I’m Not a Saint, Not a Priest, Just a Healer

In the morning, when they were packing up the sleeping bags, Rubina would mysteriously hover around James.
When preparing meals, she was quick to notice and would stack the necessary dishes neatly, or collect water in a container for washing up after the meal, or receive the washed dishes and wipe them dry with a cloth.

“Well, let’s get going now.”
When Kairoc patted Rubina’s head, she nodded slightly and went to stand beside James.
Then James would deftly pick her up, swing her onto his back, and skillfully make a sling with a long cloth to secure Rubina.

“It’s going to be quite warm today.”
James smiled leisurely.
True to his words, the sunlight just beginning its journey to midday was incredibly warm.
In this northern continent, summer was short but winter came early.
Short summer, even shorter autumn, and a winter that arrives that much faster.
Winter, a season no one welcomes, but it comes early as if out of spite.

“How much further to the Grand Duchy of Capatia?”
“At this pace, if there are no problems, about three or four days.”
“We’re almost there.”
It’s scary how used to this sense of distance she’s become.
Yona inwardly sighed deeply.
To say we’re almost there when it’s still three or four days of walking, are you crazy?

“Now, Rubina. Shall we walk with big sister?”
“…Huh?”
James didn’t even wait for Yona’s response before untying the sling and letting Rubina down.
Rubina looked at James, then without saying anything, came to Yona’s side and quietly started walking.

“…Mr. James?”
“Well, if you’re going to leave her at the Capatia church orphanage, you’ll need to talk to her directly anyway. You’ll need to explain various things when you leave her, so wouldn’t it be good to get closer in the meantime?”
James showed a good-natured smile.
It wasn’t wrong, but Yona, who had just resolved last night not to get emotionally attached, looked a bit foolish.
Yona glanced down at Rubina while walking.
Next to Yona, who was tall for a woman, Rubina didn’t even reach her solar plexus. Even for a ten-year-old, this was quite small. It must be because she hadn’t eaten properly.

“Rubina.”
At Yona’s call, Rubina lifted her head to look up at Yona.
Her black eyes sparkled in the sunlight.

“…Don’t you regret it?”
She didn’t know what kind of mischief this was.
Yona wondered what she was saying even as she asked it.
“Coming with us, I mean. We’re on our way to take you to an orphanage, don’t you regret coming along?”

“…I don’t.”
“You don’t? Why? It might have been better to grow up with the village uncles. Weren’t they kind people?”
“…No. They were people who always hurt my sister.”
“Hurt her?”
This was an unexpected statement.
The villagers had said that Rubina’s sister made a living by helping with odd jobs in the village and receiving wages. That statement and what Rubina was saying now were completely different.
Yona stared at Rubina.
Rubina also looked up at Yona silently.
Golden eyes met black eyes.
Rubina’s red lips moved again.

“Every night, they came looking for my sister. The uncles. Then my sister would make pained noises.”
“What?”
What did I just hear?
It wasn’t just Yona who heard this. Alec, who was walking beside her, also heard it.

“What are you… saying?”
Yona looked at Rubina with wide eyes.
Rubina seemed uncomfortable with Yona’s gaze and lowered her eyes, fidgeting with her hands.
“It’s nothing… I’m sorry.”

“No, no. Rubina, it’s not your fault. Oh- Big sister just misheard.”

Kairoc and James, who had gone ahead, came back because Alec and Yona had suddenly stopped, with Rubina.
Kairoc, who was about to ask why they were standing there stupidly, quietly closed his mouth and stood next to Yona, sensing something odd in the atmosphere.

“No, Rubina. What did you say? What about the uncles?”
Yona knelt down on one knee to meet Rubina’s eye level.
Rubina still seemed uncomfortable with Yona’s gaze and kept her eyes lowered.

“Every night, two or three uncles would come looking for my sister. If I wasn’t asleep, they would get angry, so I pretended to sleep… But they usually came drunk, so I would wake up soon…”
“…And then?”
“If I went out asking who it was, they would get angry, so I stayed in the room. And the uncles would go into my sister’s room… and my sister would make pained noises as if she was hurting.”
“And then?”
“The next day, there would be a bit more vegetables in the breakfast.”

The four people were silent.
Only Rubina looked up at them nervously, wondering if she had said something wrong.

They tried to think of it as a common occurrence.
They tried to think that in such a small village, it was an unavoidable choice for orphaned sisters to survive.
But it didn’t work well.

“Kai-”
“No, you can’t.”
Alec grabbed Yona’s wrist as she was about to shout for Kairoc.
Yona glared at Alec, who was holding her wrist tightly.

“We’re all thinking the same thing, Yona. But we can’t do that. We’re not apostles of justice, not even heroes of justice. We don’t have that obligation. And- it’s not a rare occurrence. It’s surprisingly common.”
“You speak so easily.”
Alec calmly faced the anger burning in those golden eyes.

“We’re adventurers. Not murderers who kill ordinary people. We’re people who take requests for money and solve them.”
“But they’re criminals.”
“It’s not a crime. What’s wrong with selling one’s own body?”
“But she was a child. Just a few years older than Rubina.”
“It’s because she was a child. Because she was a child, that was the only way she could make a living. Look at that village chief, do you think any of them would have helped? She sold her body, and adults bought it. It’s dirty and disgusting, but this doesn’t just happen here, and Rubina isn’t the only one who’s experienced it.”

Yona closed her mouth.
This world was strangely lacking in the concept of human rights.
Although it’s common sense that young children should be protected, such incidents are also frequent.

