The Warden of The Witches

Chapter 45:

The People Who Can Only Survive in Captivity

There was a knock on the door, and Aiden responded, "Come in."

Veronica pushed open the door and entered the office, saluted respectfully to Aiden. "Chief."

"Tell me, what do you want to ask?" Aiden sat in his chair, looking at his subordinate and asked, "Is it about Evangeline?"

"You... figured it out?" Veronica was somewhat surprised.

"When I was talking to her earlier, I could always feel your gaze. You really do care a lot about that child."

"Chief, I heard before that you had asked inmate 3201 to help you?," Veronica asked cautiously.

"Yes."

"What kind of tasks do you usually assign her?"

Aiden thought for a moment. "I mostly give her responsibilities to suppress prisoner riots, or capture escapees. And sometimes, like today, I have her keep an eye on other prisoners. As I told you, she's my ace in the hole."

"But isn't this the responsibility of the riot squad?"

"We're short-staffed. You've joined the riot squad yourself, so you should have seen it. The number of prisoners in this prison exceeds two thousand, and how many people are in the riot squad?

Moreover, the core area requires more riot personnel than all the other sections combined. Without using prisoners to help out, you might not even get a wink of sleep."

"But to be honest, I feel that assigning such tasks to such a young child is a bit... not quite appropriate," Veronica carefully chose her words.

"If we're talking about danger, the tasks I assign to her are probably many times less dangerous than herself. In my evaluation, the tasks I give her are not overly difficult for her," Aiden replied calmly.

"Forgive me for being blunt..." Veronica cleared her throat, mustering up the courage to speak her mind. "Aren't you... using her as a tool?"

"That statement is not entirely wrong. Objectively speaking, I am indeed using her as a tool," Aiden nodded without hesitation, admitting it straightforwardly.

Veronica's eyes widened. Aiden's "frank" response completely caught her off guard, leaving her momentarily speechless.

After a while, she managed to find her words. "So, how is this...

"how is this different from Meirujinu who used her as a killing tool— is that what you're implying?" Aiden answered for her.

"There's a big difference. Meirujinu using her as a tool for killing is illegal. Me using her as a tool to maintain prison discipline is legal," Aiden continued for her.

"Is this reasoning really justifiable?" Veronica still couldn't quite comprehend.

"It's not the best approach, but it is indeed workable," Aiden responded calmly. "In the end, a prison is a place for administering punishment to criminals and teaching them how to abide by the law and survive. That child can only understand how to survive as a tool. So, I'll teach her how to be a tool that the law can tolerate. Both involve exerting violence, but society won't tolerate criminals, while law enforcers can."

"But, can't we give her a chance to learn to be a normal child? She's not even fourteen yet, there's still room for rehabilitation, isn't there?"

"This might be useful for ordinary juvenile offenders, but it's meaningless for her." Aiden stared at Veronica for a long time before saying softly,

"Veronica, we provide rehabilitation education for prisoners to give them opportunities, not to appease ourselves. Everything has to start from the prisoner themselves."

Veronica was taken aback.

"I have a friend who once dedicated himself to a job, which was to educate delinquent youth. He believed that these kids had gone astray due to issues in their character and morals. As long as he sincerely influenced and corrected them, they could recognize their mistakes and become virtuous individuals," Aiden calmly recounted.

"So, he established an institution where he gathered these children and provided them with classes on ethics and other subjects."

"Isn't that a good thing?"

"But on the first day, he was ridiculed by those kids. Many of them mocked him, saying he didn't understand anything and only knew how to preach. As a result, very few children were willing to cooperate in the education courses he conducted."

"Why did that happen?" Veronica was quite surprised.

"Because he never deeply pondered the root causes of why these kids went astray. In reality, in that institution, only a small portion were truly like what he envisioned.

Most of these children came from problematic backgrounds. Some of them had parents who were absent and couldn't provide guidance, some had suffered from domestic violence since childhood, and there were even cases where the parents themselves were criminals, forcing their children into begging and stealing from a young age.

Some people have always lived in twisted environments. Even if their mindset is corrected, it won't change the environment they're in. Yet, he believed that his preaching alone could cure them. In the end, it was just him assuming things," Aiden explained.

Aiden's expression remained emotionless as he recounted these experiences from his two years working in a juvenile detention center.

Seeing Veronica, he thought back to his younger self.

"In the end, my friend realized that instead of forcefully correcting juvenile offenders with his own beliefs, it's more practical to simply make them understand that doing wrong will lead to punishment, and teach them how to live in society in a normal way—just not committing crimes is enough. This approach is the most practical for those kids," Aiden concluded.

Veronica blinked thoughtfully. She herself was an orphan, and if it weren't for being taken in by a decent orphanage, she might have also ended up on the wrong path.

She carefully considered the depth of these words and asked cautiously, "So, what you're saying is... Evangeline..."

"Evangeline is completely different from an ordinary person. She will never be able to live like a regular person again in her lifetime. Trying to correct her mindset to be like a normal child would be meaningless for her," Aiden said seriously.

"As long as her skills in killing remain with her, it's almost certain that this society will never let her leave this prison. There will always be people outside wanting to use her as a killing tool.

She... can only be allowed to survive in this prison. The only thing I can do is teach her how to survive in this prison," Aiden added.

"That's so unfair to her, isn't it? She's not given any chance,"

Veronica said with a touch of sadness, lowering her gaze.

As a werewolf, she still had the chance to change her fate through effort, but Evangeline life was a one-way road to despair—either be a killing tool or be a prisoner.

"She was born into a world without opportunities, as I told you," Aiden pondered for a moment, then suddenly added, "Unless..."

"Unless what?" Veronica raised her face again.

"Unless her handler Meirujinu is caught," Aiden clasped his hands together. "If there's anyone in this world who could give Evangeline a chance to become a normal person again, at least for now, it would be her."