Chapter 34

“No!” I cried out as I looked over at Lydia.

She wasn’t moving. Worse still, the monster was still flailing around. It appeared to be blinded, but it did know the direction that it had thrown Lydia. Walking towards her, it lifted its sword. If it swung it down, it would definitely kill her. If Lydia died, my chances of getting out of this dungeon shrank considerably. Gritting my teeth, I set my job to Hero.

Using the Switch Position skill, my body switched with Lydia’s. In an instant, she was safely about ten feet away, and I was at the feet of a hulking giant lifting its sword. I pulled out the second sword from my backpack. Although it wasn’t useful to Lydia, I had kept it just in case. At the very least, selling it would bring me some extra money and help level my Merchant job.

Now, it was the only weapon I had. I slammed the sword into its gut with all of my strength and then jumped between its legs. The monster roared, the sword slamming down and causing the ground to shake a bit. I turned around, ready to attack the monster again. However, a moment later, its body fell apart with loud clanking sounds. The pile of metal began to melt away. In a short period of time, Lydia’s weapon was the only thing left. It had been embedded in its face the whole time. Perhaps it had been causing continuous damage.

{Hero had increased to level 3.}

{You have unlocked the Hero skill: Party Status Up.}

{Hero has increased to level 4.}

{You have unlocked the Hero skill: Give Life.}

With the immediate threat resolved, I ran over to Lydia. I instantly cast Weak Heal on her, but the effect barely touched her. Weak Heal was too weak to deal with the level of damage she had received. It was clear that was the case. Although there was nothing like HP in the world, I felt like she had some kind of status misalignment and unless I fixed it, she would certainly die. That’s when my eyes fell on Give Life.

It appeared that in this world, job balance wasn’t a thing. When you got skills, you got skills specifically designed around doing the job you were given. As a White Mage, I concentrated on healing and defeating undead. Those were my skills. As for Hero, what is a hero? One might think it’d be overpowered super spells that could blow away your enemies, but when one really thought about what a hero was… a hero was someone who gave of themselves for the greater good.

I could swap my location with a party member to take a hit for them. I could return home in a hurry to protect the city. Now… I could give my own life in order to save hers. If I had thought that Give Life would mean all of it, I might have hesitated, but I knew that without this girl, I wouldn’t be able to get out of this dungeon. I immediately cast the spell.

I felt myself growing weaker as I cast it. It went much different than my other spells. Most of them had a single-use. I’d heal, it’d heal a bit, and then I’d need to heal again. Give life was a continuous spell. I had to continue to feed it mana, and my life force, and I felt it slowly draining away from me. I was so focused on healing her, I hadn’t even noticed when the wound looked almost closed and her eyes fluttered open.

It took Lydia grabbing my hands and physically stopping me for my eyes to snap out of it. At that point, I started slipping into unconsciousness.

‘M-master…” I could see her crying over me as my eyes closed shut.