“I understand, Yona. I understand. I also want to go back to that village and kill them all. I’m even thinking we shouldn’t have reduced the reward for killing the troll. But we can’t do that, Yona. If we did, we’d just be ordinary murderers.”
“……”
“And if those people hadn’t done that, Rubina… wouldn’t be alive. She would have starved to death long ago.”

Yona looked down at Rubina quietly.
Rubina was holding Yona’s left hand, staring back at her.

That night.
Yona was lucky enough to be assigned the first night watch.
With her back to a slightly raised rocky hill, in the circular campsite, Yona threw a few more logs into the campfire.

‘…It might get cold.’
Yona stood up and pulled her sleeping bag closer to the campfire.
Judging by the faint sound of breathing coming from the sleeping bag much larger than her height, Rubina had long since departed for dreamland.

Yona, who had moved the sleeping bag closer to the campfire so Rubina could sleep a little warmer, finally straightened her back and looked around.
And their eyes met.
Several pairs of yellowish eyes watching her from a distance.

Yona instinctively flattened herself to the ground.
As soon as she ducked, a crossbow bolt flew through where her head had been.
Although tremendous pain surged as the barely healed facial scar was torn open again, Yona, lying on the ground, immediately rolled to the side and screamed.

“Monsters-! Everyone wake up, wake up!”
With a rumbling sound, a cloud of dust rose.
The companions who had been in deep sleep in their sleeping bags sprang out as if they had never been asleep, quickly donning their equipment and looking around.

“Rubina, you stay here. Understand? This, you must never take it off.”
Before rushing to Alec who had stepped forward, Yona pushed Rubina into a crevice in the rocks.

Sensing the atmosphere, Rubina also nodded without a word and obediently hid as Yona instructed.
Pulling over two sleeping bags to cover Rubina’s head in case of stray arrows, Yona then ran breathlessly towards Alec.

“What the hell are those bastards?”
“Gnolls.”
Alec answered while adjusting his shield, which already had a couple of crossbow bolts stuck in it.
As Yona placed her hand on Alec’s shoulder and peered out, indeed, five or six wolf-like heads standing on two legs could be seen.
They were definitely gnolls.

While not particularly strong individually, they form groups of seven to ten, and some are mixed in who use crossbows.
Yes, if that’s the case-

“Mr. James!”
“Already gone.”
If the gnolls have crossbows which are powerful but have a lower rate of fire, we have James, the orc archer. Looking around, he was already gone, apparently having melted into the trees.

There were about six gnolls visible now.
It was unknown how many crossbow-wielding gnolls were mixed in the rear, but it would be difficult to find and kill each crossbow gnoll in this night situation, so they had to trust James.

-Thwack!
Suddenly, a crossbow bolt struck Kairoc’s shoulder.
This caused Kairoc, who was charging towards a gnoll, to flinch and stop, and instead, the targeted gnoll lunged at Kairoc, swinging its double axes.

“Hmm!”
Kairoc blocked the axes with his axe handle.
And another axe flew towards Kairoc’s waist, but a shield intervened to block it.

“Got one!”
Alec’s hammer blew away the gnoll’s lower jaw.
As Kairoc’s axe split the gnoll’s head while it was weakened, Alec quickly kicked away the gnoll’s corpse.

“Stay still. It’s going to hurt.”
Yona forcefully pulled out the crossbow bolt stuck in Kairoc’s shoulder.
Although Kairoc’s expression was unreadable, judging by the “Ugh-” sound, it must have hurt.
As soon as Yona’s hand touched the bleeding shoulder, a soft white light enveloped it.

“Not yet, not yet?”
“If you’re impatient, go to a priest, lizard.”
“You’re better than most priests.”
“You’re good with words. It’s done, go!”
As Yona pushed Kairoc’s shoulder, Kairoc gripped his axe and charged forward again.
Facing Kairoc, a gnoll with its mouth wide open, wielding a greatsword-

-Thwip!

-An arrow pierced its head, and the gnoll fell forward with its charging momentum.

James’s activities usually took place in unseen places, and this time was no different.
Unlike most archers who search for and intercept enemies from the rear, James was the type of archer who fully utilized his orcish racial characteristics to infiltrate and find the enemy.
An archer who would snipe the sniping archer in the tree from another tree across.
A shadow archer who uses the superior physical characteristics of orcs to break through the resistance until infiltration and then launch a surprise attack.

James, who performed even better in night situations like this, had killed all three crossbow gnolls while the frontline warriors killed one, and then provided support from the rear.
Thanks to this, this gnoll fight was practically all done by James alone.

“Ow, it hurts.”
“Aww, poor baby. Our baldy is hurting from just a little scratch.”
Yona mocked while healing Alec’s wound.
Rubina stood beside Yona, watching as her right hand, tightly wrapped in holy cloth, made the wounds disappear as if washed away every time it touched Alec’s injuries.

“Sister, Yona sister.”
“Yes?”
“That… how do you do it?”
“What?”
“Making the wounds… disappear…”
“Oh, you mean healing? Mr. James, come here. Let me see those scrapes from climbing trees.”
Being an archer doesn’t mean having superhuman abilities, so it’s natural to have minor scrapes and scratches from climbing trees, and Rubina quietly observed as these wounds also disappeared whenever Yona’s hand touched them.

“This is called healing. I can do this because my job is a healer.”
“Healer…? You’re a healer, sister?”
“That’s right, I’m a healer. A copper-rank healer from the Evian Adventurers’ Guild. A healer who has survived for a whole 3 years!”
Yona puffed out her chest, her nose high in the air.

“Sister, then I want to be a healer too.”
“…Huh?”