v1c1 - Volume 1 - A Slow Life Beginning with Banishment? - Chapter 1 - I, the Lone Defender of the Party was told that they don't need a Tank! and Banished from the Hero Party
“Alex. You don’t deserve to be in our S-class party with your few offensive skills. Can you get out of our party?”
The next morning after finishing the dungeon attack, I managed to remove my fatigue by sleeping like mud at the inn.
I was about to have breakfast, thinking that I wanted to avoid hard requests today and rest my body …… when Roland, the leader of the party and my childhood friend, said something strange.
Few offensive skills?
That’s not surprising. I am a paladin, an job expert in defense.
It’s not that I don’t have offensive skills, but my job is to protect all the party members by taking on all the monsters’ attacks.
“Roland. You know what my job is, don’t you?”
“It’s the slow-moving, stupid paladin job who can’t avoid the attacks of monsters. Moreover, it’s a burden because it can only use the holy attribute as a means of attack, and it can’t flexibly attack demons by exploiting their weak points.”
No, the paladin’s alias is holy knight, so it’s only natural that its skills are biased toward the holy attribute.
To begin with, a job is something you are given on your fifteenth birthday, not something you can choose for yourself.
So when I was given the job of paladin, which is a very rare job, I decided to protect Roland, who had been given the even rarer job of hero on his birthday.
Together with Ellie, who’s also my childhood friend and was also given the rare job of Arch Wizard, a specialist in offensive magic.
“Let me be clear, you hardly defeated any monsters yesterday, didn’t you? Why should we give you our share of the monsters we’ve killed!?”
“So, my role is to be the Tank of this party, right? I’m attracting the monsters so you and Ellie can attack safely.”
“Pfft …… I wondered what you were going to say. That’s just because you’re so slow that you’re taking the liberty of being the bait. We can avoid the attacks easily, even if you don’t attract the monsters, you know!”
No, that’s impossible.
It is true that you, the hero, can avoid attacks aimed at a single person.
But you can’t avoid wide-area attacks with magic or skill.
Don’t tell me, he forgot that I’m constantly taking the damage of my friends with my paladin’s higher defense skills!?
“Let me tell, but the rest of party except me are all paper-armored jobs that specialize too much in firepower, so even low-level ranged magic can be lethal, okay?”
“I told you that, unlike you, the attacks will never hit us. In the first place, we’ll defeat them before they attack us, and even if we do get hit, we can recover with a Priest’s healing magic.”
What if that Priest gets hit?
It’s true that the job with the best healing ability is the Priest, but there’s no job better than the Paladin for defense, right?
I thought I gave you a clear explanation of the characteristics of the Priest who joined our group apart from us three childhood friends.
“No matter how much you try to justify yourself, this has already been decided by me, the hero and the leader of the party. Ellie and the others have already agreed that this party does not need a Tank! Now get out!”
The words coming back from Roland were no different.
But was it really true that the two rearguards agreed?
The women take a long time to get ready in the morning, and Ellie and the others have yet to show up, leaving only me and Roland alone.
Therefore, there is no way to be sure now, but since I was always there to protect them, I don’t think they would agree with this kind of opinion.
When I was keeping my suspicions on Roland…
“…… I haven’t told you this until now, but I and Ellie have actually been lovers for a long time. For the record, you’ve been in the way from the very beginning. Forcefully following us just because we’ve known each other since childhood.”
“Is …… that so. Sorry, I didn’t know that.”
He said something I didn’t expect.
I had never seen any such behavior in Ellie before, but I wonder if she was just hiding it well.
“I understood. If you insist that much, I’ll leave …… but I warned you, okay? You guys are paper armored, relying too much on my defensive skills. You really need to watch yourselves, okay?”
“Shut up. You’re already banished from the party. Now get the hell out of here!”
Thus, I was expelled from the party that started with us three childhood friends, and ended up on my own.