Heavy boots slammed against the dry, splintered earth. The pursuit team pushed their legs. Nobody bothered to scout ahead this time. The Thieves stayed firmly tucked inside the main formation because the risk of a lone ambush was too high. They just followed the massive, undeniable trail of destruction. Huge trees were entirely uprooted and thrown aside, carving a wide path of churned soil and crushed rocks right through the forest.
Everyone ran fast. Armor clanked loudly in the quiet night.
Nia kept her pace in the middle of the group as her fingers squeezed the wooden staff until they stiffened. A dull ache throbbed near her temple. She touched the dried blood caking her hairline.
During the ambush, she had completely emptied her Mana Core to keep Team A breathing. They actually survived the sudden impact when the two massive logs crashed into their flank. They held the line and fought desperately for another full hour.
But eventually, their strength completely broke, so they got knocked down hard to the ground. Nia remembered lying helpless on the wet soil with a bleeding head, completely unable to cast a simple self-heal because her fuel was entirely gone.
She saw the Miasma-Titan just walked right past them. It completely ignored their broken bodies. That specific memory burned in her chest right now, driving her tired legs to move faster.
"Four hundred meters straight ahead," Vance called out. "We are catching up."
At four hundred meters, the darkness was absolute. They still could not see the monster. The crushed trees simply blurred into a continuous gray tunnel of shadows.
Without slowing down, Kaelen tightened the straps on his iron shield and pushed his heavy boots harder against the dry ground.
"Keep the pace," Kaelen ordered. "We cannot let it reach the city."
They ran for another minute. The heavy pounding of their boots echoed like a drumbeat.
Then, the tree line broke slightly at the crest of a small incline.
The gap narrowed to about one hundred meters. The ambient starlight struggled to pierce the thick clouds, but it was just enough to outline the horizon.
Nia looked up. A towering shadow eclipsed the already dark sky, reaching twenty meters into the air. The tip of its malformed head breached the forest canopy. It physically blocked the faint starlight, a moving mountain of twisted wood and hardened sludge.
A sudden chill ripped straight down her spine. The cold settled deep in her bones. She was scared. Her heart beat wildly, but she was entirely used to being scared. She had spent years walking into death traps, so the fear was a familiar, heavy blanket. She knew exactly how to carry it without freezing in place.
Around her, the rhythm of the raid team shifted. The heavy Swordsmen unhooked their blades. The sharp ring of steel scraping against leather scabbards echoed in the cold air. The Thieves dropped into a low, predatory crouch, their muscles completely coiled and ready to explode forward.
Up ahead, Thorne and the other Mages raised their wooden staves. Bright sparks of raw energy flickered to life in the dark, casting harsh, flickering shadows across their determined faces. The fighters prepared to strike the beast from behind.
They were ready to kill a Calamity.
Nia stopped running and stood near the backline. She looked at the drawn swords and the glowing elemental magic.
Her left hand curled into a tight fist. Her fingernails dug painfully into her palm.
The old, bitter memories flooded her chest again, bringing a familiar, ugly weight.
She felt entirely useless.
She knew she could not make a direct attack against a Titan. She stared at the colossal monster in the distance, fully aware of her own biological limits.
If she charged forward right now, she would die.
When her power first awakened, she was just a kid full of wild dreams. She wanted to stand on the frontline and defeat monsters. But reality caught up to her very fast. She remembered the dismissive sneers of her former party members vividly.
They were sitting in a diner after a failed dungeon run. The vanguard had messed up the formation, but they blamed the backline to save their own pride.
"Healers are weak," the party leader had spat, waving his hand dismissively at her. "Just a support class. You sit in the back and wait for us to do the real work."
Years later, she joined a different group of arrogant rookies. They encountered a Hazard-class beast on a standard escort mission. The monster broke the line, and Nia had to dodge a lethal strike. She survived, but she could not kill the beast herself.
"Healers are lame," the young Swordsman had muttered while wiping monster blood from his blade. "Cannot even kill a Hazard-class monster. What's the point of bringing you if you can't kill a single beast?"
She felt terrible whenever she heard those words. The insults always left a bitter taste in her mouth.
There was a time when she simply could not take the humiliation anymore. She broke down and cried out of pure, bitter frustration. Seeking answers, she went straight to the woman who trained her. Her teacher was a veteran Level 6 Healer, so she knew everything about their limits.
