The Housing Administration office was a sterile room filled with the droning sound of cooling fans and the smell of stale coffee. Behind the counter sat a bored administrator, a man named Mr. Finch, who had spent the last ten years stamping forms and denying requests.
When Sephorae Vespera stepped up to the desk, the white cloak sweeping the floor, Finch didn't even look up from his screen.
"Name and Rank," Finch grunted.
Sephorae placed his student ID on the counter. It had already been updated. The holographic portrait showed his mask, and the rank glowing in dull grey letters was F.
Finch looked at the ID, then up at the mask. A sneer curled his lip. "Ah. The fallen prince. Down to the mud with the rest of us, are we?"
He tapped a few keys. "Standard procedure for F-Ranks is a shared bunk in Block D. Four students to a room. Communal showers. No privacy."
Sephorae didn't move. He reached into the folds of his cloak and retrieved a small, heavy pouch. He opened it slightly and slid it across the counter. Inside, the raw, uncut gems he had harvested from the wasteland glimmered—rubies and sapphires worth more than Finch's annual salary.
Finch's eyes bulged.
Sephorae pointed to a specific sector on the digital map behind the administrator: Sector 9. It was the old wing, a dilapidated section of the commoner dorms that had been condemned for renovation years ago but never touched. It was isolated, far from the noisy bunkhouses.
"You... you want the Old Quarter?" Finch stammered, his greed warring with his confusion. "That place is a wreck. Leaky pipes, broken windows. It's practically a ruin."
Sephorae nodded once. He held up one finger: Single occupancy.
Finch snatched the pouch, checking the weight. "Fine. If you want to live in a rat's nest, be my guest. Room 901. It's the old caretaker's suite. Spacious, but it's a dump."
He slid a heavy, rusted physical key across the desk—no digital access card for this room. Sephorae took it and walked out.
The Ruins of Sector 9
The Commoner Dorms were loud, smelling of cheap cafeteria food and unwashed laundry. Students hung out in the hallways, playing games and gossiping. As the white-cloaked figure passed, the noise died down, replaced by pointing fingers and whispers.
Sephorae ignored them, walking past the crowded blocks until the pavement turned cracked and weedy.
Sector 9 loomed ahead. It was a single-story stone structure covered in ivy, with a sagging roof and boarded-up windows. Room 901 was at the far end.
He unlocked the door and pushed it open.
The air inside was thick with dust. The floorboards groaned under his boots. There was a single rusted bed frame, a desk missing a leg, and water stains on the ceiling that looked like maps of forgotten continents. It was horrible. It was perfect.
Sephorae stood in the center of the room. It was large—much larger than the cramped bunks. It had high ceilings and a reinforced door. It was isolated.
He stepped back outside, pulled out his datapad, and made a call. He didn't call the school maintenance; he called an external contractor, a high-end renovation crew from the city that catered to nobility.
The Spectacle
An hour later, the quiet of the Commoner District was shattered by the arrival of three sleek, industrial transport trucks.
A crew of twenty workers, dressed in professional grey jumpsuits, swarmed Sector 9. They didn't look like school janitors; they looked like a military engineering unit.
Crowds of commoners gathered at the edge of the lawn, watching in disbelief.
"What is he doing?" a student whispered. "He's paying for a private crew?"
"Where did he get the money? I thought his father cut him off!"
Sephorae stood by the old oak tree outside the dorm, his arms crossed under his cloak, supervising silently. He directed the foreman with simple hand gestures.
Tear it out.
The workers moved with ruthless efficiency. The rotted floorboards were ripped up. The broken furniture was tossed into a skip. The peeling wallpaper was stripped.
Then came the new materials.
The students watched, slack-jawed, as the workers unloaded crates of dark mahogany wood, soundproof insulation panels, and high-grade obsidian tiles. They brought in a massive, plush bed with black silk sheets, a heavy executive desk carved from ebony, and shelves—walls and walls of empty bookshelves.
"That's... that's noble-grade furniture," someone muttered. "He's turning a shack into a palace."
The renovation took six hours of non-stop, high-speed labor. The plumbing was replaced. The electrical wiring was upgraded to handle high-capacity servers. The windows were replaced with one-way enchanted glass—opaque from the outside, clear from the inside.
The Sanctuary
By sunset, the trucks were packing up.
The foreman approached Sephorae, wiping sweat from his brow. "All done, sir. Soundproofing is rated for combat drills. The lock is biometric. It's a fortress."
Sephorae handed him another pouch of gems. The foreman bowed low—a bow reserved for high nobility—and signaled his team to leave.
The crowd of commoners was still watching, waiting to see what the "F-Rank failure" would do next.
Sephorae didn't acknowledge them. He walked up the newly paved stone steps and opened the heavy, reinforced black door.
Inside, the smell of rot was gone, replaced by the scent of fresh cedar and expensive polish. The room was dark, lit by soft, ambient strip lighting hidden in the crown molding. It was minimalist, cold, and elegant. A single high-backed leather chair sat behind the desk. In the corner, a dedicated space was cleared for meditation and training.
It wasn't a dorm room. It was an operations center. A lair.
Sephorae stepped inside and closed the door. The sound of the lock engaging was heavy and final, sealing out the noise, the whispers, and the academy that thought him weak.
With the door locked, the silence was absolute. The expensive soundproofing swallowed the world outside, leaving him in a vacuum of his own making. Slowly, for the first time in days, Sephorae reached up and unclasped the silver mask. It came away with a heavy click, revealing the ruin underneath.
He forced himself to look in the full-length mirror the renovators had installed.
The face staring back wasn't his. Before the dungeon, Sephorae Vespera had been average—plain black hair, forgettable features. He hadn't been ugly, but he certainly hadn't been beautiful.
Now, he was neither. He was a monstrosity.
Deep, jagged ridges of shiny scar tissue ran from his left temple down across his eye socket to his jawline, pulling the corner of his lip into a permanent, gruesome snarl. The torture had taken his arm, and it had taken his face, carving away his identity until only pain remained. The skin was patchworked and pale, a map of agony that would never fade naturally. His eyes, too, had suffered; they were bloodshot and overly sensitive to the light, damaged by the relentless darkness of his confinement.
He hated it. He hated the weakness it projected. He would not step out of this room looking like a victim.
He walked to the massive ebony desk, sat down in the leather chair, and pulled up the ordering terminal on his datapad. He had unlimited funds from the wasteland treasure, and he intended to use them to buy a new identity.
He began ordering with frenzied precision. He didn't buy bandages; he bought high-grade theatrical and medical prosthetic materials—silicone compounds, synthetic skin grafts, sculpting tools, and adhesives strong enough to hold through combat. He ordered crates of manuals on advanced reconstructive techniques.
Next came the supplies to alter what was left. He ordered potent, permanent purple hair dye, a violent shift from his former plain black. He ordered polarized contact lenses in striking, unnatural yellow to shield his damaged eyes and hide their redness.
Finally, he browsed high-end clothiers. He ordered tailored garments that would fit his new persona—sleek black layers and two heavy, armored trench coats, one in shimmering silver and one in deep black.
He submitted the order for overnight drone delivery. He looked at the demonic arm pulsating on the desk, then at his ruined face in the reflection of the dark monitor.
I will not be the monster you made me, he thought, a cold resolve settling over him. If I am to be a devil, I will be a beautiful one.