In the end, when the dust settled after Alec’s fiery shockwave of rocky death, only two men remained standing.

Alec.

And Nikolai.

“Whew~ You really had me going there. I earnestly believed that you were a talented kid. But that’s not it at all. You’re some kind of freak geezer, aren’t you? You like pretending to be a child and playing with other children like you’re one of them?” Nikolai coughed and patted the dust off his clothes as he took a step toward Alec, the tip of his sword dragging against the ground.

Alec remained motionless. He didn’t cast any magic. He was barely breathing.

“Even if that were the case, who are you to judge? You make a living off of selling children to the most vile people imaginable.”

“Ah, that’s where you’re wrong! I only protect the Madam and act as her sword when need be. I have no involvement in the business itself.”

“You watch. You prevent people like me from stopping or interfering with the business. Yet, you claim to have no involvement?” Alec’s voice was sour with disgust.

“You watch these atrocities being committed. You watch as these children’s fate goes from bad to worse. You watch as your Madam condemns defenseless children to a life of misery, a life that can’t be called a life at all.

“And at the end of the day, you pat yourself on the back for a job well done since the Madam returned to her chambers safe and sound?

“At the end of the day, you tell yourself that you have no involvement? That you have no responsibility? That you have no guilt?!” Alec cried out, his voice tearing like paper. He took a step forward, meeting Nikolai, who had kept walking during Alec’s monologue.

Nikolai’s sword fell to the ground, but not because he let go of it. His thumb was broken. His fingers weren’t much better off.

He had used the sword, now bent, chipped, and charred to block as much of the explosion as possible. The hands that held that sword also suffered.

“You asked me who I am to judge you? No, no. What gives you the right to judge me?! You don’t know the life I’ve lived! That we have lived!” Nikolai shouted hoarsely.

“Everything I’ve done, good and bad, I did to survive! When people stepped on me, I stepped back! When I had to choose between being trampled and doing the trampling, I chose to trample! I chose to kill! Not to be killed!”

“I am sure that was true at one point, long ago. But look around you, Nikolai. Are you making that same choice right now because you have no other? Or are you still choosing to stand on others to raise you up because it’s the only thing you know? Is it because you’re scared?

“Is it because you think it’s fine as long as you keep telling yourself that you have no other choice?” Alec asked with icy calm, seeing right through Nikolai.

He could only imagine how harsh life was for people born into the underworld or street urchins in this world. But the core of it wasn’t different from back on Earth.

Alec had faced many difficult choices during his childhood and youth. He would have loved to say that he always made the right ones. But he couldn’t. He hadn’t. And if not for Alex, he would have made even more wrong choices.

That was why he knew how difficult making the right choice could be, not just morally, but realistically.

Not stealing from your family or others in the same position as you is the objectively right choice.

But when you’re so hungry that your fingers are trembling, you feel a chilly fever, and your stomach has tied itself into knots, how are you supposed to not eat? Even if it means stealing.

But there was a limit. A limit that Nikolai and his employer had long since crossed.

They were no longer the victims or the oppressed. They were not beneath the boot. They were the oppressors wearing the boot, and they wore it proudly while writing victim on their foreheads.

That was why, when Alec and Nikolai were finally within reach of each other, Alec blocked the punch Nikolai threw with his handless arm. Then, he stabbed a scalpel into Nikolai’s throat before yanking it out in a spray of blood.

Nikolai quickly put his hands against his throat to stop the bleeding, but it was futile. He was as out of mana as Alec, and he hadn’t escaped the blast completely unscathed.

He stumbled a few steps backward before sinking to his knees and falling on his back, blood pooling around his head.

Alec looked at him with cold eyes. Then, he too fell to the ground. His body had reached its limit.

Redirecting the Bursts hadn’t gone perfectly, so he had taken some damage from the chained shockwaves. But more than that, he had run out of mana. His heart wasn’t beating.

He was also mentally exhausted. Both parts of his mind firing on all cylinders during a fight to the death against an opponent stronger than him was apparently taxing.

Lastly, with Nikolai’s death, the effects of [Reacher] ended, dropping all of his stats back to their original level. For most of them, that didn’t matter. But for his Energy stat, it meant he was in a deficit.

Alec wanted to complain. Of course, a Title from a system that wasn’t even part of his brother’s original work would have a drawback just because it existed in his world.

But he was too tired. He just wanted to close his eyes and forget everything for just a moment.

If he were lucky, he would recover enough mana. If he were unlucky, he wouldn’t.

He heard voices in the distance, through the thick fog in his mind. But they weren’t loud enough to pierce the fog and keep him from closing his eyes.

Having lost the battle of willpower, Alec passed out.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep