As we walk down the street to Tyler’s house, which is about 3 hours away, I simmer. I was caught off guard for the first time in decades. Fury covers my soul as I try to figure out what happened.
Tyler looks at me with discomfort, unable to look me in the eyes, and asks, “Why did you do that? I don’t need to know, but I would like to know why.”
“Tyler, when you live as long as I have at the top, it becomes pretty normal to get kidnapped and be threatened for your secrets. Do you know how many times I’ve been kidnapped? I stopped counting after 100. Being the best has its downfalls. Oh and I just wiped her memories of us unless they went back more than 24 hours. The only reason I could freeze her is that my ability to stack curses. There was no way she could have predicted what happened. Oh, shit forgot to turn those curses off.” I quickly turned them off, except for one. Let's say it was a punishment.
“Were you going to kill her if I wasn’t there?” Tyler asks me with dread in his voice.
“Yes, and you would too if you knew what was at stake,” I say back.
“What is so important that’s worth a life? Your spell forms, don’t make me laugh.”
I turned on him, my fury exploded, looking into his eyes so he could see my anger. “Tyler, that is all I am. I spent years going through unimaginable agony to be the best at what I do. I’m the fucking best and everyone knew it. If I gave them anything, all they would want is more. Tyler, she was going to torture us if I didn’t tell her. She was gearing up for it. Tyler you have no idea how powerful I am. I beat the fucking tower, man, do you know how? I made myself immortal and killed everything in my path. EVERYTHING! IF YOU THINK KILLING A PERSON WHO IS THREATENING YOUR LIFE IS WRONG, STOP CLIMBING THE TOWER! YOU'RE GOING TO KILL THOUSANDS, TYLER, THOUSANDS BY THE END! IF YOU JUST LET SOMEONE STOP YOU CUZ YOU DON’T WANT TO KILL, YOU WON’T MAKE IT PAST FLOOR 12!” I was shouting by the end and Tyler was looking down ashamed. After a couple of seconds, I started to feel bad. “I’m sorry Tyler if you don't want to kill someone you don’t have to. The twelfth floor starts to use humans, so you can stop before then. I’ve done some pretty terrible things to get to where I am now. It feels like you were saying I didn’t matter when you said my spell forms were not worth killing someone to get them out of their hands. All I had was my ability to make spells, I guess it doesn’t matter now given the system stealing my spells. I’m sorry for yelling at you.”
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After some seconds Tyler starts to talk. “I would first like to say sorry. I don’t know what you went through. I’ve learned how to fight monsters. That’s what my teachers said was in the tower. They never told us of how it was in the tower. It makes sense that someone would kill for that little bit of power they need, or to put down someone threatening their position. I just never considered what that really meant. That I might have to kill someone, even if it was to protect my life.” Tyler pauses. “I don’t know if I can do that. Live that kind of life.”
“Ok, let's just focus on climbing the tower. I won’t try to convince you to do it. I know the first time is the worst. It took us a month last time to get over it. If you don’t want to, it's fine.”
Tyler and I walked home in silence after that.