Chapter 1
I had determined that healing magicians are only able to heal. I had admitted that they are an existence that can't do anything by themself. They cannot fight unless they rely on someone, and because they are that kind of existence, they are exploited by others. Being exploited repeatedly, I have come to this point, and by the time I realized my mistake, it was too late. My life was over. That's why I'll start over. I can't let it be known that I've recovered my ego, so I continued to act dim-witted; all in order to win at the very end. (TL Note: You probably don't understand what the h.e.l.l this guy is going on about, but don't worry, you'll find out as you read.)
In the farthest lands, there is a desolate world, only knowing the colour black. In that place, we were tasked with subjugating the demon king; the enemy of mankind and the strongest evil existence known to man. It had the shape of a girl with silver hair and eyes the colour of blood. She wore a black suggestive dress, with her jet black, fallen angel wings fluttering in the sky.
"You d.a.m.n humans! Are you trying to take not just the land of death, but even our last resting place!?" (Demon King)
Her breath was rough, and on her white skin, there were countless scars pouring out blood. On the other hand, there was the hope of mankind; the strongest party filled with the best heroes in the world.
The sword hero, Blade. He is a blond haired handsome man with a lean body. His weapon is the sword decorated with jewels, the divine sword Ragnarock.
The gun hero, Brett. He is a big man with brown hair and black eyes who converts magic power into bullets and shoots them with his gun. His weapon is the silver cannon, the divine gun Taslam
The magic hero, Flare. She is a beautiful girl with long pink hair and pink eyes. As well as being a hero, she is also a princess and her weapon is a wand made from the world tree, the divine Banargand.
And finally, there's me; the healing hero, Keare. I'm the only one in the hero's party who doesn't have any equipment because I only use my bare hands.
"Brett, keep shooting at the demon king and make sure it doesn't have any time to rest, and I'll charge up a strong magic spell during that time." (Flare)
"Yup, just leave it to me." (Brett)
Without stopping, the gun hero Brett continues to shoot magic bullets from his divine gun Taslam. A hero's firepower is equal to rank 5 magic, the limit of what humans can use, and on top of that, rapid-fire is possible. Each and every bullet he shoots goes in a different course that he picks, making the demon king click her tongue in annoyance. Even though she flaps and tries to avoid the bullets, they change direction to block off her escape route, hitting her in the end. Taking advantage of the situation, the magic hero Flare starts chanting and increasing her magic power.
"Thanks for waiting, Rank 7 magic, Mjolnir." (Flare)
The magic hero Flare shot her special magic, and a magic circle with a diameter of a few metres, comprised of 5 layers appeared. Rank 7 Magic, Mjolnir is a magic that is two ranks above the limit of what normal humans can use, and is limited to heroes only. From the sky, lightning falls straight down onto the ground. The extremely high-voltage plasma that continuously dropped seemed like a pillar of light coming down from the sky. Seeing this, the demon king completely gives up on evading and puts her all into maintaining the barrier that is receiving it.
"Blade, I can ask you for the finis.h.i.+ng attack right?" (Flare?)
"Leave it to me, the divine sword Ragnarock has been filled up with light. I will be the one to kill it!" (Blade)
After hearing Flare's words, Blade starts running towards the demon king. The divine sword Ragnarock gleams in a white light after converting his sacred intentions into power. (TL Note: Uhh… what? Sorry I don't really understand what it means by intentions and it's confusing) Blade believed that the demon king who is using all of her power in maintaining the barrier against Mjolnir wouldn’t be able to do anything against him, and would simply get bisected by his sword. However… the demon king’s expression becomes grim and she opens her mouth.
