Aeolus gazed at the children before him, some no older than five or six, and others still in swaddling clothes. His eyes were filled with deep, complicated emotions.
These children were the result of his work as a law enforcer, following the mandates of the Synapse Code. Their parents came from all walks of life: gamblers, drunks, thieves, prostitutes, and even lazy idlers. By the standards of the Code, none of these parents were qualified to raise their children. Thus, following the law, the enforcers had taken these children away from their parents.
On this point, Aeolus mostly agreed with the Code. In fact, he felt the law was entirely justified. If the Code didn't intervene and these children were left to be raised by such parents, society would simply produce another generation of useless gamblers, drunks, or street thugs. By intervening, everything changed.
Synapse allocated resources for these children—legally considered orphans. Those with talent would enter the extraordinary education system established by the city's ruler, where they could completely change their destinies. Even those without the aptitude for extraordinary training would be sent to vocational schools, where they could learn valuable skills to support themselves and secure a stable income.
These children would one day become part of the empire's future, small but vital cogs contributing their own strength. They would escape the fates their parents had laid out for them.
"Aeolus, stop daydreaming. It's time to send them off!" Dragoness Eddie walked in, smiling sweetly at the sight of the children, no matter what kind of people their parents were.
"Yeah," Aeolus nodded. He walked over and picked up the smallest of the children. These kids were about to step onto the teleportation platform for the first time, sending them to a welfare institution thousands of miles away.
People like Aeolus and Eddie had noble hearts and could overlook who these children's parents were. But the average citizen wouldn't be so forgiving. Once in the distant city, no one would know the origins of these children, and no one would judge them for their parents' misdeeds.
They would grow up freely, as ordinary children, and enjoy a future full of light.
...
"Captain, we received an anonymous report accusing a couple at 133 Baker Street of child abuse!"
"Alright." Aeolus looked around. His team had all gone out on enforcement tasks, leaving only one impulsive and straightforward boy in front of him.
"Let's go check it out. If the report is true, we'll take the abused child back," Aeolus sighed as he picked up the cloak hanging nearby, fastening it around his shoulders. He glanced at the boy holding the report. "Let's go!"
...
"Mom, this meat is disgusting!" The little boy, no older than three or four, picked up a piece of overcooked meat from his bowl, chewed it twice, and spat it onto the table in disgust.
The boy's actions were watched enviously by a little girl sitting at the same table, dressed in ragged, patched-together clothes. She looked at her own bowl of food, which was entirely vegetarian: cold, dry rice and wilted vegetables left over from the previous day.
"Why don't you appreciate what you have? Do you know how hard it used to be to even get a piece of meat?" snapped the mother, a sharp-faced woman, glaring at her son's lack of gratitude.
"I don't want it! It's gross!" The boy pouted in discontent. The meat was tasteless and tough, hardly edible.
"You little—!" The woman's face twisted in anger. She slammed her bowl down, raised her hand, and brought it down hard—not on her son, but on the girl sitting quietly beside him.
The slap came without warning, and with such force that the girl was knocked off her chair, spilling her food onto the floor. The woman frowned, not because she thought she had hit too hard, but because the floor was now dirty. Her irritation deepened.
She stood up, walked over to her daughter, and kicked her thin body, sending her sliding across the floor. "You don't need to eat today. Get up and clean this mess."
The girl, accustomed to such treatment, didn't cry or complain. Her exposed skin was already covered in scars. She had lived like this as long as she could remember.
Silently, she stood up, walked outside, and fetched a broom almost as tall as she was. She returned and began cleaning up the spilled food.
Her father sat at the table, eating in silence, completely indifferent to the abuse. Some of the scars on the girl's body had come from him as well. Meanwhile, her younger brother watched the scene with amusement. He had never seen anything wrong with it. This was how things had always been.
"You're cleaning too slowly!" the mother barked. Her irritation grew as she recalled the petty troubles of her recent days. Anger surged within her.
She grabbed a wooden stick from the wall and began to beat the girl without mercy. The first strike knocked her to the ground, but the girl merely curled up, accepting the blows in silence.
"You're nothing but a thick-skinned wretch!" the woman cursed. Unhappy with how things were going, she threw the stick aside, grabbed the girl by her hair, and slammed her repeatedly against the floor.
At that moment, a voice filled with fury suddenly rang out: "Stop!" The sound of wood splintering echoed through the small house.
The girl, numb to pain, barely managed to turn her head toward the source of the noise. She saw two young men, dressed in white, standing in the broken doorway of her home.
"Enforcers?" The once-furious woman was momentarily stunned by the sight of the two boys who had kicked in her door. She released her grip on her daughter's hair and pushed her behind her. "What do you want? You have no right to break into my house, even if you're enforcers!"
"If you know we're enforcers, then you know that our presence here means you've broken the law!" Aeolus said coldly, stepping toward the girl who had been shoved behind her mother.
"What law? You brats don't have the right to accuse people randomly!" the woman shouted.
Aeolus ignored her, standing in front of her and uttering two words icily: "Move aside."
"You dare talk to me like that?!" the woman raged, pointing her finger at Aeolus. "What are your names? I'm going to report you!"
"Didn't you hear? The captain told you to move, you hag! Or do I have to do it for you?" The impulsive boy accompanying Aeolus stepped forward, his body crackling with blue-white lightning as anger overtook him.
Seeing the lightning-covered boy, the woman hesitated. Reluctantly, she stepped aside, revealing the frail girl behind her.
Aeolus knelt down, his expression softening as he looked at the girl's empty eyes and scarred body. "Don't worry. We're here to save you," he said gently.
As he examined her injuries more closely, Aeolus' anger grew. The girl's body showed signs of repeated, unrestrained abuse. Her bones were deformed, not from birth but from the mistreatment she had endured. Scars crisscrossed her skin, and even her internal organs were damaged.
"Indeed, the Code is right. Some people are simply unfit to be parents!" Aeolus muttered to himself, his heart heavy with the weight of what he had witnessed.
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