Hope was the new poison running through Unit 17.
The morning after the culvert raid, Maria, Leo, and Elara no longer looked like broken victims. They moved with a strange, brittle energy, the hollowed eyes of addicts who had found their first hit. Where others groaned under Sergeant Vale's lash during morning drills, the three whispered to each other, their voices sharp and fervent.
Jack kept his distance, playing the role of a shaken boy barely holding himself together. He didn't need to spread the rumor not anymore. The survivors were doing the work for him.
When one recruit stumbled and dropped his shield, Vale beat him bloody with the flat of his blade. Maria slid to the boy's side afterward, whispering with a fire that made her sound almost holy.
"The Bureau wants us to die down there. That's all we are scrap to be thrown away. But there's another way. A place with weapons. Real ones. We went there. We came back. You don't have to die their way."
The boy blinked at her, lip split, nose bleeding. His eyes shifted between Maria's dented shield and her raw conviction. She didn't sound like she was lying. She sounded like someone who had seen God and survived.
Jack listened in silence. He let his face tremble with the same doubt he had worn since the sewer mission. "It's too dangerous," he murmured, voice just loud enough to be overheard. "We barely survived."
His doubt didn't slow Maria. It only made her more convincing.
By nightfall, four more had been converted. They gathered in the shadows of the barracks eight in total, including the three veterans. Their faces were pale, knuckles white on rusted weapons, but there was a light in their eyes that had not been there yesterday. Desperation dressed up as faith.
They slipped out before dawn.
The culvert's blood-red glow pulsed faintly in the gloom, its runes beating like the slow throb of a diseased heart. The new recruits froze, fear written plain across their faces. But Maria didn't hesitate. She held her shield like a banner and strode forward.
"Follow me," she said. And they did.
Jack brought up his interface the instant his foot crossed the threshold. His vision lit with clean schematics:
Eight green dots.
Red markers dormant, waiting.
Two loot chests seeded: one guaranteed helm, one chipped sword.
Second chamber marked for ambush.
His dungeon hummed like a living thing, eager to harvest.
The first goblin skirmish was almost comical. The creatures were weak, knives of bone and rust shaking in their hands. Maria roared and smashed one down with her battered shield. Elara's new blade cut another cleanly, her face calm as though she'd been born to it. Even Leo, light flickering faintly around him, held the line.
A chest appeared after the last goblin fell. When one boy pulled a leather helmet from it, his shriek of triumph echoed through the chamber. He jammed it onto his head, grinning like a fool.
"See?" Maria shouted, her voice ringing in the damp air. "I told you. It's real!"
The new recruits cheered. Hope, Jack noted, bloomed fast in ruined soil. His interface confirmed it:
[Tenant Morale Spike Detected: +12%]
Jack smiled inwardly. Perfect.
The second chamber was where he had set the teeth.
They entered in high spirits — and then the walls came alive. Rats poured from hidden cracks, their bodies a wave of fur and teeth. Goblins surged from the dark with howls, knives glinting.
The boy with the new helmet was first to die. Three rats leapt onto him, dragging him down. His scream cut off in a wet gurgle as their teeth found his throat. The helmet didn't matter. Nothing mattered.
Panic spread like fire in dry grass. Two recruits bolted for the tunnel mouth. Maria slammed her shield into one, knocking him back into formation. "Fight, damn you! If you run, you'll die!"
Another boy stumbled, a goblin's knife raised high over him. Jack raised his hand, feigning a desperate cast and missed. His [Mana Bolt] splashed harmlessly against the wall, blue light flickering. The knife came down, and the boy's scream ended just as fast.
Essence flooded Jack's body, a warm pulse beneath his skin.
[Tenant has died. Essence absorbed: +1 Strength.]
[Dungeon Saturation: +6%. Current: 42%.]
The survivors fought like cornered animals. Maria's fury held the line; Elara's blade cut a bloody path; Leo's trembling light barely kept the shadows at bay. When the last goblin fell, the chamber stank of blood and rat bile.
Five of them staggered out alive. Three corpses left behind, dissolved into motes of light.
At dawn, they collapsed outside the culvert, bloodied but clutching loot: the leather helm, a chipped sword, and a few crude goblin blades. Their faces weren't haunted. They were radiant, fever-bright.
"We won," Maria rasped, holding her shield aloft. "We can win again."
The others nodded, eyes glazed with the manic joy of addicts. They didn't mourn. They celebrated.
Back at the barracks, the whispers spread like fire. Maria, Leo, and Elara were no longer just survivors. They were prophets. Legends. Proof that salvation existed beyond the Bureau's slaughterhouse.
Jack lay in his bunk, feigning exhaustion. His interface glowed quietly.
[Tenant Dependency Threshold Passed: Cycle Reinforced.]
[Dungeon Economy Scaling Successful.]
His factory was no longer experimental. It was growing.
But far away, in a Bureau monitoring office, another energy spike lit a bored analyst's screen. This time, the algorithm flagged it.
[Anomaly Pattern Match Detected: Two identical incidents in 48 hours.]
[Report forwarded for Level 2 review.]
The analyst groaned, muttered about paperwork, and hit confirm.
Jack, miles away, stirred uneasily in his bunk. The faint violet warning still pulsed at the edge of his vision. A ghost. A pattern.
And predators knew: patterns were what got you killed.