Gil couldn't believe his ears.
He almost wanted to laugh at the sheer absurdity of it, a manic edge bleeding into his blinding anger.
Did this bastard just say this was his fault?
Unfazed by Gil's boiling fury, the healer pressed on, his tone smooth, measured, and maddeningly calm.
"First of all, when you all stepped into the arena, why did you break away from the ranks? What was the point? Granted, you didn't know what was waiting for you in there, but there is always safety in numbers. Look at the two main factions that formed during the trial. Sure, they lost people along the way, but by and large, they cleared the hurdle without relying on emergency powers."
Gil glared at him with pure disdain.
"Since you claim to have watched the test, then you know damn well what state they were in at the start," Gil spat. "The beasts hadn't even shown up yet and they were already tearing each other apart. You expected me to put my life in the hands of those vultures? Not a chance in hell."
"Fair enough. That makes sense," the healer conceded with a slight shrug. "Then why didn't you step up, take control, and lead them yourself?"
"Why the hell would I do something like that? I'm no leader, and I'm certainly not their babysitter."
"Right." The healer offered no further comment on that, seamlessly shifting to his next point. "Then what about those two?"
He gestured with his chin toward Greg and Kuro resting on the stone floor.
"They followed you almost instinctively. You could even say that surviving that slaughterhouse was largely thanks to the fact that you had each other's backs. So how are they any different from the rest?"
"They are different!" Gil snapped, refusing to let Greg and Kuro—the two allies who had trusted him with their lives in that pit—be lumped into the same breath as the unsightly display of the others in the arena.
"Tell me then," the healer countered, leaning in slightly, his eyes sharp. "How are they different? Is it just because they happened to listen to you? Is that all it takes?"
"They saved themselves!" Gil snapped, his voice trembling with raw emotion. "I won't let you speak of them—or of me—so lightly. Greg and I made the decision to team up the day before. Even though he knew nothing about me, he took a chance, and we chose to trust each other. We didn't know each other before this, and we didn't know what the other was capable of. He put his trust in me, and I gave him mine. It's as simple as that."
He stepped closer to the healer, his eyes burning.
"And Kuro? We hadn't even spoken a single word beforehand. Yet she stepped forward and joined us, even though stepping away from the main group and taking the back line was a massive risk. Each one of us took a leap of faith. We stepped out of our comfort zones and trusted complete strangers just for a fighting chance to survive! And what were the others doing? Screaming, fighting among themselves, and shoving each other into the meat grinder. Do you seriously think those vultures were worthy of trust? Would you turn your back on people like that?"
The healer remained silent, observing the fierce conviction radiating from the boy.
"Fair enough," the healer finally conceded, his voice dropping into a lower register. "Let's set aside the quality of your companions for a moment. Let's talk about when the beasts actually entered the arena."
What the hell is his angle? Gil thought, his jaw clenching.
Whatever lingering goodwill he had held toward the healer had completely evaporated, plunged deep into the negative by this endless parade of probing questions. He was a hair's breadth away from lunging at the man's throat.
Seemingly oblivious—or entirely unbothered—by Gil's mounting fury, the healer pressed on.
"Setting aside how you figured out the blind spots of the Lucius beasts, why did you act so recklessly? It takes a certain kind of madness to deliberately use your own arm as bait to pin one down. But the way you went about it was utterly foolish. Wrapping a thin layer of cloth from your clothes around your arm as a shield... did you honestly believe that would be enough? Did you not even consider it ?—"
He paused for a moment.
"—or worse, what if those beasts were far more cunning than you gave them credit for? Despite your clumsy defense, they could have feinted and ripped into a completely exposed vital spot. What if their claws were sharper than you realized, or laced with deadly venom? There were a thousand different ways that suicide stunt could have gone horribly wrong, and you didn't think of a single one. It's utterly pathetic.
"And don't get me started on your absurd gambit. I don't know how you uncovered their weak point, but all you did was unleash even more ravenous, unleashed apex predators onto yourself and everyone around you. Let me guess—you thought you were ruining the show for the spectators? Thought you were wrecking the organizers' grand plan so you could wipe out every last beast and walk away a hero? And what was the final body count? How many died because of your savior complex?"
Gil stood in silence, every word stoking the inferno in his chest.
According to this bastard, everything was his fault. He should have known this, he should have calculated that, he should have acted differently. With every sentence, Gil ground his teeth tighter, his white-knuckle fist trembling until his face hardened into a mask of pure, unadulterated fury.
How dare he?
Who the hell does he think he is?
"And the absolute worst part," the healer sneered, stepping closer, "is that you were smiling at the end. You felt like a triumphant hero, didn't you? So proud of killing that monster... Though I suppose you were laughing a lot less when you woke up missing an arm, wasn't that right?"
The instant those words left his mouth, even the healer realized he had crossed a line.
Before he could pull back, Gil exploded forward.
Leaping across the gap, Gil drove his single remaining arm forward, grabbing the healer by the collar. Borrowing every ounce of momentum and raw hatred in his body, he slammed a vicious headbutt straight into the healer's face.
The wooden mask cracked violently and flew off, tumbling across the stone floor.
The healer's bare face was revealed.
The face revealed beneath the mask was pretty much what Gil had guessed the day before.
The man had an unkempt beard and a pale, sickly complexion, as if he hadn't seen daylight in months. His hair—a faded blonde streaked with dirty black roots—hung in greasy strands over his forehead. He looked exhausted and prematurely aged, carrying the heavy weight of an existence slowly crumbling away.
Yet, despite his miserable appearance, a sharp, underlying tension still hummed beneath his skin. but Gil didn't care who or what was behind that mask anymore.
Blinded by absolute rage, his eyes bloodshot and his breath ragged, Gil growled through his gritted teeth:
"I won't let you talk shit like you know anything, you bastard!"
His eyes rapidly shifted to an increasingly deep golden hue, leaving behind their former amber color.
"I made mistakes, you say?" he barked. "I did everything wrong? I was reckless the whole time? Big deal! What would you have done in my place? What would you have done if you were in our shoes? No, you were actually in our exact position once! So how dare you preach to me like this now?"
By this point, his eyes were still glowing brightly, tinted with specks of red,but his face had become the very picture of bitter disappointment.
He shifted his gaze, glaring at the healer with nothing but utter contempt.
Gil slowly lowered his fist, letting out a heavy, weary sigh as his grip slipped from the healer's collar.
His expression hardened into one of cold, unadulterated disappointment.
"In the end... you're just like them, aren't you?"
The words had barely left his lips when the signature white light flared to life around the healer's hands—sharper, violent, and dangerously unstable.
His voice trembled, rising several octaves as he snapped back: "Repeat that."
Gil didn't flinch. He didn't step back. He simply stared, his gaze shifting from anger to a quiet, piercing pity.
That look struck the healer harder than any physical blow ever could.
"How dare you compare me to those monsters?!"
"It's not hard to make the comparison when you sound just like them," Gil replied coldly.
The two remained locked in a tense silence.
Gil's eyes burned with an increasingly intense, radiant gold.
Opposite him, the healer's expression flickered wildly through a storm of conflicting emotions—rage, remorse, and raw pain. He raised a glowing fist, fully intent on striking the boy down, but his arm froze mid-air.
Something about the golden weight in Gil's eyes pressed heavily against his body and mind, slowing his movements and anchoring him in place.
He couldn't quite fathom what was happening, but he found himself completely unable to swing.
For a long, suffocating moment, neither moved.
As Gil stared into the young man's bare face, a strange sensation washed over him. The healer's features looked strikingly familiar... yet Gil was certain he had never met this person before in his life.
And yet...