Lloyd is a member of the most illustrious Hero's party—wait, what do you mean “not anymore”?!

Kicked out for being too weak, no one seems to realize that Lloyd is actually an absurdly powerful white mage trained by Lady Merlin herself! Manipulating magic is practically second nature to him, regularly leaving even S-rank adventurers stunned speechless. Not that Lloyd has any idea just how strong he really is.

Luck is finally on his side when a seasoned adventurer recognizes his worth and scoops him right up into her party. But their first quest to hunt a pack of high wolves quickly takes an unexpected turn when the city comes under attack. Now Lloyd must navigate new social dynamics and a quest far more dangerous than it first appeared—and maybe, just maybe, prove his worth along the way.

Scooped Up by an S-Rank Adventurer! This White Mage is One Heck of a Healer has a story by Sora Suigetsu and art by DeeCHA. English translation is done by Maddy Willette. Published by J-Novel Club (January 14, 2026).

Erica Friedman
Rating:

To understand the appeal of a story like this, one must believe that one is an unremarkable human. One must presume that oneself is uninteresting, unskilled, and generally a cog in a wheel. The wheel must agree with this. For many millions of office workers around the globe, this is daily life.

Yes, Scooped Up by an S-Rank Adventurer, Volume 1 is an office-life allegory, as so many of these stories are. Imagine reading this as you travel to and from an office with a manager who doesn't know or care about anything you do and who assumes you don't add anything to the team—it's pretty easy to imagine that, right? Maybe some of you are living it right now. Well, just as Lloyd's loss leads to his party's downfall, so will the loss of you mean that your department won't make its goals, so there, hah. The allegory is obvious, and so is the outcome.

The “aw shucks, I'm not so great” guy has grown up, gotten a job with a party that doesn't respect him. His self-effacing modesty has been crushed, his confusion at his own strength when not with the best of the best is now the mumbled apologies of the neglected and ignored, even abused. I understand it, I get the role it plays in the life of genre fans…I'm not sure I find it entertaining.

I will say that, at least, in this book, the former dysfunctional, toxic party has a highly public meltdown, and Lloyd and his new party seem like they'll be having fun together. But for this series to be entertaining, Lloyd will have to grow and acknowledge his skills. Otherwise, he's just another “aw shucks, anyone can help a town repel 10,000 monsters” guy, which will get very tired, very quickly. Maybe I would have liked it better when I was doing the daily grind of a long commute, wishing some other company would hire me.