing monsters that were much higher level than him along the way was a pretty awesome experience.
When they killed the first magical beast, Chen Ran finally understood the leveling mechanism in this world. Whenever a monster was killed, he didn’t receive experience points, but rather its freshly departed life energy. That life energy, which looked like blood essence and was visible only to him, would flow into his body, strengthening him slightly. When he reached a certain bottleneck, a qualitative change would occur from the quantitative accumulation—in other words, leveling up. The principle was more or less the same.
With Chen Ran’s healing to back them up, the party members fought more freely, and their collection of spoils became much more efficient than usual. This world didn’t have the party system from the game, so all the blood essence energy from the slain magical beasts flowed into Chen Ran. In this six-person team, Chen Ran seemed to be doing the most thankless job, but watching the experience bar on his character stats shoot up, he was ecstatic. He even started to complain that the monster density wasn’t as high as in the game, where they appeared in large packs. They actually had to spend time looking for them. Plus, the mage in the team didn’t know any area-of-effect magic, which made grinding incredibly inefficient.
