ch. 11 Taking charge

John healed Bryan and Janel for an hour and a half until they could return to the battlefield. The healing had taken quite a long time due to the severity of the wound.

"Even though our rating will go down, should we just give up my on the run?" Bryan carefully asked the group, trying to gauge the their reactions

.

"What should we do…" Janel said absentmindedly. John looked at Janel, the girl seemed to be earnestly considering giving up the dungeon run along side Bryan.

John lightly bit his lip at this realization. He didn't mind the fact that his rating would be lowered, it's the fact that he knew this party could clear the dungeon under the right leadership.

"How about I take the lead." John tried to sound as non arrogant as possible.

"But wouldn't a Healer taking the lead be a bit dangerous…" Bryan attempted to come up with a reason to dissuade him.

"Do I look like a normal Healer?" Bryan smiled at that. John was right, he possessed a wide range of powerful skills that no normal hunter had.

"Plus, you two don't want your rating to drop, right? It would look terrible for your guild" John said persuasively.

"Your right, it woukd be really tough to raise your rating back up, causing our guild to take a hit" Janel said in slight worry.

"I'll lead the party and we can beat this dungeon, but only if you two have my back on this" John said confidently.

John's expression brimmed with confidence, though both Bryan and Janel felt extremely anxious. They looked at John with both fear and envy.

He not only had the incredible physical abilities on the level of Combat Hunters, but also a high healing power. With him, they thought it might be possible.

"But it's not free, I want a higher cut." said John.

Although he didn't mind the way things are playing out, he did come here originally just to be a healer and not a combat healer who is leading the party.

"We'll add 17% to your 33%." The party leader Janel promised.

Losing 8.5% each was preferable then tanking their rating and if they truly do beat the dungeon, then she and Bryan will make a lot more money to offset the lower percentage.

"Bryan your going to have to protect Janel." John said, issuing his first order.

"Please leave it to me," Bryan patted his chest as he stood infront of Janel with his shield held up

John knew that despite his past lifes memories making him much stronger, he couldn't just willy billy defeat a B ranked Dungeon without a plan or back up.

He wanted the support of Janel's magic to get through the B-rank dungeon safely, instead of trying to solo it and possibly dying.

"We won't need Detection Magic, or light spell, please focus onky on offensive spells." Saying this, John toggled his overcoat light on, and launched his drone into the air.

"I'll put my faith in you, John." she replied.

John had already proven himself in the dungeon, so Janel followed his instructs.

Both Janel and Bryan had come to trust John during the course of the dungeon run, see as how he save them during the ghoul fight and then healed them back to perfect health after it.

"They're coming! Fourteen coming from the front!" Standing Infront of the duo, John ready Roel.

The monsters advanced at a full sprint, they ran without care of being spotted as the only thoughts going through it's mind was to murder the invading humans. This actually relieved John as this meant that an Intelligent monsters wasn't directing them on how to attack.

Sending his drone forwards, it illuminated the darkness of the large cave and revealing the monsters.

"There're four Lizard men and ten Ghouls! Janel I'll leave the defense to you!" said John as he shot towards the monsters like a gun.

"Fire Arrow!" A volley of five Flame Arrows formed in the air, they floated in the air as they made small adjusted in direction before they were fired.

The five ghouls were pierced in their abdominals and chest before becoming engulfed in flames.

'Your too slow!' John nimbly evaded the lizarsmans sword and strode deeper into the enemy line, swinging his sword with the experience gained from his past life

With his sword flashing thrice, all of the blades in the Lizard men's hand were sliced in half and fell to the floor, along side decapitated lizard heads.

'No more lizards, just the five remaining ghouls!'

Raising his hand, John absorbed the mana from the lizard men and sped off towards the ghouls.

The five ghouls clawed at him with their dirty claws, aiming at vital areas, but John calmly stepped back and evading them with ease. When John had torn through the pack of ghouls earlier, he felt his memories of combat get even clearer.

Deflecting an incoming claw, john quickly closed the distance to the attacking ghoul and accurately pierced its brain in a single blow through it's eye socket.

Janel oversaw the battlefield from the rear and started gathered mana in her staff before it disappeared. As John was currently in the midst of close quarters combat, she couldn't risk using magic that could potentially hurt him. But it was honestly a situation where magical support wasn't really necessary.

"Bryan how good is he?" Janel asked as John nimbly evade a claws and dismembered the ghoul in return.

"If we're just comparing physical strength, then I'm slightly better. If we are comparing combat technique, he's much better than me... Infact he's much better than anyone I've ever seen!" Bryan said as the head of a ghoul was sent flying, he wanted to help John but he feared he'd only get in the way.

"He's that good?" Janel repeated herself, completely taken aback.

Bryan nodded "He seems to only aim for vital areas that either severly hinder the opponent or downright cripple them. That's sounds like an obvious idea to attack their weakness, but the practical application is difficult. Only someone with a lot of combat experience can move as efficiently and accurately as that."

"Are you sure it's only possible through experience? Didn't John only awaken 2 years ago as a Healer?"

"...Your right, just a little while ago he was a D-rank Healer, but his body was honestly worse than a F-rank Hunter's...."

"That's amazing! Did John relentlessly practice his swordsmanship to such a level even though his body was quite lacking, only to go through a double awakening?" While the other two conversed, John had finished killing the rest of the ghouls and raised his hand.

"Absorb." He didn't forget to absorb their mana. His healing magic could fix his injures and restore his stamina, and his mana absorption allowed him to use heal a lot more. Not to mention the more he used the mana absorption, the clearer his memories on it became

"Janel, what is that?" Bryan asked Janel after observing blue wisps of mana floating into John's hand.

"...It looks like he's absorbing mana..." she replied, dumbfound and slightly jealous.

"Isn't that a very rare ability, even amongst Mage type Hunters?"

"That's right." Janel nodded bitterly

Bryan and Janel were past astonishment and instead started feeling fear.

John was at the level of a very skilled Combat Hunter, had powerful healing power that exceeded the norm. To add to that, he also had the rare Mana Absorption ability and could detect monsters better than magic!

"What else could he be hiding" Janel said as she saw John skillful digging crystals out of the monsters chest.

"I don't know, but let's not make him turn those abilities on us..." Bryan said as he could only imagine what it would be like to have John as an enemy.

"Agreed!"