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

“No matter how I look at it, it doesn’t seem like a sacred tree anymore.”
The bear seemed to have drunk the sap as soon as it arrived here.
Its mouth was a mess, covered in black sap, and black-furred beasts were scattered around haphazardly, probably knocked away by the bear when it arrived before they could drink the sap.
“Whether it’s a sacred tree or not isn’t the important issue anymore.”
“That’s true.”
Yona removed her hand from James’ shoulder.
His arm was now completely reattached.
As she was stretching her arm, which had become sore from holding it up due to their height difference, Alec quietly massaged Yona’s shoulder.
“Now I wonder what we should do about that.”
Thanks to Kairoc’s efforts, the bear should have been quite wounded.
But whether it had recovered by drinking that sap after arriving first, the bear now looked fine.
Moreover—
“That eye light, it seems to have become more ominous.”
Just as Alec spoke, the bear charged with a roar.
Its charge was aimed at Kairoc, but Kairoc avoided it by throwing his body sideways just before the bear could pounce on him.

Rip
A sound like tearing leather was heard.
But that was all.
“The skin has become even harder!”
As Kairoc shouted, the bear hadn’t taken any damage.
Even though Kairoc’s axe strikes had been steadily inflicting wounds with each swing, befitting a silver-rank warrior, it seemed they couldn’t even make an impact now.
“James, aim for its eyes at least!”
“I’m already aiming!”
James was maintaining just enough distance to dodge the bear’s movements with his naked eye, and had five arrows nocked on his bowstring.
Only one was properly nocked, but the remaining four were ready to minimize the time to load arrows.
“This, isn’t there any way?”
Alec took out a round shield from the clip inside his shield and handed it to Yona.
As she received the shield and attached it to her left arm, Yona swallowed hard.
“Alec, should we try that thing from before again?”
“No.”
Alec shook his head.
Meanwhile, the bear seemed to recognize Kairoc as the greatest threat and was pouring attacks on him, and it wasn’t really a situation where Alec could intervene.
“Why?”
“Are you trying to directly infuse divine power again, like with the goat head?”
“…Yeah.”
Alec shook his head more firmly.
“We don’t have spare holy cloth. Besides, that bear is too small compared to the goat head. It would only take a few swipes of its paws to detach you. And even if you wanted to do that, with it rampaging like this, the risk is—”
“Alec! Cover me!”
At Kairoc’s shout, Alec stopped mid-sentence and started running.
Yona ran behind him.
Alec jumped in and deflected the front paw that was swinging towards Kairoc at an angle.
With a thud, the front paw bounced upwards, and Yona stepped back in fright as the paw barely grazed past her eyes.
“You beast!”
Kairoc bared his teeth, lowered his posture, and dove in.
His target was the legs.
If he could just cut off the legs, he could somehow bring it down.
Kairoc’s axe, swung with all his might, hit the bear’s knee area with a thud.

Grooooar!
“Good!”
With James’ shout, an arrow flew in and hit near the bear’s eyebrow, but bounced off without embedding.
“James, you bastard! You retired from being an adventurer and stopped maintaining your equipment, huh?”
“I’ve been busy taking care of my wife!”
James retorted to Kairoc’s outburst and then melted back into the tree shadows.
This made the bear even more enraged, and it started swinging its front paws wildly and stomping, causing continuous vibrations.
“Ugh, aah…!”
Because of this, Yona lost her balance and stumbled, misstepping.
Alec was standing in front, but Yona’s stumbling created a gap between them.

