I finished the final bite of my braised pork, setting the heavy metal utensils down on the tray with a clinical clink. The clock on the canteen wall clicked to exactly 1:00 PM. The backbreaking labor phase of the day was officially behind us, and we were now entering our designated leisure and break time, which would run continuously until 5:00 PM.
The Citadel's daily operational schedule was a perfectly calculated, rigid routine:
The Citadel's operational schedule, carefully structured by the administration, was remarkably predictable.
The day officially began at 6:00 AM with the harsh wake-up call and initial roll call.
By 7:00 AM, the inmates were fed a high-quality breakfast, which immediately led into the grueling five-hour labor shift from 8:00 AM to 12:00 PM.
Noon brought the highly anticipated lunch hour, followed by this current afternoon leisure period from 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM.
Afterward, dinner would be served at 6:00 PM, leading directly into the 7:00 PM evening lockdown and lights-out protocol.
This 7:00 PM mark was the exact moment I had designated for my explosive twilight breakout, right when the administrative guards would be transitioning duties and the blinding, flesh-searing sun would finally dip below the horizon.
Because of Captain Friedrich's deep, inherent kindness, this four-hour afternoon break was intentionally designed to give the inmates a genuine sanctuary to rest, recuperate, and feel safe within the heavy stone walls of the fortress. But for an S-rank infiltrator like me, the concept of a "sanctuary" was an illusion. The clock was a ticking time bomb. Down on the third floor, Luke Granhart was nursing a ruined eye and screaming my name. The news that "Roxy" was alive and hiding in Keane's skin was actively bleeding through the prison's criminal network. If I just sat out in the open canteen or the recreation yards, Inmate 217's execution squads or Friedrich's high-stat paladins would corner me long before my 7:00 PM twilight escape window arrived.
I needed to buy some time. I needed a blind spot… a place where a lone prisoner could isolate themselves for hours without drawing the immediate suspicion of the patrol guards.
Then, a tactical landmark from my mental blueprint surfaced: the central communal shower rooms.
I stood up from the wooden bench, throwing my dark bangs over my eyes to maintain my brooding, detached main-character persona. Beside me, Inmate 222 was already completely lost to his own delusions. Completely unbothered by the heavily armed guards or the hundreds of convicts walking past, the old man had pulled my sister Elicia's bounty poster from his pocket and was actively, shamelessly gooning right there at the public lunch table, his face twisted into a vacuous, unhinged grin.
"Enjoy your afternoon, 222," I muttered coldly, turning my back on the pathetic display.
Leaving the degenerate to his devices, I slipped away from the crowded tables and glided out of the mess hall. I navigated through the gray stone corridors of the second tier, following the copper plumbing lines running along the ceiling until I reached the heavy iron doors of the bathhouse. Steam was already billowing out from beneath the frame. I pushed the door open and stepped inside, the thick, heavy mist instantly swallowing my form.
I stepped deep into the damp, echoing expanse of the Citadel bathhouse. The air was thick and heavy, completely saturated with hot steam that billowed from the inner chambers. I navigated past the rows of benches until I reached the hallway of rusted iron lockers, where groups of convicts were silently stripping out of their sweat-stained orange jumpsuits and wrapping thin, coarse white towels around their waists.
I found the locker stenciled with my designated number, 345. Working with a calm, deliberate focus, I stripped off my prison uniform. Before placing it inside, I carefully reached into the hidden lining and pulled out my two most critical operational assets: the weathered map of Carcaka and the friction-polished cafeteria spoon containing the dried, pure sample of Luke Granhart's DNA. Wrapping the towel tightly around my waist, I tucked the map and the spoon securely into the inner folds of the fabric, ensuring they were completely invisible but within arm's reach.
As I stepped toward the tiled doorway leading to the main shower area, the echoing acoustics of the room carried a low conversation between two nearby inmates.
"Hey, you, how'd you end up getting thrown into a maximum-security cage like this anyway?"
The second inmate offered a casual shrug, his voice entirely devoid of remorse.
"My girlfriend said I might be a pedophile. That's some big ass words for an eight-year-old."
A cold shudder of sheer disgust rippled through me. Even as an infiltrator, a primordial female vampire piloting a dead pickpocketer's male skin… the sheer density of unhinged, predatory degenerates in this block was deeply disturbing. The child molesters and predators on this floor were completely out of hand.
