I Wanted a Cute Girl to Cast Healing Magic on Me, So I Kept Protecting My Allies—and Ended Up with an Overprotective Party

Chapter 1: I Think Healing Magic From a Cute Girl Is Twice as Effective

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I was just an ordinary high school junior. As usual, I spent the evening after school immersed in games in my room, currently playing an RPG.

This heroine is really cute. That pure-hearted, well-mannered type… Honestly, this kind of girl is totally my type.

And I had one secret little quirk: healing must be done by a girl character. Because of that, the female healer’s MP (Magic Points) were always disproportionately low. I was well aware even if healing magic actually existed, it didn’t matter who cast it. We just needed someone to chant the spell and that was it.

However… Imagine it in real life. What if you got injured and the person treating you in the nurse’s office was a beautiful older woman? Or if it was the cutest girl in school giving you first aid? As a guy, that’d make you happy, right?

Well, it’s time to hit the convenience store.

Tomorrow was a day off. I planned to pull an all-nighter to conquer a notoriously tough dungeon, so I decided to stock up on snacks and soda in preparation. I never imagined that a simple whim would lead to this…

I was probably in the middle of being reincarnated into another world. Normally, this would be too ridiculous to believe. But I believed it—because of one undeniable thing. I was in a completely empty, pure white space.

Therefore, this must be another world. Good thing I studied isekai through light novels and anime. Not like I could be bothered with actual schoolwork anyway.

Right now, I was being given an explanation by a goddess that looked like something straight out of a reincarnation anime. The goddess was a sexy older woman with long blonde hair.

The reason I got reincarnated? I was attacked by a random slasher on the way to the convenience store. Now I remembered. A young woman had been walking through a sparsely populated intersection. From behind her came a shady man running up, holding a kitchen knife in his hand.

No one would just carry a naked blade around in public—that was already abnormal. It was instinct. I instinctively knew that the man was going to attack her. I rushed in with everything I had, thrusting my hands out in front of me.

Why I did it, I didn’t know. It probably wasn’t something driven by logic. If I could just push someone—either the woman or the man—I could stop a tragedy. I just barely made it in time and ended up pushing the woman.

Naturally, she fell over, but at least I had prevented her from being attacked. In exchange—if you could call it that—I was the one who got attacked.

“So that’s what happened… I was stabbed by a random attacker… Wait! What happened to that woman!?”

“There’s no need to worry. Thanks to the way you pushed her, she only suffered a light scratch.

And the attacker was arrested. So there’s no need to concern yourself—if not for you, that woman would have been the one assaulted instead.”

That proved my instincts were right. I was really glad to hear that. Of course it was a good thing, but still… I hadn’t exactly asked to be reincarnated.

“I know this is so out of the blue, but with full sincerity—I offer you the right to live in another world!”

“Huh? Seriously!?”

“Yes. Your actions were truly worthy of praise. Um… Are you okay with a world where monsters exist? In exchange, there’s magic too!”

The goddess clenched her hands in front of her chest, trying to emphasize how fun the other world would be. It might be wrong to think this way about a goddess, but… She was kind of cute. Still, that was beside the point.

“If possible, I’d prefer to stay in Japan…”

“Y-Yes, I understand. But I’m sorry. You can’t reincarnate into the same world.”

So it’s not going to be like a light novel, huh. Hmm… What should I do? Monsters, huh… Still, if I don’t go, I will just ascend straight to heaven… I still want to live as myself for a bit longer…

“Alright. I’m okay with going to another world. Please proceed with that. Also, I have one question—will I get some kind of cheat ability?”

“Cheat? I’m not sure what that means, but if you mean granting you a skill that normal people don’t have, that I can do immediately—”

“Yes, please!”

“Eh!? W-Wait! That was fast! Don’t you want to know what the skill is first?”

“Please tell me!”

“Um, the skill I’m about to grant you is called 【Damage Adjustment】. It allows you to adjust the amount of damage you take from any attack.”

“Adjust it myself? So, like, if damage were expressed as a number, I could make it from 1 or 10,000?”

“Yes! You can even set it to 0!”

“Zero…!? That means I’m basically invincible then!”

“That’s right!”

A true cheat skill. At the very least, it seemed like I wouldn’t be dying in battle anytime soon.

…Wait a minute. That sounds like a skill meant for someone who’s going to live as an adventurer.

“Um, are there jobs like ‘adventurer’ in this world?”

“Yes, there are!”

I thought so…

Well, it was fine. If I couldn’t die, maybe trying life as an adventurer wouldn’t be so bad.

My role would obviously be tank—taking hits on the front line.

..Wait a second. If this world had magic, then it had to have healing magic too, right? Could it be—my dream of getting healed by a cute girl might actually come true!? No, but still… If I didn’t get hurt, there’d be no reason for anyone to cast healing magic on me. With zero damage, the chance of getting healed by a cute girl would never come.

…Wait, no, there is a way!

Right! If I used the 【Damage Adjustment】 skill to make myself look like I was just hurt enough, I could get a girl to heal me with magic!

And so, I began my life in another world. It wasn’t a reincarnation from a baby, but a start from my actual age and appearance. Basically, I was still a Japanese guy. I wondered if I’d stand out in this world.

Well, I was dressed in light armor that looked like an adventurer’s, so I probably wouldn’t draw too much attention. It was spring in this other world, and I had landed in the middle of a forest.

No need to panic. I had done my homework with light novels and anime. It should be about time for a girl’s scream to echo through the trees.

…But nothing of the sort happened. Instead, I spotted a town almost immediately. The forests were surprisingly quiet, huh…

Maybe I had started in the forest to avoid drawing attention? There were no monsters around, so the goddess had probably arranged that.

As I walked toward the town, I saw people ahead—but it seemed that area was getting a bit boisterous.

As I got closer, I realized it looked like a group of four, dressed like adventurers, arguing about something. No one else was around to break it up.

“Emil! As of this moment, you’re expelled from the party!”

A cute girl wearing a clean, white robe was being yelled at by a young blond man in ornate blue armor.

Wait, is she getting kicked out of her party?

“You call yourself a healer, but you still can’t use anything beyond basic magic! I only let you into the party because you begged me!”

The girl, apparently named Emil, kept her head down as the man berated her one-sidedly.

What do I do? I’ve walked right into a classic ‘party expulsion’ scene…

But something else caught my attention even more. According to the yelling guy, the girl was a healer. Which meant—if I could recruit her…