NOVEL NEXT Chapter 524: Human Weakness
After completing the treatment if the young boy, she asked with genuine warmth, "What's your name?"
"Moon," the boy replied quietly, his voice still weak from the pain he had endured.
"Moon… that's a nice name," Lisa said with a soft smile .
"Thanks," the boy said, his small face brightening slightly at her kindness.
She patted him gently on the head, her touch carrying the maternal instinct that had made her choose nursing as her life's work. For a moment, she remembered who she had been before trauma had forced her to become someone harder, more pragmatic about survival.
Then her gaze drifted toward her tormentor's still body across the room, and the complex emotions returned. Relief mixed with guilt, satisfaction shadowed by grief for the person she used to be. She had saved a child's leg with the same hands that had just taken a life.
The contradiction would take time to reconcile, but for now, she felt something the possibility of choosing who she wanted to become rather than simply enduring what others forced upon her.
The bow in her hands represented more than just a weapon. It was agency, the power to protect herself and others who couldn't protect themselves. Whether she used it again would depend on the choices others made about how they treated the vulnerable.
Arthur watched this quiet moment of healing with approval. Despite everything that had happened, Lisa's essential nature remained intact—she could still choose compassion when circumstances allowed it.
Arthur looked at everything with calm eyes before addressing Lisa's immediate future with practical consideration.
"It's time to go," Arthur stated with finality. "Do you want to stay here, or do you want to go to the place I told you about?"
Lisa looked at him for a moment, her mind weighing the familiar hell she knew against the uncertain possibilities he offered. The choice wasn't difficult—anything had to be better than remaining trapped with people who viewed her as property.
"I want to go to that place," she said with quiet determination. "I have no one left for me here anyway."
Her gaze then shifted to the small boy she had just treated, maternal instincts stirring despite everything she had endured.
"But can he come with me?"
Arthur looked at her for a second, considering the complications that additional dependents would create for someone already struggling with her own survival and adaptation.
"You will have to take care of him yourself," Arthur replied with honest assessment of the responsibilities she would be accepting.
Lisa nodded without hesitation, her decision made. She turned toward Moon with gentle concern.
"Would you like to come with me?" she asked the boy.
Moon nodded immediately, his young mind calculating that anything was better than this place and recognizing that the man they were going with possessed the kind of strength that meant protection rather than vulnerability.
Seeing Lisa's acceptance and Moon's inclusion, other shelter occupants began voicing their own desperate requests for escape.
"Can we come too?" several voices called out with obvious hope.
"Please, we don't want to stay here either!"
"We'll do whatever you need!"
Arthur immediately rejected their pleas with cold finality that cut through their gathering excitement.
Everyone remaining in that shelter wasn't only physically weak—they were weak-willed and pathetic. They had watched abuse occur without intervention, even when one of then should have intervened none did except a young boy. They had proven themselves incapable of any kind of courage that difficult situations demanded.
They would only serve as extra luggage that would slow down his own development while contributing nothing valuable to justify the resources required for their protection and advancement.
Lisa had earned her opportunity through her attempt to protect Charlotte and her willingness to take decisive action when given the means. The others had earned nothing through passive acceptance of injustice.
Arthur's discrimination wasn't arbitrary—it was based on demonstrated character that would determine who could adapt to the harsh realities of the new world and who would simply become additional burdens requiring constant protection.
The Power Guild required members with potential for growth, not refugees seeking someone else to solve their problems indefinitely.
Hearing Arthur's blunt rejection, the remaining shelter occupants couldn't contain their desperation. Several people broke down completely, some becoming hysterical as they realized their chance at escape was slipping away.
"Please, I'll do anything!" one woman cried out, her voice cracking with desperation. "You can have my body, whatever you want!"
Others joined in with increasingly frantic offers, their dignity abandoned in the face of being left behind in what had become a nightmare of exploitation and abuse.
"I have a better body than her!" another woman shrieked, pointing accusingly at Lisa with venomous jealousy. "Why does she always get to go with the strong ones while I'm stuck here? It's not fair!"
The woman's voice rose to a hysterical pitch as years of resentment and self-pity poured out in ugly waves. "I'm prettier! Why her and not me?"
More voices joined the chorus of desperate bargaining and bitter accusations, the shelter's occupants turning on each other as their hope transformed into toxic blame and self-degradation.
Arthur observed the pathetic display with cold disgust, watching people reduce themselves to nothing more than objects to be bartered while simultaneously attacking someone who had shown actual courage when it mattered.
The scene confirmed everything he had assessed about their character—when faced with adversity, they had chosen to tear each other down rather than build anything worthwhile.
Their desperation revealed not strength waiting to be unlocked, but weakness that would only deepen under pressure.
"Shut up, or I will make you shut up forever. Do you understand?" Arthur said with ice-cold authority that cut through their hysteria like a blade.
His words carried such overwhelming presence that the frantic voices died immediately, leaving only the sound of heavy breathing and suppressed sobs in the suddenly silent shelter.
His tone made it clear that another word would have consequences they weren't prepared to face.