"Master... I..." Nia started, her voice choking on her own tears.
Her teacher stopped sorting through a pile of herbs and looked up. "What is it, Nia?"
"I want to learn how to wield a sword," Nia blurted out. She bit her lower lip so hard she drew blood.
A heavy sigh filled the small wooden room. Her teacher set the herbs down on the table. "What are you talking about, Nia? You already know the answer to that."
"But..."
"Healers cannot coat their bodies with Aura," her teacher said, keeping her tone strict and flat. "That is a Law of the Mana Core. It is basic knowledge. If a non-melee fighter like a Mage or a Healer tries to coat their body and blade with Aura, their bones and flesh will completely crush under the sheer weight. You will die in about 100 milliseconds."
Even though Nia already knew the brutal truth, she asked the question anyway. The frustration just boiled over.
"But why?!" Nia screamed, her small hands balling into tight fists. "Why can the melee fighters wield blades and we cannot?"
Her teacher rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Nia, do you really want me to say it out loud? I taught you everything I have. What you are asking is common sense in the world of Adventurers."
Nia just stared at her with wet, angry eyes without saying a single word.
"Melee fighters are born with denser bones and thick muscles," her teacher finally explained softly. "Their bodies are biologically built to withstand the intense, crushing pressure of a heavy Aura. Ours are not."
The young girl could not accept it. She stomped her foot against the floor.
"That's unfair!" Nia shrieked. "Why? Why? Why?!"
"Calm down," her teacher scolded gently, reaching out a hand. "Accept your gift. Being a Healer is an important job class. A Healer is the lifeline of an Adventurer's party. Without a Healer—"
Before her teacher could finish that old, familiar explanation about the importance of backline support, Nia spun around and rushed straight for the exit. She grabbed the iron handle, pulled the wooden door open, and ran out into the street.
BAM.
The wooden door slammed shut behind her, rattling the iron hinges and leaving a deafening echo in the quiet room. Her teacher just stood there by the table, completely stunned by the sudden, violent outburst.
After that argument, Nia stopped Adventuring. She stayed away from the Association for a few months to clear her head. Eventually, the anger burned out. She moved on and accepted the harsh reality that Healers simply cannot fight.
Healers are not actually weak in a physical sense. A Healer could easily defeat a normal civilian in a sparring match because their Mana Core naturally makes their bones denser and their muscles stronger than a normal civilian. Nia could easily crush a weak monster like a goblin by bashing its skull with her wooden staff.
But that was the absolute limit of her lethal potential.
The moment a Healer was born, their fate was permanently sealed. Their gift was permanent. They were given a biological wiring meant to be the weakest job class in direct combat.
They simply lacked the internal mechanism to coat a blade with a thick Aura, and they fundamentally could not materialize a ball of offensive magical energy like a fireball in the empty air.
Without a heavy, glowing blanket of energy, a steel sword would just bounce right off the thick hide of a Hazard-class beast. Since they could not form destructive elements, they could never blow up a monster from a safe distance like a Mage either.
Nia had already accepted a long time ago that she could not fight on the frontline. She swallowed that bitter reality and trained relentlessly. She poured everything she had into her craft until she finally earned her Level 7 Gold Badge. She matured enough to accept her job class as a Healer, not as a burden, but as a very useful, highly specialized support role.
She did her best in every single quest she took. Her magic saved hundreds of lives.
But that acceptance never stopped the quiet sting of insecurity. Whenever she was trapped in a situation where all she could do was watch the vanguard bleed, she felt useless. When the monsters towered over the trees and the Swordsmen risked their lives, she was relegated to a spectator who patched the wounds after the damage was already done. Watching from the rear without the power to draw a sword or cast an attack spell left her with an ugly sense of uselessness.
That is exactly why she gripped her staff so tightly right now. The melee fighters drew their heavy blades, and the Mages sparked their elemental fires in the dark. The pursuit team took their positions, leveling blades and staves toward the Miasma-Titan. Seeing the real warriors prepare for war made the harsh reality of the world press down on her chest again.
The truth was entirely undeniable. Healers are fundamentally weak in a direct fight.
I already accepted this a long time ago, Nia thought. Her thumb slowly traced the rough grain of her wooden staff. We cannot pierce armor, and we cannot burn a monster to ash. This is the absolute ceiling of the power we were born with.