Wooooah!
The bear swung its front paw with a monstrous roar.
Just as Alec deflected that paw, the bear, as if it had been waiting for this, struck Alec’s side with its other front paw.
“Kugh!”
Although Alec hurriedly put his shield in the way, he couldn’t fully deflect or push it away and took the full impact.
Alec flew back several steps from the impact that couldn’t be withstood by human strength alone, unlike non-human races like Kairoc or James.
“Oh, no…”
In Yona’s pupils, the image of the bear with its front paw raised high was reflected.
If that paw comes down now, Yona will become a flattened piece of meat.
“You slow beast!”
As soon as Yona heard Kairoc’s shout from behind, she threw her body to dodge.
If there’s an opponent that can be killed for sure, it would focus on that.
Yona made that judgment the moment she misstepped and lost her balance.
And on the opposite side was Kairoc.
As Yona dodged, Kairoc’s axe came down on the center of the bear’s head.
A perfect strike exploiting the opening.
No matter how fierce it is, a mere wild beast like a bear shouldn’t be able to withstand this heavy blow from Kairoc—

Wooooargh!
“What…!?”
The bear didn’t seem to be particularly affected even though an axe had struck the back of its head.
Rather, as soon as it was hit on the back of its head, it turned around and struck Kairoc.
“Aaaaargh!”
Kairoc screamed in agony as he flew into the bushes on the opposite side.
“Kairoc!”
Yona screamed and ran towards Kairoc.
“Alec, protect us!”
“Leave it to me!”
Not taking his eyes off the fiercely roaring bear, Alec ran alongside Yona with his shield raised.
Yona held her breath when she saw Kairoc embedded in the bushes.
The claw marks deeply carved into his side were no ordinary wound.
Three parallel claw marks.
Blood was gushing from those claw marks, and Yona immediately put her hand on Kairoc’s wound without thinking.
“Yo, Yona…!”
“Shut up, lizard! It’s okay, Alec is protecting us!”
“That, that beast… is weak…”
Even in this situation, Yona slapped Kairoc’s snickering mouth and frowned.
“Be quiet, you lizard brat.”
Alec stood guarding Yona and Kairoc, raising his shield.
He hung the hammer he was holding in one hand inside the shield, now intending not to move from this spot at all.

Thwip!
At that moment, an arrow flew in and this time accurately hit the bear’s eyeball.
Instead of the red light that had been surging from the bear’s eyeball, blood now flowed profusely.
“Kairoc! Looks like that beast doesn’t have a wife to manage but doesn’t manage its skills either!”
James approached, avoiding the bear that was suffering from the arrow in its eye, and spoke looking at Kairoc lying down.
“You’re, you’re joking. Orc bastard…”
“Seeing that you can’t take a joke, you must still be in pain. Yona, how’s Kairoc?”
“He’ll be fine!”
Yona only stood up and turned around after confirming that the bleeding from Kairoc’s wound had stopped and new flesh had grown, roughly healing it.
Blood was flowing from one of the bear’s eyeballs.
“What, what is that thing doing?”
The bear was looking down at them with its remaining eye and slowly backing away.
Behind where it was retreating was what used to be the sacred tree, still overflowing with sap as if from a spring.
“That, if it drinks that, won’t its wounds heal!?”
As if to prove Alec’s words, the bear started greedily drinking the sap while not taking its eyes off them.
The arrow that had been in its bleeding eye fell out and rolled away.
The bleeding stopped, and the eye light started to glow again.
“…Isn’t that like a potion? Would we get stronger if we drank that too?”
“I don’t want to get stronger in a non-human way though.”
“Then we should be fine. We’re already not human anyway.”
Although jokes were being exchanged, everyone keenly felt that the situation wasn’t good at all.
They needed to either prevent the bear from drinking that, or…
‘…What should we do?’
The party’s greatest strength right now is Kairoc.
However, Kairoc’s power is silver rank, and the bear was thought to be at least that or higher.
‘Should we retreat?’
“Mr. James.”
James, who was counting his remaining arrows, turned to look at Yona.
“What are our chances of success if we run away?”
“None. We’d more likely be picked off one by one while trying to escape.”
Retreat is rejected.
What should we do?
“Wait, everyone wait.”
Kairoc waved his hand.
Kairoc saw it.
The bear’s eye light dimmed for a moment, then blazed red again.
Then it dimmed again as if about to go out, only to blaze up once more.
And around its mouth, bright red foam was bubbling and flowing down.
“…That, perhaps.”
As Kairoc made a hand signal, James nodded and melted into the tree shadows.
Soon, an arrow flew from somewhere and hit the bear’s head with a thud.
It didn’t penetrate, but it was enough to irritate the bear’s nerves.
“Alec!”
“Ow!”
Alec shouted and ran out.
“Hey, go, go with him, you baldy!”
Yona followed behind, flustered.
Kairoc also dashed out, keeping some distance from Yona.
Alec wielded his hammer, relentlessly pounding the bear’s knees and leg areas.
Yona kept a slight distance, keeping both Alec and Kairoc in her sight, ready to react at any time.
Kairoc did the same.
Kairoc, the party’s main force, swung his axe and continuously attacked the bear.

