Boros slowly regained consciousness, his skull still hammered by pain. His heavy eyelids opened to a blurry vision: Alex was already walking away, Andris and Linnie by his side.
"Why are you leaving?" he growled in a rough voice, struggling to sit up. "I thought what you wanted… was this cave. You beat me, so now it's yours!"
Alex stopped. A brief silence filled the air, broken only by the wind brushing against the stone. Without turning around, he answered calmly:
"I don't want it."
Those words struck Boros more violently than any blow. His eyes widened, pure shock freezing his expression.
Alex finally turned around, his gaze calm yet deep.
"It's not that I don't want it, Boros… It's that I can't. I saw everything you did to protect this mine. You even gave up your vengeance for it."
At those words, something cracked inside Boros' mind.
"You put in too much effort," Alex continued in a softer voice. "I know what that's like… Even if it's not the same kind of effort, I understand what it means to give your whole body and soul for something."
Alex slowly walked toward Boros. Without a word, once he reached him, he extended his hand with a faint smile.
"That's why I respect your efforts… and your sacrifices," he said sincerely.
In that instant, something gave way in Boros' mind. The crack became a break.
Everything he had repressed for more than twenty years — the pain, the exhaustion, the loneliness — all surged to the surface at once.
For the first time in so long, someone acknowledged his efforts.
Twenty years of darkness…
Twenty years spent abandoning his vengeance, training until he surpassed his own limits, all to protect a simple cave.
He wasn't doing it out of passion anymore, but out of duty.
Each day, he fought against madness, trapped in crushing silence.
He had given so much… suffered so much…
And yet, no one had ever told him that any of it had meant something.
But now, hearing Alex's words, Boros felt for the first time that his efforts hadn't been in vain.
And before he could stop himself, tears streamed down his cheeks.
He hadn't cried in decades.
Andris, who had been watching the scene from a slight distance, approached Alex and whispered:
"Wow, boss… you're strong. You even made a king cry!"
Alex lightly smacked him on the head, without taking his eyes off Boros.
"Idiot. Look at the situation before you talk."
Andris winced and rubbed his head while Linnie sighed beside him.
Boros lifted his head. Seeing the scene, a memory washed over him—his father, who would sometimes smack him when he misbehaved… but always with that same glimmer in his eyes.
And then, without warning, Boros burst into a powerful laugh. A genuine, almost liberating laugh that echoed throughout the cave.
Alex, Andris, and Linnie stared at him, surprised and moved.
It was the first time in a very long while that Boros had laughed like that.