The state believed it was caging an asset, but a cage is only a cage if you don't own the key. For Jack, the State Asset Protocol wasn't a set of chains; it was a blueprint for a more efficient factory. And today was the day he would submit his transfer request.
The surviving orphans were gathered in the main hall once more. The atmosphere was a thick soup of dread and resignation. A large screen dominated the front wall, displaying a list of government-affiliated guilds. Jack scanned the board, his face a mask of bored indifference, but his mind was a whirlwind of calculation. He saw the prestigious exploration guilds—the Crimson Vanguards, the Silver Talons—and saw the names of the high-scoring orphans slotted neatly beside them. Those were high-value assets, too well-monitored to be useful. He saw the stable support guilds where Mike had been placed, a content smile on his face. Safe. Predictable. Useless.
Then he saw the section at the bottom of the list, the one everyone else tried not to look at. Hazard Clearance. It was a bureaucratic euphemism for a garbage disposal service. The assignments were a grim catalog of the city's dirty work: sewer cleanups, nest exterminations, and containment breaches. The units had numbers, not names. They were filled with the lowest-scoring, the F-rank talents, the assets deemed utterly expendable.
They were the state's own slaughterhouses. They were perfect.
The final stage of assignment was a series of practical drills, a last chance for the proctors to sort the assets. Jack knew this was his only opportunity. He needed to fail, but he needed to fail in a very specific way. When his group was called for a mana control assessment, he stepped forward. The task was simple: fire three Mana Bolts at a target, demonstrating control and stability.
His first bolt was perfect, a clean, stable sphere of energy that struck the bullseye. He saw Sarah, the female proctor, watching him from the sidelines, her arms crossed. Her eyes were sharp, analytical.
His second bolt was different. He deliberately channeled his mana incorrectly, pushing a fraction more than the F-rank skill could handle. The bolt flew true, but it was unstable. It wobbled in the air, crackling with errant sparks. It hit the target, but then discharged violently, scorching a black circle on the wall around it.
He feigned a gasp of panic, stumbling back. "I-I'm sorry! I don't know what happened! I can't control it sometimes!"
The male proctor scowled. "Unstable output. That's a critical failure, asset. You're a friendly-fire risk."
But Sarah walked forward, her eyes narrowed. "That was convenient," she said, her voice low enough that only Jack could hear. "A flaw that just happens to make you unsuitable for a stable support squad."
"I don't know what you mean," Jack whispered, forcing a tremor into his voice.
"You're too neat, Vernon," she replied, her voice cold. "Too… convenient. The Bureau will be watching you."
She had no proof. It was just a feeling, a predator's intuition. But it was enough. She couldn't override the official assessment. A Mage with unstable mana output was a liability. He was too dangerous to be placed with valuable assets. He was only suitable for one place.
Later that afternoon, the final assignments were posted. He found his name. "Jack Vernon, assigned to Hazard Clearance Unit 17." A unit filled with terrified, low-stat orphans. A rotating door of forgotten children destined to die in sewers, rat nests, and goblin warrens.
To Jack, it was a delivery manifest.
He stood before the board, letting the other orphans see his slumped shoulders, the feigned look of utter defeat on his face. He felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Mike.
"Man, that's rough," Mike said, his voice full of genuine pity. "Hazard Clearance... just, be careful, okay?"
"I will," Jack said, his voice a hollow whisper.
He returned to his dorm, the mask finally falling away in the solitude of his small room. He lay on his bed, a profound sense of satisfaction washing over him. The state believed it had caged him. It believed it had branded him as disposable trash, a tool to be used and broken.
They were wrong. They had not built him a cage. They had built him a farm and handed him the keys. They had created a system that would take the weakest, most desperate children, concentrate them into isolated squads, and then send them into the dark, forgotten corners of the world to die. They had created the perfect supply chain for his factory.
A ghostly white window flickered in his vision, a notification from a system far more important than the state's. It was a projection from his own talent, a piece of analytical data he hadn't asked for but which the dungeon now provided.
[System Notice: New Tenant Supply Chain Detected. Projected Saturation Delay: +96 hours.]
His own talent was confirming the success of his manipulation. The projected increase in tenants would allow him to better manage the dungeon's pressure, to balance the killing and the clearing.
He closed his eyes, a thin, cold smile spreading across his face. The government, the proctors, Sarah... they were all just cogs in a machine they didn't understand. But he did. He saw the beautiful, brutal symmetry of it all.
Their cage was his farm.