"Don't underestimate me!!" (Demon King)
After saying this, the demon king’s wings spread, dropping feathers from her wings. Then, each and every feather turned into a fallen angel, swarming the area. All the fallen angels started attacking the sword hero, and the gun hero immediately starts shooting them to a.s.sist him. However, as expected of the copies of the demon king, they repeatedly avoid the bullets, and even if they do hit, they don't go down in one hit. The sword hero desperately tries to shake off the fallen angels, but each time he uses his sword, its s.h.i.+ne loses colour, until finally, his sword got stuck in one of the fallen angels. At that moment, he got slashed at from all sides and while shedding blood, he decided to retreat. And it wasn't just that, the demon king began mixing the Mjolnir with black light, mixing in her own magic to directly take control of it.
"Humanity, this is the power of the demon king!!" (Demon King)
The lightning from the Mjolnir spell turns completely black and then goes back up into the sky, once again falling down. However, this time, it was aimed at the magic hero and gun hero. The demon king hadn't gotten rid of the magic, but instead, took it.
"Kyaaaaaa" (Flare)
"Guaaaaaa" (Brett)
Flare, who has high magical resistance is in a severe condition and Brett was burned to death. Even though we were just one step away from defeating the demon king, the demon king counter attacked and the hero party was put in a catastrophic situation. The only one with no injuries is me, the hero of healing.
"Oi! You dullard, hurry up and heal us. I've already used up my elixir and since you can only heal, just hurry up and do it!!" (Blade)
The hero of the sword is looking at me and screaming, but I ignore it. The hero of the sword has anger written all over his face and screamed at me once again.
"Don't ignore me, I only let you live to heal us." (Blade)
Even though we are both heroes, the hero of the sword was always looking down at me, but there is nothing I can do about it. To begin with, the heroes are strong, they hardly ever need to be healed. And on top of that, there is a valuable item called elixir that can heal anything except for missing parts. Although it is a very valuable and rare item, because it's for the hero's party, it has been collected from all around the world to be given as tribute to the hero's party. The healing hero can only use healing magic, so as long as they have an elixir, they don't even need me. However, I'm there as a reserve so that if they ever run out of elixir, they can turn to me.
"Oi, are you even listening you trash? Did your brain become nothing after drinking too much medicine!?" (Blade)
Hearing the word medicine, I can't help but laugh at myself; yes, I was a severe drug addict. Healing magic is a type of magic that returns the person to a normal
Therefore, this magic makes the user experience all of what the other person's body has gone through in one second, making the user be able to understand what the other person has gone through. Pain that goes beyond what you can imagine, and the fear of someone else's pain flooding in to you. No one normal would usually be able to withstand it. To say the truth, I really did not want to use this power and once ran away to not use it.
However, I eventually got caught, and was drugged, to lose the feelings of pain or fear. After that, I got addicted and used healing magic happily so that I could get the drugs. My ego was broken and I had become a farm animal like being. The thing is, healing magicians are not able to heal themselves, and no one cared even after I was breaking, forgetting who I even was, becoming unable to realize that I was breaking. I was just another person who had power that they could take advantage of.
"Who would heal someone like you. Go die you sc.u.m." (Keare)
"You… did your ego return?" (Blade)
The sword hero raised a shout of surprise after saying that. But it was an obvious reply, because although I have been with this guy for 3 years, when I first met him, I was already broken. At that time, I was like a doll that simply followed all orders by everyone else. However, two months ago, I finally got the skill to resist against drugs and was able to become conscious of myself again. On top of that, I realized that my proficiency in healing magic had gone up enough to the point where I can heal myself.
While constantly healing my drugged and broken body, I acted dim-witted so that no one would realize my senses had recovered and continued to sharpen my secret weapon. Today, for just this day, I will run straight to the demon king and kill her. If I can beat here, then I can get 'that'.
"Fool, you have no means of attacking it! Do you have a death wish?" (Blade)
While ignoring the hero of the swords rebuke, I ran straight towards the demon king. Multiple fallen angels come heading my way, but there is no need to fear.
