Extra's Ascent

"To face a Disaster Walker with only our crew and risk being wiped out or to ally with the lowest scumbags this planet has to offer, just to increase our odds?"

Gerald's voice was through the air like a serrated blade, rough and unrelenting.

"Tell me, Eric Aldaman," he growled, eyes burning into Eric's. "What would you have done if you were in my place?!"

A difficult question, no, a near-impossible one. One that clawed deep into the soul and refused a clean answer.

Eric faltered. His lips parted slightly, but no words came out. What could he say? This wasn't his burden to bear. This wasn't his choice to make. And yet…

"What did you do… Gerald?" he finally asked, quietly.

"You want to know what I did?!" Gerald snapped, almost as if he'd read Eric's indecision like an open book. "I freed them. I unlocked their restraints and let them loose."

He didn't stop there.

"A thief. A rapist. A deranged murderer," he spat, counting them off like a checklist of moral decay. "None of it mattered. Not in the face of death."

His words hung heavy, each syllable came with the unrelenting guilt of unbearable decisions.

"In that moment," Gerald continued, his voice raw, "the options I had left me standing on the edge of true death. Either I choose survival under the worst conditions, or I choose integrity, keep them retained and let death take me and my comrades"

His hands trembled slightly as he continued. "And me? I wanted to live. I was desperate to live another day."

He exhaled sharply, as if the truth physically pained him.

At the end of the day, you could say they had no choice. It felt like they did, but they didn't because when it comes down, survival precedes the choice to die regardless of the circumstances you are working with.

"It didn't matter that no one was waiting for me. No loved ones. No home to return to. At the core of it, when you strip away the mystic titles, the accolades, the mana... what am I?"

He looked at Eric, his gaze piercing.

"A human," he said bitterly. "Just a human who wanted to survive."

Mystics. Elevated, respected, and feared. Cloaked in power and seen as godlike. But beneath it all? Flesh. Blood. Fear. Desire.

People had forgotten that Mystics were still human beings. But Gerald hadn't.

"We want to live too," he said, voice rising. "We're not immortal. Sure, our skin might deflect bullets and blades. But we can die. We bleed, we break, we fall."

He met Eric's eyes again. "And on that day, I wanted to escape, more than a mystic, I wanted to be a human. So I made the same choice any sane man would've made. I freed them. I begged the scums of the earth to fight beside us, to survive together."

Then came the twist, the revelation that twisted the blade already buried deep.

"But do you know what they did, Eric?" Gerald asked, voice suddenly cold, distant. "Do you know what those bastards did once we removed the mana restraints?"

Eric swallowed, suddenly unsure if he wanted to hear the answer.

At first, Gerald seemed to drift, his tone losing its sharp edge, becoming more sombre, reflective. What began as a lesson turned into a confessional. A quiet plea for salvation in the guise of a story.

"Captain... what happened after?" Eric asked, hesitant, his voice small in the thick silence.

Gerald's eyes were distant, hollow. "What happened next? We fought together. We won. With their help, we defeated the Disaster Walker."

That didn't sound so bad. It didn't explain the guilt, the grief that Eric sensed off of Gerald, the unrelenting weight that seemed to gnaw at Gerald's soul.

Eric's brow furrowed. "And…?"

"Good intuition," Gerald murmured. "You're asking the right question."

His lips tightened as he pressed forward. "After the battle, the bandits took advantage of our weakened state. They fled, ran for their lives."

He paused.

"And we let them go," he whispered. "Because they helped us, we thought we owed them that much leniency. A pathetic, naive way of thinking."

His clenched fists trembled. Nails bit into his palms until blood beaded at the tips.

"We were fools, I was a fool. To have ever pitied them, I was the greatest fool to live."

"What are you not saying, Captain?" Eric asked, voice shaking. "What are you still holding back?"

Gerald hesitated. Something in him flinched. The pain wasn't just guilt, it was deeper, the ugliest form.

"A few days later, we received word of a village contaminated with mana," he said slowly. "The villagers went mad, berserk. They had lost all rational thought and devolved into beasts… not unlike Walkers."

Eric's blood ran cold. "Mana contamination…?"

Gerald nodded grimly. "Yes. But it wasn't an accident, it was an experiment."

He looked Eric in the eye.

"An experiment to see if humans could be turned into Walkers."

Eric's stomach twisted.

"A cruel, vile trial. One of the bandits was behind it, maybe more."

"And the villagers?" Eric asked, dread curling in his chest.

"They turned into cannibals," Gerald said hollowly. "Men, women, children, stripped of all forms of reasoning. They tore each other apart. Mothers devoured their own infants. Neighbours ripped one another to shreds. No trace of humanity left."

Eric's lips parted in horror, unable to speak.

"To stop it," Gerald went on, his voice barely above a whisper, "we had to make choices, I had to make choices. And I told myself I did what was necessary."

He paused again. His eyes drifted to the floor.

"I've told myself that a thousand times since. That it was the right call. That I had no other options. That it was for the greater good."

But as much as he said it, as often as he repeated the mantra...

"It's not enough," he choked. "No matter how many times I repeat it… the guilt never leaves."

Eric stood there, silent, stunned. Gerald's confession pressed down like a collapsing sky.

What to say to it? He had not the slightest idea.