I looked through the thick steam, a rare flash of genuine pity crossing my mind for Captain Friedrich. The legendary leader of the Luminous Knights had poured his heart into designing this facility, intending for the five-star meals and the four-hour afternoon leisure blocks to create a safe, rehabilitative sanctuary for common criminals. Instead, his mercy was being entirely wasted. The sanctuary was fundamentally corrupted, filled to the brim with absolute monsters, rapists, child molesters, and public gooners like Inmate 222.
"This entire place is a breeding ground for filth, Captain Friedrich's kindness is a pearl thrown before swine. It doesn't matter. In exactly six hours, the sun will set, I will ignite the blood bomb at the fourth watchtower, and I will leave this degenerate hellhole behind forever." I thought, my jaw clenching as I stepped onto the wet tile floor of the showers.
I stepped deeper into the humid, echoing expanses of the communal bathhouse. The thick, rolling waves of white steam only partially obscured the grim reality of the room: dozens of inmates were scattered across the open shower floor, some entirely nude, others clutching coarse white towels around their waists, scrubbing away the grime exactly like a scene out of a gritty Earth prison movie.
My host body was completely rancid, absolutely reeking of the sulfurous, sweat-soaked odor I had accumulated down in the mineshaft. To blend in flawlessly and buy valuable time while Luke's syndicate combed the upper blocks for "Roxy," taking a quick, unassuming shower was an absolute tactical necessity.
I walked over to an open wall nozzle, the lukewarm water instantly spraying down over my shoulders. Standing there, I reached out and grabbed a standard, slick bar of prison soap.
A sudden, sharp warning flag went off in my mastermind calculations. In every piece of prison media back on Earth, dropping the soap was a universal catalyst for disaster… an immediate invitation for a pack of large, predatory inmates to corner and assault you. And looking through the heavy steam of this specific bathhouse, the reality wasn't far off. Several intimidating, heavily built inmates were lingering near the corners of the wet tiles, their predatory eyes scanning the room, actively hunting for vulnerable, unsuspecting prey just like Keane's relatively scrawny host body.
My mind quickly calculated the extreme biological stakes. If I carelessly dropped that slick bar of soap, those men would instantly ambush me. And while I was currently piloting a male thief's exterior shell, my underlying, true physiological core was that of a primordial female vampire. If even a microscopic fraction of sperm that was unleashed though my womb, the complex, highly adaptive nature of my shifting anatomy meant I could actually end up pregnant. Getting biologically compromised by a faceless prison degenerate while managing an S-rank infiltration was an unacceptable tactical failure.
"Maximum grip strength achieved," I thought, my fingers locking around the slick bar like a vice.
I scrubbed the mineshaft grime from my skin with absolute, razor-sharp focus, keeping my center of gravity entirely stable, ensuring the soap never even tilted toward the wet floor. The predatory inmates watched me from the shadows, but my unyielding, intense protagonist energy kept them frozen in place.
I finished rinsing off the suds, wrapped the towel securely around my waist… making sure the hidden map of Carcaka and the blood-stained spoon were perfectly tucked away… and walked over to the row of fogged-up glass mirrors to inspect my disguise.
I wiped a layer of condensation off the glass, and my heart instantly stopped.
Staring back at me was... nothing. The reflection was a total void. I was completely, utterly invisible in the mirror.
My analytical mind rapidly spun to diagnose the severe biological anomaly. Even though my primordial vampiric powers had perfectly shapeshifted my flesh, blood, and bones to mimic Keane Leon's male body, my core, inherent traits as a true creature of the night had bleeding over into the physical world. A vampire casts no reflection. I was completely invisible to the silvered glass.
"This is a critical security breach," I realized, a cold sweat breaking out under my towel.
If a passing guard or a high-stat inmate walked past and noticed a floating towel or a complete lack of a reflection where a body should be, they would instantly flag it as a high-tier magical anomaly. Captain Friedrich's Luminous Knights would put the entire sector on an absolute lockdown, and my 7:00 PM twilight escape would be utterly ruined.
I needed to evacuate the bathhouse immediately. I turned on my heel, preparing to swiftly glide back to the safety of Locker 345, get dressed, and vanish into the shadows.
SLAM.
The heavy, iron-reinforced doors of the bathhouse suddenly flew open, rattling violently against the damp stone wall. The thick steam near the entrance parted, revealing a tight, heavily armed formation of hardened convicts cutting off my only exit.
Stitched onto their damp orange jumpsuits were the unmistakable tactical serial numbers of Inmate 217's elite inner circle. Luke's execution squad had successfully traced my path. They were standing directly at my doorstep, blocking the threshold, their eyes locking onto me with cold, murderous intent.