"Slow" (Keare)
While dodging the fallen angel's attacks by a paper-thin difference, I run past them. What made that possible was purely because I used martial arts and ran past them with the most efficient method. As a healing magician, I have experienced many people's lives and experiences, letting me recreate what they could use. And within the countless amounts of patients I have healed, martial artist masters have also been some of my patients. The side effects of healing magic aren't just side effects, but also experiences that can give me power. My movements probably surpa.s.s that of the hero of the sword; this is what I call…
"Imitation Heal" (Keare)
When I had come back to my senses, I truly was surprised; after all, there was so much knowledge of different skills from different people inside of me. Many were fighting experts, many were wise, and all of their knowledge was inside of me. After seeing how fast I was, the fallen angels started ama.s.sing black light. Strengthening magic enchant. The fallen angels speed jump up and they all come at me at the same time from all four sides. Seeing that, I clicked my tongue. Even if I took the best actions, as I am right now, I am unable to avoid getting hit. No matter what I do, it is physically impossible. In this current situation, I've basically been checkmated. Therefore, I have no choice but to raise my power.
"Transformation Heal" (Keare)
Normally, healing magic reverts your appearance to what your old body looked like, but I figured that you could probably change it into something that was not your old body and something different.
I used this transformation heal to rewrite my body into one that was suitable for combat. (TL Note: Yeah go kill them Kotarou!) And with this, although it was impossible for me before, with my new body I avoid the attack and I get a power close to the demon king.
"As expected of the demon kings familiars, they are quite persistent." (Keare)
Even with all this dodging, it seems that the fallen angels still aren't giving up. And then, the fallen angels all gather up in one place and combine into one. Although it hasn't gotten any bigger, it has become extremely dense and you can just feel the overwhelming pressure from it.
The fallen angel starts rising up in the air, and then it started to dive down towards me while throwing a fist. However, there is no need to fear. I grabbed the arm that the fallen angel threw at me and…
"Deterioration Heal" (Keare)
If healing magic can revert you back to a normal state, then I figured that breaking them is also possible.
Living existences are terribly fragile, all you have to do is just detach the spinal cord and brain and they'll break. And thus, to break them I use deterioration heal. But the scary part about healing magic, is that it can ignore every and any resistance which means that it is impossible to do anything about it.
Living things instinctively accept healing magic, which automatically blows off all resistances that they have. As I watch the fallen angel crumble, I see the demon king in the background look at me and shout out in fear.
"Who the h.e.l.l are you?" (Demon King)
"I am the hero of healing, Keare; just an ordinary healing magician. (Keare)
Healing magic is not just limited to healing people. The moment I realized that, my surrounding has suddenly gotten brighter.
The ability to use something from the knowledge of someone I've healed, Imitation Heal.
The ability to change my physical form to what I desire, Transformation Heal.
The ability to cause instant death to something, Deterioration Heal.
If I had these powers 4 years ago, would my life be quite different from the one I lived till today? To make this delusion come true, is my purpose in coming here. The demon king starts shooting countless jet black bullets at me, but to no avail.
Using the knowledge that I have gained from healing the wise men, I read through that magic, I see the power, speed, trajectory and everything. Then I use my knowledge of the martial artists combined with my strengthened body so that I can calculate where I should move to avoid the hits.
As long as I can touch her, it’s my win. Moving through the gaps of the magic bullets, I come close to the demon king and touch her. Now all that is left is to use my magic.
"I see, so this is where my life ends huh. I feel frustrated that I couldn't protect anything." (Demon King)
The demon king starts having a crying yet smiling expression. When I look at that face, I feel an extreme sense of guilt, but I can't stop, I have an objective that I need to complete.
"Deterioration Heal" (Keare)
Even the demon king is helpless against my deterioration heal. She slowly starts breaking and crumbling down.
"Don't worry about it; it'll start again soon anyways." (Keare)
While I mutter that, I grab the heart of the demon king out from her body, a crimson red gem. This is exactly what I'm looking for.
"Good work, hero of healing Keare. My father, no, the king will surely be pleased with you too. *Cough* By the way, that gem seems to be a very dangerous gem with a terrible curse inflicted on it, so I think it would be better if I, the hero of magic held on to it." (Flare)
After recovering her injuries from the black lightning with an elixir, the hero of magic, Flare is talking to me while smiling. I feel nauseous. She has never smiled while talking to me, and always looked at me like I was some filthy stray dog.
