It wasn't a place he'd expected to visit today.
The hallway outside Caldera's office felt colder than usual—like the walls had heard too much. Torren stood with his arms crossed, weight shifting slightly between his feet. The others waited in silence.
They hadn't planned this. They hadn't even agreed aloud. But the moment Veil had stood up in the dining hall, Torren had followed. So had Rheya.
And now they were here.
The door opened. "Come in."
Caldera's voice was calm as ever. She didn't raise an eyebrow as the three of them filed into the room. No lecture. No warning. Just a nod toward the seats.
Torren sat last. Back straight, eyes forward.
"Something tells me this isn't about your next assignment," Caldera said.
Veil spoke first. "It's about Kaelen."
Torren noticed the shift in her expression—not surprise. Something else. A pause. A breath held for too long.
"You're not the first ones to ask."
"So there is something," Rheya said quietly.
"There's always something," Caldera murmured. Then she looked up. "You want the truth? Fine. But what I tell you doesn't leave this room."
Torren nodded instinctively. Rheya and Veil did the same.
Caldera leaned back in her chair and folded her hands. "When the collapse happened, I was still in the military. Emergency rescue division. We didn't know what we were dealing with—just that entire sectors were going dark. Vanishing."
Her eyes unfocused for a second. "We got sent to Sector 8-K. Reports of a sinkhole. Whole residential block, gone. I thought it was just a natural disaster. Until we got there."
Torren didn't breathe.
"There was no crater. No debris. Just… a hole in the world. And something was alive in it."
Veil leaned forward. "You mean a dungeon."
"The first," Caldera said. "Before we even had a name for it."
She looked at each of them in turn. "We went in. Six of us. Only three came out."
Rheya's fingers froze mid-grip on the armrest. Veil shifted in his seat, face unreadable—but his jaw clenched hard. Torren saw it. Neither of them expected this.
"And Kaelen?" Rheya asked, voice barely above a whisper.
"We found him deep underground. Alone. Bleeding. Half-conscious. His parents were gone. Everyone else, too. But he'd made it to the upper layers on his own."
Caldera's voice didn't crack. But something in her tone changed—like steel being sharpened. "He was six. Barely breathing. Covered in ash and blood. I carried him out myself."
For a second, no one spoke.
Rheya glanced sideways—not at anyone in particular, just away. Veil's stare dropped to the floor. His usual smirk was gone.
That was the moment everything clicked. Kaelen's silence. His eyes. The way he moved. Like survival wasn't just instinct—it was memory.
"No one ever officially recorded what happened down there," Caldera continued. "We didn't have protocols. Hell, we didn't even know what a dungeon was. But I never forgot that place. Or him."
She looked away for a second. "When I heard he resurfaced years later—training alone, applying for solo trials—I pulled strings. Got him transferred here. Under me."
Veil looked stunned. Rheya didn't speak.
Torren finally found his voice. "But why? Why let him fight alone? Why give him that kind of freedom?"
Veil opened his mouth like he wanted to add something—then closed it again. Rheya's brows drew together. Not in judgment. In worry.
Caldera didn't answer immediately. "Because he's already been through worse than anything we can simulate. And because the system doesn't understand what he is."
Silence again.
Then Rheya asked the question hanging in all their minds. "Does he even know what's waiting in a real dungeon?"
"He thinks he does," Caldera said. "But no one truly does—not until they step inside."
Torren shifted in his seat. "And tomorrow?"
"You're all deploying," Caldera said. "First live run. Monitored. Tier 1. Entry-level, with multiple evac ports."
"We know," Veil said. "That's why we're here."
Caldera's gaze sharpened. "You're worried he'll go alone."
"Yes," Rheya said. "We don't think he should."
Torren nodded. "He's never shared a team. Never been in a real dungeon. That final test? It was just a simulation. No real mana. No monsters. No death."
Caldera's expression didn't change. "But it was enough to tell me one thing."
She stood slowly, crossing her arms behind her back. "That boy's not trying to be strong. He already is. The question is what that strength turns into—when it finally meets something stronger."
No one spoke after that.
But Torren's thoughts were loud. He remembered the weight behind Kaelen's strikes. The way his eyes didn't flinch—even when bleeding. The silence that clung to him like armor.
This wasn't just some elite cadet. This was the boy who survived the first dungeon break.
Rheya didn't say a word as they left—but she kept glancing back over her shoulder, like Kaelen's shadow was following them. Veil walked slower than usual. No jokes. No bravado. Just silence.
And Torren?
He'd never felt more unready.