While Gradus spoke, the bushes in front of us began to move suspiciously, the entire group stopped moving as someone pointed out silently at it.
"There's something there!"
The entire group stopped moving as we looked into the bushes together. I held my spear tight and gathered the Qi across my body, ready to fight what might possibly be a small monster. However, Gradus stepped in front of me and put himself before me, as if trying to protect me.
The rest of the hunters quickly assembled around me as if I was being the only one protected by them, it appears that they were good at coordination, but I felt this was a bit overexaggerated, especially with someone like Eleanora at my side.
"Stay behind me, Blake." Said Gradus, holding his spear tightly, his Red Flare Dog began to groan at whatever was behind the bushes.
Suddenly, it jumped towards us, as it was a red-skinned creature, an Imp, who was holding into a knife.
It roared angrily at us but it didn't attacked us, as if it was attempting to scare us out. He immediately could tell he wouldn't win against a group of hunters assembled together, and because he felt cornered, he couldn't find any other way to deal with us than by revealing itself.
"Wait, hold up, it is scared…"
"He's trying to intimidate us so it can escape."
"Gradus, what do we do?"
Gradus looked at the Imp while squinting his eyes, the Imp was trembling in fear.
His orders were absolute, the entire group of Hunters quickly decided to gang over the Imp, as I watched their fighting ability, Gradus was the first one to charge forward.
His spear moved faster than the wind for a bit, reaching the Imp. However, the demon was fierce as he was agile, he moved away from his attack successfully and attempted to stab his stomach with the knife it was holding.
However, another hunter stopped the Imp from moving as he fired an arrow into the Imp's ankle, making it cry in pain.
It cried rather loudly, this scream… I recognized it, it was the scream Imps use to call for reinforcements! This is bad, we have to finish it quickly.
The Imp roared loudly as he jumped away from the spear from another hunter, as a fireball suddenly came out of the Red Flare Dog from Gradus, hitting his back.
However, Imps were incredibly resistant to low-level magic, their skin was hard and demons naturally had a high resistance to magic by itself as they were naturally shrouded by demonic energy, which disrupted mana.
The Imp, even with an arrow on his knee, leaped towards a hunter and threw away his spear, using his sharp claws to slash his face.
The Imp was clearly going desperate as everyone began to attack it, it tried to evade but several spears pierced its back, the creature let go of the hunter as Gradus caught it off guard and pierced its head from behind.
The spear went through the Imp's head all the way into his forehead, the creature laid motionless while being skewered by Gradus spear.
"That Imp was strange, was it too powerful?" wondered Gradus.
The hunter group was certainly competent, but Gradus was right, that Imp was stronger than usual.
Suddenly, the Grimoire showcased that I had gained some EXP…
Hm? I gained EXP? But I didn't killed anything.
Is this because I am part of the "party" of hunters? Even when I didn't helped, this seemed a bit too much.
However, unlike the unusual number of EXP an Imp would give, it was only half of it… I see.
Next time, I will ask Eleanora to participate in the fight to gain the full EXP.
"Agh… My face! It hurts!" cried the hunter that got slashed on his face mildly.
"Blake! Please help him out!"
"He's bleeding… his wounds might get bad soon…"
"Understood." I said.
I used my role as a medic and quickly moved towards the affected hunter, a man with short brown hair and green eyes. He seemed to be a lone hunter without family, but he was still a valuable member of the group.
However, I could already tell he lacked the ability to fight well, he probably was a newbie in this group, lacking experience at dealing with monsters, he ended letting the Imp slash his face.
I moved towards his face and saw that there was a big I I I mark on his face, nothing much I could do other than close them and disinfect them. My hands glowed with bright light as I conjured some low-level magic spells and then First Aid to back it up, in an instant, the pain was relieved from his face, as the wound closed, but the scar was still there.
"Do you feel alright?" I asked.
"Ah, you're my savior… It doesn't hurt anymore… Y-You're really a miracle kid…" he said.
"Don't worry about it. I am here to help you survive." I said with a smile.
"Such a reliable kid."
"He's really good at healing."
"Incredible, how does he do it?"
"Don't ask him his abilities, that's rude."
As the people pointed out my good job at healing the hunter, I saw that my grimoire showed some new changes. Everyone already knew that this grimoire was something like part of Eleanora, so they didn't asked me strange questions…
[Skill Proficiency has reached the sufficient Number]
[The Skill [First Aid: Lv1] has increased to Level 2]
[The Title Skill [Savior: Lv1] has increased to Level 2]
After having healed so many people over these last days, I had finally managed to level up First Aid and Savior, which brought an even greater enhancement to their abilities.
With this, I might be capable of healing even better wounds, and also recover scars better as well as disinfecting. First Aid mostly works as an enhancement of basic tier 1 healing spells, but it does its work very well.
However, amidst the tranquility of the aftermath of this small fight, the bushes around began to move suspiciously once more.
So it really managed to bring friends here…