When I had awoken to my powers as a hero, she was the ringleader of the group that dragged me out of my village, caught me while I was fleeing, drugged me and took away my ego.
"The philosopher's stone." (Keare)
As soon as I said that name, Flare's face cramped up.
"This is why you guys wanted to kill the demon king right? To kill the demon king and gain this, you decided to exterminate the demon race. A magic item that explosively increases any magic spells; the greatest magic item in existence. As long as you have this, you could even use forbidden magic." (Keare)
The reason why I know all of this is because I once healed Flare, in other words, I know exactly what she thought and wanted.
Originally, there are two types of monsters. The monsters that were controlled by the demon race and the demon king, and the monsters that naturally appear who are all violent. They all worked well together with the demon race and the demon king.
However, 10 years ago, the kingdom suddenly got attacked by strong monsters being lead by the demon race to a.s.sault it. Everyone began to think that to protect mankind, we need to eradicate the demon race. But to say the truth, such thing never happened.
To take the demon kings heart, you need money, troops and a reason to fight. The ten years they spent warring, was an unnecessary war.
"Oh, you are quite knowledgeable huh. I had no idea that such a name was placed on the demon kings heart." (Flare)
"Yeah, I am quite knowledgeable. I also know that you guys hold a dumb delusion of trying to conquer the world by using forbidden magic with this." (Keare)
For just a moment, Flare's face is filled with hate towards me. But the next moment, she had the face of a softly smiling princess.
"Well, I don't quite understand what you are saying though." (Flare)
"Is that so, then I'll be using this for my own sake." (Keare)
Just for this moment, I pretended to continue being dim-witted and broken. All for the sake of outsmarting Flare at the end.
"What exactly are you going to do?" (Flare)
"Using this philosopher's stone, I'm going to use healing magic, as there is something I desperately want to fix." (Keare)
Yes, something that is broken and can't be achieved using common sense. Something that I am truly craving for, from the bottom of my heart.
"What are you planning to do!?" (Flare)
"I am going to use healing magic on this rotten world, and start over from before I met you, four years ago." (Keare)
Normally, I wouldn't be able to use a ma.s.sive scale healing magic on the world, but as long as I have the philosopher's stone, I can do it.
"Wha- It's useless; there is no way you can do that. And even if you were able to do that, your memories would all be gone so you would make the same mistake again." (Flare)
"Yeah, that might be true." (Keare)
After hearing my words, Flare has a relieved face.
"In that case, don't do such a useless thing. If you just pa.s.s over that rock, a happy life is awaiting you. The royal family will ensure that." (Flare)
After I smile at her, she reaches out her hand; her eyes saying to hand over the philosopher's stone. This idiot, there is no way I would nod to her just like that.
"Of course there is a chance that I might forget everything and this might all repeat. Normally, that would happen. However, I'll definitely make sure that won't happen; I'll never forget this pain that I have gone through." (Keare)
The despair and suffering I went through when I wasn't myself and the grief after I had recovered my senses; these feeling and memories have all been engraved deep into my soul.
I get the feeling that those emotions will never be forgotten, no matter how much time rewinds. The new me will definitely be able to find the potential in healing magic and can start over.
"Are you actually planning on doing it?" (Flare)
"See ya princess, when I start over and meet you again, I'll make sure to deprive everything from you." (Keare)
"You r.e.t.a.r.d!" (Flare)
Flare realizes that I'm serious, and points her wand at me. However, it is too slow; I've already charged my magic power till the max, now all I need to do is use it. From the philosopher's stone, dazzling red light gushes out.
"Recovery Heal" (Keare)
I used healing magic on this rotten world and it is slowly reverting to the way I want it, and as if the four years never happened, I have come back to that day. Next time, I'll do it better, I'm sure that I'll be able to pull it off; even if all my memories disappear, this pain engraved in my heart will surely be able to make me remember it all.