My Healer System Won’t Save You

Anchor of the Rift

(voice-over) The cracked skyline above Graviel pulsed again, light shivering across broken rooftops like glass under pressure. Kaien followed Nyra through a winding stretch of empty streets, the sound of his boots swallowed by the strange silence that had replaced the usual market noise. Every few seconds, data corruption rolled across the world like a shuddering wave, flickering neon signs half-rendering into wireframe before snapping back into corrupted light.

[SYSTEM WARNING]

Instability Index: 74%

Risk Threshold: Exceeded

(inner thought) Okay, that number’s way too close to “disaster mode”. And here I am, forced into apocalypse speedrun mode with my bugged support arsenal. Perfect.

(voice-over) Nyra glanced back briefly, her crimson scarf glitching between fabric and raw, glitching fragments. The distortion wasn’t random, Kaien swore it pulsed in sync with the faint heartbeat from the Mystery Trinket still pulsing inside his inventory.

Nyra: ‘Focus forward. The Rift grows stronger the closer we get.’

(Kaien’s Pov) (mutters) Oh, fantastic. Nothing says ‘safe adventure’ like glowing ground ulcers of doom.

(inner thought) … And of course, she walks through them like she’s glitch-proof. Meanwhile, I’m one bad lag spike away from faceplanting into another dimension.

[Location: Eidolon Interactive Headquarters]

(Voice-over) Monitors blazed red in the developer's command center, alarms layering over one another until the noise became a single oppressive sound. Ava Turlow slammed a command string into her console, forcing one of the screens to stabilize into a live feed of Graviel’s North Gate sector.

[SYSTEM LOG]

Patch Attempt: STABILIZER_INJECT

Status: Overridden by Unknown Process

Authority Tag: ROOT_ACCESS

Ava: ‘Damn it. Whatever’s feeding this anomaly isn’t just blocking overrides; but it’s also rewriting them.’

(voice-over) Riko’s fingers flew over her keys, sweat beading at her hairline. She pulled up Kaien’s player logs, the erratic spikes from his inverted healer passive appearing as spiked red peaks.

Riko: ‘He’s syncing with the instability.’

Jace (still chewing the remnants of his sandwich, leaned closer): ‘Wait. You mean the bug isn’t just breaking balance, it’s linking him to the Rift?’

Riko: ‘Exactly. If the Nexus is searching for an anchor to bleed its chaos into, Kaien’s class is a giant open door.’

Ava: ‘Which means if he collapses…’

Mara (the junior engineer): ‘… the whole shard collapses with him.’ (whispers)

[Location: Inside the Rift Zone]

(voice-over) Kaien’s minimap erupted with violent red pings, his UI flickering as though on the verge of a crash. A low growl echoed from an alley to their left, and from the shadows emerged three Rift-crawlers, their segmented limbs tearing grooves into cobblestones. Their bodies flickered between rendered flesh and skeletal lines of code, movements sharp and insectile.

[SYSTEM ALERT]

Entity: Rift-crawler (x3)

Threat Level: Moderate

Behavior: Adaptive

(inner thought) Moderate? Whoever wrote that description clearly never fought something with legs that sounds like corrupted keyboards.

(voice-over) Nyra raised her longsword, its blade singing with soft blue resonance. Kaien hesitated, hand twitching toward his skill bar.

(Kaien’s Pov) (mutters) Touch of Restoration? No, that’ll just melt them. Bug Bloom? Yeah, if I want every monster in the district to RSVP. System Surge? … Sure, let’s burn myself alive for fun.

[T/N : ‘RSVP’ refers to “Répondez s’il vous plaît” (a French term). The line “if I want every monster in the district to RSVP” refers to “If I want every monster to show up (and politely confirm their attendance).”]

(inner thought) Alright, Kaien. Improvisation time. Please don’t break the server.

(casts) “Heal”.

(voice-over) Kaien triggered Touch of Restoration on Nyra, intending to give her a small heal. Instead, the skill inverted instantly. A wave of corrupted light burst from his hands, ricocheting off her sword into the nearest Rift-crawler. The monster shrieked as its body broke into fragments violently, collapsing into broken shard.

[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]

Bug Effect Triggered: Inverted Heal

Output: 340 True Damage

Target: Rift-crawler (defeated)

(inner thought) … Okay, that wasn’t me being smart. That was dumb luck. Really dumb luck.

Nyra: ‘Keep doing that.’ (calmly)

(Kaien’s Pov) Fantastic. My healing hands, now officially a weapons-grade glitch.

(voice-over) The two remaining creatures lunged. Nyra’s blade severed one mid-leap, its corrupted body shattering like glass. The last swiped at Kaien; he stumbled back, activating Bug Bloom by accident. A pulse of glitch-fire burst outward, turning the Rift-crawler’s limb into static before its entire body collapsed into a heap of unreadable code.