Bwuh, bwuuuurgh!
The bloody foam flowing from the bear’s mouth poured out even more fiercely.
Steam-hot bloody foam flowed down, and the bear attacked Yona and the others, swinging its front paws like mad.
“Just a little, just a little more!”
With Kairoc’s shout, another arrow flew in and burst the bear’s eyeball.
“No more arrows!”
“Good! Leave it to us!”
Kairoc responded to James’ shout and swung his axe again.
While deflecting the front paw with his shield, Alec glanced at Yona from the corner of his eye.
She seemed relatively safe, keeping an appropriate distance.
“You beaaaaast!”
With Kairoc’s shout, his axe dug deep into the bear’s knee.
Unlike before, the axe sank in deeply, and blood burst out at once.

Gr, grooooaaar!
Along with the bear’s agonizing scream, Kairoc raised the retreat hand signal.
Alec quickly backed away, and Yona hurriedly checked if Alec had any wounds.
“Now let’s watch for a bit.”
As Kairoc said, the bear was going berserk.
The bloody foam from its mouth was no longer just flowing down but gushing out, and the eyeball that had been glowing with eye light was burst and unable to regenerate.
“Is, is that thing going to drink the sap again?”
It was as Alec said.
The bear buried its mouth in the trunk of what used to be the sacred tree and drank the sap incessantly.
“No, wait a bit.”
Kairoc held up his hand.
Then, suddenly, the bear stopped.
Just as a bright red energy seemed to envelop the bear’s body, which had been covered in black fur—

Splash, splash…
With a horrific sound, the skin and flesh started to melt.
The skin and meat that had turned into a porridge-like substance left only black traces as they became liquid, merging with the sap overflowing from what used to be the sacred tree.

“…Anyway, I am a cleric, even if only half of one.”
“Right.”
“Tell Kairoc and Mr. James to turn around. It’s an arm I don’t want to show.”

As Yona said, Alec told Kairoc and James to turn around for a moment.
And he too turned around, not looking back.
After confirming that Alec, Kairoc, and James had all turned around, Yona started to unwrap the holy cloth from her arm.
She didn’t know the true nature of that sap, but it surely couldn’t be anything good.
Judging by the energy she felt, it was clearly demonic energy, and it was understandable that a living body would collapse after ingesting so much of it.
It must have been because the bear lacked intelligence that it acted that way, but if this place was left as is, and if a human with ill intentions were to drink this sap and try to control it…
That too would be a disaster.
‘It’s not like I have a particularly righteous personality, but…’
Yona finished unwrapping the holy cloth, folded it neatly, and threw it to Alec.
Alec carefully caught the holy cloth that covered his head and put it in his sling bag.
‘Anyway, if I hadn’t seen it, it would be one thing, but now that I have, there’s no helping it.’
As the wind brushed against her arm with the dark tattoo for the first time in a long while, it felt cool.
Yona approached what used to be the sacred tree, repeatedly opening and closing her fist for no particular reason.
That thing, still overflowing with sap, seemed to respond to the divinity rising from Yona’s right arm, starting to flow in a strange shape.
“Return to the abyss, you wicked things…”
Yona recited a part of a prayer and plunged her right arm into the pool of sap.
Divine power burst out intensely and began to spread through the sap.