The iron hissed as it glided across the collar of a crisp, white shirt.
Hiss. Clack. Hiss.
It was a rhythmic, almost therapeutic sound. In a world teetering on the edge of the abyss, where humanity had lost two-thirds of its territory to the creatures of the night, there was something profound about a perfectly pressed uniform.
"A messy room breeds a messy mind, Lucian. And a messy mind on the battlefield belongs to a corpse. Now, chop those onions evenly, or we're sparring until you vomit."
I smiled faintly, setting the iron down. The memory of my Master, Seraphina, was still as sharp as the silver blades she used to wield. She was a Demon Hunter—an apex predator among humans.
For two years, she had taken an orphaned boy with absolutely zero magical aptitude, no superhuman bloodline, and no innate talents, and molded him.
She didn't teach me how to shoot fireballs or summon lightning. Instead, she taught me how to cook a perfect medium-rare steak. She taught me how to stitch a wound with sewing thread, how to clean blood out of a carpet, and most importantly—how to kill a monster by perfectly dismantling its anatomy.
"I'm raising the perfect househusband," she used to joke, puffing on her thin pipe. "When I retire, you're going to cook for me every day."
She never got to retire.
My hands stopped moving. The warmth of the iron faded, replaced by the phantom chill of that night two years ago. My younger sister, afflicted with the incurable Black Blood plague, had been taken by a passing Pureblood Vampire Princess. The plague, it turned out, was an indicator of supreme Vampire Aptitude.
When my sister returned two years later, she wasn't a sick little girl anymore. She was a corrupted, mindless weapon of the Pureblood. And under the Pureblood's manipulation, she tore Seraphina's heart out right in front of me.
I folded the white shirt, my expression utterly blank. I didn't cry. I didn't scream. Seraphina had conditioned me better than that. Anger was just fuel; it required a cold engine to burn efficiently.
I slipped on the shirt, adjusting the dark crimson tie of the Nightfall Academy.
It was time to go to school.
Infiltrating the enemy territory wasn't difficult if you were willing to throw away your humanity.
The Dominion—the vast empire ruled by the otherworlders and dark species—actively recruited humans from the surviving territories. They needed labor, they needed soldiers, and most of all, they needed blood. Millions of humans willingly crossed the borders every year, begging to be converted to escape the squalor of the human refugee zones.
I had carefully weighed my options before registering.
The Lycanthrope War-Camps were out of the question. Their "academies" were nothing more than brutal wilderness survival tests. You were bitten, thrown into a canyon, and if you didn't succumb to the beast within and explode into a pile of gore, you graduated. It was too chaotic. Too little control.
The Witch Covens were equally unappealing, albeit for entirely different reasons. Their magic was deeply intertwined with the Mother Goddess's mana weave, a strictly matriarchal energy. As a result, any male who enrolled was subjected to the 'Flesh-Weave Ritual' upon entry, a permanent biological conversion that transformed them into females just so their bodies wouldn't reject the mana. While I respected their dedication to the arcane arts, I preferred keeping my original anatomy, thank you very much.
That left the vampires.
The Vampiric Aristocracy was divided into the Thirteen Great Families, each ruling their own prestigious Academy. To become a vampire, a human had to enroll as an 'Initiate,' serve a noble, and eventually receive the 'Embrace.'
I didn't care about immortality. I only cared about the crest I had seen on the carriage that took my sister: a silver rose wrapped in thorny chains. The crest of the House of Vesper.
So, here I was, standing in the grand vestibule of the Vesper Academy alongside three hundred other human Initiates.
"Look at this architecture," a boy beside me whispered in awe. He was shaking with excitement. "If I can just get chosen by a low-ranking baron, my family back in the slums will eat for a year."
I didn't reply. I simply observed. The vestibule was a massive gothic cathedral with obsidian pillars and blood-red chandeliers. On the grand balcony above us stood the Vampire Peers—the purebloods and high-nobles who would be selecting their thralls today. They looked down at us like we were cattle.
Which, objectively, we were.
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. I had no mana. I had no aura. If one of those vampires decided to rip my head off right now, human martial arts wouldn't be enough to stop them.
But I wasn't just a human anymore.
'Activate.'
A faint blue light flickered across my retinas, visible only to me.
[ SYSTEM INITIALIZED: SERVANT SYSTEM ]
Name: Lucian
Race: Human (Aptitude: Null)
Level: 1 (EXP: 0/500)
[ Attributes ]
Strength: 12 (Human Peak: 15)
Agility: 14 (Human Peak: 15)
Vitality: 11
Perception: 18
Charisma: 15 (Bonus applied from 'Domestic Perfection' trait)
[ Passive Skills ]
Absolute Composure (Max)
[Demon Hunter Martial Arts (Lv. 3)]
[ Unique Ability: Servant Contract ]