[SYSTEM WARNING]

Instability Surge: +3%

- Environmental Reactivity Detected

(inner thought) Wait. My bugged skill isn’t just killing them, it’s making the environment… twitch. That can’t be good.

The cobblestones beneath his feet rippled like water, light fracturing as if the entire street was nothing more than a digital sheet stretched too thin.

[Location: Developer HQ]

(voice-over) The command center erupted in overlapping shouts as Kaien’s latest combat logs streamed in.

Mara: ‘Instability just spiked again! His last skill triggered a localized collapse; half the street’s physics engine just rewrote itself!’

Jace: ‘And yet, the monsters died. So… net positive?’

Riko (snapping): ‘Net positive?! He destabilized a core asset cluster! If that spreads, the North Gate zone could unravel in minutes.’

(voice-over) Ava pinched the bridge of her nose, eyes locked on Nyra’s feed. Her model flickered again, half-rendered as alpha state wireframe.

Ava: ‘Forget Kaien for a second. Look at her. Every time she interacts with his bugged heals, her code stabilizes, instead of destabilizing.’

Jace: ‘So the bug and the ghost-in-the-machine are… balancing each other?’

Riko: ‘Or feeding off one another. Either way, we’re not in control anymore.’

[Location: Back in Graviel]

(voice-over) Kaien gasped, bracing against a wall as the Mystery Trinket pulsed in his inventory, louder, faster, syncing with the instability around them.

(Kaien’s Pov) (inner thought) … Is it just me, or does this thing sound like it’s about to explode?

(voice-over) Nyra touched his shoulder briefly; her gaze fixed on the pulsing distortion ahead.

Nyra: ‘The North Gate Rift is close. Whatever waits there is stronger than these crawlers. Brace yourself.’

(Kaien’s Pov) Perfect. Because my day wasn’t hard enough already.

(voice-over) As they stepped forward, the sky itself tore open above the gate. Broken strands of light twisted in the air, shaping into a crooked mouth of shadow and code.

[SYSTEM GLOBAL ALERT]

Major Entity Signature: BREACH-TITAN_03

Designation: ???

Instability Output: +9% Increase

Estimated HP: Unknown

(inner thought) Moderate threat, my a*s. And I’m the King of Bug-Free Systems. That’s literally a “kiss your XP goodbye” threat.

[Location: Developer HQ]

(voice-over) The room dimmed as emergency lights flickered red. Every screen synchronized onto one feed: the gaping North Gate Rift, Nyra and Kaien standing before it like mismatched glitch hunters.

SYSTEM LOG: Unscheduled Raid Encounter (Initializing…)

Anchor Candidate: Kaien Rook

Legacy Process Detected: Nyra_Vail

Riko: ‘The stabilizer scripts aren’t deploying. Something’s blocking root permissions.’

Ava: ‘Kaien’s position just shifted or, did the map warp?’

Jace (half-joking): ‘Or he broke the coordinate grid again.’

Riko (snaps): ‘This isn’t funny. If Titan_03 crosses Graviel’s boundary, the safe zones will collapse.’

(voice-over) Corven’s voice carried through the intercom from the upper level.

Corven (calm but iron hard): ‘All hands join work immediately. Stabilizer scripts have failed. The Breach is escalating. The only link we have left is that broken healer. Keep him alive, no matter what. If the Rift devours him, we will lose the shard. And all our hard work will go down the drain.’

Riko: ‘Then may the Anchor hold.’ (whispers, like doing a prayer)

(Kaien’s Pov) (inner thought) Alright. Deep breaths. Don’t panic. Only me, a bugged healer whose cures hurt more than they help, is standing here with a cursed charm, babysitting the apocalypse.

(voice-over) Kaien glanced at Nyra, her scarf glitching in rhythm with the Rift’s pulsing light. She didn’t flinch, didn’t falter, just raised her blade with quiet certainty.

(inner thought) … She’s not even scared. Meanwhile, I’m seconds away from uninstalling my own existence.

[SYSTEM NOTICE]

Quest Updated: Confront the Breach Entity

Objective: Survive

(inner thought) Survive. Sure. That’s the funniest punchline I’ve seen all day.

(voice-over) As the Rift roared open, a monstrous shape began to emerge; dozens of segmented limbs dragging across cobblestones, its form refusing to render fully, as if the system itself feared what it was conjuring. Mystery Trinket pulsing like a second heart in Kaien’s inventory.

(Gulp) (inner thought) Yeah… patting stray cats in the alley would’ve been safer. Still, this is exactly where the chaos seems to align.