Chapter 45: Chapter 45: The Man Who Can Only Survive in a Cage_1
The knock on the door rang out, and Aiden responded, "Come in."
Veronica pushed the door open and walked into the office, saluting Aiden at his desk, "Commander."
"What is it you want to ask about?" Aiden asked from his chair, looking at his subordinate, "Is it about Avansa again?"
"You... noticed?" Veronica was somewhat surprised.
"I’ve been feeling your gaze on me the whole time I was talking to her earlier; you really are quite concerned about that child, aren’t you?"
"Commander, I heard that you had prisoner 3201 do some errands for you?" Veronica cautiously inquired.
"Yes."
"What kind of errands do you usually assign to her?"
Aiden thought for a moment, "The duties I assign to her are basically to suppress inmate riots, or to capture escapees, and also like today, to keep an eye on other inmates. I’ve told you before, that kid is my top enforcer."
"But shouldn’t those things be the responsibility of the riot squad?"
"We’re very short on personnel, and now that you’ve joined the riot squad, you should have seen it. The number of prisoners in this prison exceeds two thousand, how many are in the riot squad? Moreover, the number of riot personnel required for the core area is more than all the other areas combined. If we don’t make use of prisoners to help, you guys would hardly get any sleep."
"But to be honest, I think having such a young child take on these tasks is somewhat... inappropriate?" Veronica cautiously chose her words.
"In terms of danger, she herself is many times more dangerous than the tasks I assign to her, by my assessment, the tasks I give her are not too difficult for her," Aiden replied calmly.
"Forgive my frankness..." Veronica swallowed, but finally mustered the courage to speak her mind, "Aren’t you just... using her as a tool?"
"That’s not incorrect. Objectively speaking, I am indeed treating her as a tool," Aiden nodded without hesitation, admitting it candidly.
Veronica’s eyes widened at Aiden’s "frank" admission, which took her completely by surprise, leaving her momentarily at a loss for words.
After a while passed, she barely managed to say, "But that’s like—"
"It’s like what Meiruki did—using her as a tool for killing—is that what you’re thinking?" Aiden continued for her, "There’s a big difference. What Meiruki did, using her as a tool for killing, was illegal. Me using her as a tool to maintain prison order, is legal."
"Can that reason really justify it?" Veronica still couldn’t understand.
"It’s not the best course of action, but it is a viable one," Aiden answered, still composed, "Let’s face it, a prison is such a place, where criminals are punished and taught how to live law-abiding lives. If that child can only understand living as a tool, then I’ll teach her how to be a tool that the law can tolerate. It’s both the use of force, but while a criminal won’t be tolerated by society, a law enforcer will be."
"But, couldn’t we let her learn to be a normal child instead? She’s not even fourteen yet; there’s still a chance for rehabilitation, right?"
"This might be useful for ordinary juvenile offenders, but it’s meaningless for her," Aiden stared at Veronica for a long time before finally saying in a deep voice, "Veronica, we provide rehabilitation education to prisoners to offer them a chance, not to move ourselves. Everything must start from the prisoners themselves."
Veronica was stunned.
"I had a friend who once dedicated himself to a task, which was to teach boys and girls who had committed crimes. He believed that those children had taken the wrong path, merely due to problems with their thoughts and morals. As long as he touched their hearts sincerely and corrected them, they could recognize their mistakes and turn towards good will from then on," Aiden spoke calmly, "So, he started an organization where he gathered these children, providing them with lessons on ideology and morality, as well as other courses taught in schools."
"Isn’t that great?"
"But on the first day, those children ridiculed him, many mocking him for knowing nothing and only preaching moral principles. As a result, hardly any children were willing to cooperate with the educational lessons that friend offered."
"Why would that happen?" Veronica was quite surprised.
"Because he had never deeply considered the root causes of why those children would go astray. In fact, in that institution, only a small part truly fit what he thought. Most of the children came from problematic backgrounds. Some had no parents around to discipline them, others were abused from a young age, and there were even some whose parents were criminals themselves, forced into begging or stealing since childhood. For some, the environment in which they had always lived was twisted, and even if their ideas were corrected, it couldn’t change the environment they lived in. Yet he thought that his preaching could cure all, which, in the end, was just wishful thinking on his part," Aiden continued, his face expressionless as he narrated his experiences working in a juvenile detention center for two years.
Seeing Veronica reminded him of his younger self.
"In the end, my friend realized that instead of trying to forcibly reform those juvenile offenders with his own ideas, it was more practical to simply teach them how to survive in society in normal ways under the premise that committing bad deeds would lead to punishment—that was enough. As long as they did not commit crimes, that was the most realistic approach for those children."
Veronica blinked thoughtfully. She herself was an orphan, and if not for a decent orphanage taking her in, perhaps she would have ended up on the wrong path as well.
She carefully pondered the profound meaning of these words and cautiously asked, "So, what you mean is, Avansa, she..."
"Avansa is a completely different breed from ordinary people, and she will never be able to live like an ordinary person for the rest of her life. Correcting her mindset to that of a normal child is meaningless for her," Aiden said earnestly.
"As long as she retains her skills in killing, it’s almost impossible for society to let her out of prison. There are countless people outside who would want to use her as a tool for murder. She is... someone who can only be allowed to live within the confines of this prison. All I can do is teach her how to survive here."
"Then the world is too unfair to her, not leaving her any chance at all," Veronica said, her eyes drooping sadly.
As a werewolf, she could still strive to change her fate, but Avansa’s life was a one-way street to despair—either a tool for murder or a prisoner.
"She was born into this world without any opportunities, as I’ve told you before," Aiden paused, then suddenly added, "unless..."
"Unless what?" Veronica lifted her face again.
"Unless Meiruki, the one who raised her, is caught," Aiden folded his arms, "If there is anyone in this world who could give Avansa a chance to become an ordinary person, as of now, it could only be her."
