The mouth of the sewer was a promise of a tomb. A foul stench, a cocktail of rot, chemical runoff, and stagnant water, rolled out to greet Unit 17. Dawn was a pale, sickly light that did little to warm the industrial sector's grey concrete. Other Hazard Clearance units were assembling nearby, their gear worn but functional, their formations tight. But Unit 17 stood apart, a collection of broken toys in rusted, ill-fitting armor. The difference was not just in equipment; it was a brand of humiliation.
Jack walked last in their shambling line, his face a perfect mask of fear. He let his eyes dart nervously, mimicking the terror of the others. But his mind was a cold, clean ledger, and he was already running the numbers. Desperation plus poor gear equals high mortality. High mortality equals tenant flow. The math was simple. It was beautiful.
Sergeant Vale kicked a loose grate, the shriek of metal on concrete making them all flinch. "Line formation! Shields front, Glow in the middle, Mage in the back. You have one job: kill everything that isn't human. Move."
They descended into the darkness. A boy named Leo, the one with the F-rank [Glow] talent, activated his ability. A pathetic, flickering yellow light pushed back the oppressive blackness. It wasn't much, but the rest of the squad clung to it like moths to a dying flame. Jack made a mental note. A liability in combat, but useful as morale bait. He filed the thought away.
The tunnel was a nightmare of dripping pipes and the skittering sounds of unseen things. The bitter girl, Maria, cursed under her breath with every step. The two silent orphans at the front remained stone-faced, their shields held tight. They were already dead inside.
First contact was not a battle; it was a chaotic scrum. A swarm of Giant Rats, their eyes glinting redly in Leo's light, poured from a side passage. The fight was ugly. The cracked shield one of the silent boys was carrying failed on the first impact, the metal splitting with a groan. He dropped it and scrambled back. Another recruit panicked, swinging his rusty sword wildly, nearly clipping Jack's ear.
Jack, feigning his own panic, raised a hand. A weak, blue orb of energy flew from his palm. His aim was not random. It was perfect. The [Mana Bolt] struck a rat a fraction of an inch below its eye, piercing its skull. He immediately made a show of shaking, as if the lucky shot had been a fluke. Casualties were avoided, for now. But the squad's fear, a palpable thing, had ratcheted up a notch.
Deeper in, the real threat emerged. Corrosive Slimes oozed from grates, drawn to the industrial runoff. Their acidic bodies were slow, but their touch was devastating. One boy screamed as a glob of slime ate through his cheap leather jerkin, leaving an angry red burn on his arm. Maria, the girl with [Minor Toughness], managed to shove him out of the way, her own shield sizzling where a drop of acid landed.
The fight ended with the squad battered, their morale collapsing. Leo, the Glow boy, was trembling so hard the light around them flickered like a strobe, casting dancing, monstrous shadows on the walls.
Jack watched it all, his mind a cold, calculating machine. The Glow boy was an exploitable symbol of "hope." Maria, the bitter girl, was a potential dissenter; her anger could rally the others if it wasn't redirected toward a new, false hope. The silent two were wild cards; they needed more trauma to finally break their stoicism.
He realized the squad was still too stable. They were terrified, but they were not yet broken. To drive them into his dungeon, they needed to taste true, absolute despair. Therefore, he decided, he would let the next encounter spiral.
The final chamber was a large, circular cistern that the maps had labeled as a minor rat nest. But the maps were wrong. Sergeant Vale had underestimated the infestation. Dozens of rats swarmed the chamber, their chittering an overwhelming wave of sound. At the center was a creature twice the size of the others, its fur matted with filth and blood. A Nest Mother.
The unit faltered. The two silent recruits, who had been so stoic, finally broke. They froze, their eyes wide with terror.
"It's a trap!" Maria screamed, her voice cracking. "They sent us here to die!"
The Nest Mother shrieked, and the swarm charged. In the ensuing chaos, Jack saw his moment. He saw a rat lunging for one of the frozen recruits. He had a clear shot. He raised his hand. And then he deliberately delayed his cast by half a second.
He waited until the rat's teeth had sunk deep into the boy's leg before his "saving" Mana Bolt lanced out. The squad barely survived, a chaotic scramble of screams and desperate sword swings. They fled the chamber dragging the half-dead recruit, their formation shattered, their courage utterly broken.
Back at the facility, Vale looked at their bloodied, traumatized forms and sneered. "One scrape with rats and you look like corpses already. Tomorrow will be worse." He dismissed them with a wave of his hand.
That night, the barracks were a place of open misery. The boy with the shattered leg groaned in a medical cot. Leo, the Glow boy, trembled in his bunk, muttering about how they wouldn't survive another run. Maria, the bitter girl, was openly weeping, not with sadness, but with pure, undiluted rage at being thrown away like trash. Their despair was perfect. It was ripe.
Jack, his mask of a fellow victim firmly in place, moved to the center of the room. He let his voice drop to a low, conspiratorial whisper.
"There's… maybe another way," he said, and the broken orphans turned to him. "I heard rumors, back at the main orphanage. A dungeon, unclaimed, outside Bureau oversight. In a culvert by the west wall. Dangerous, but with loot… real weapons… maybe something we could use. Something that's ours."
He planted the seed of a false hope in the barren soil of their despair. He saw the light flicker in Leo's eyes. He saw the others glance at each other, their anger and fear momentarily replaced by a sliver of desperate curiosity.
Later, as the barracks fell into a fitful silence, Jack lay awake, his mind clear and calm. The dungeon interface flickered in his vision.
[Notice: Tenant morale collapse detected. Recruitment probability: 41% → 67%]
His smile was a faint, sharp line in the darkness. The Bureau thought it was sending him into the sewers to rot. Instead, it had perfectly calibrated his raw materials for him.
He could hear the distant whisper of rats in the facility's pipes, a sound that no longer promised a threat. It promised a harvest. And tomorrow's blood would feed not the Bureau, but him.