I got lost four tis finding the south entrance.
Not taphorically. Not "turned the wrong way once" lost. Genuinely, completely, embarrassingly lost in a venue that had about six signs pointing the sa direction.
The first ti, I followed a cluster of Ruby students down a ramp that looped back to the upper amphitheater. I stood there for thirty seconds staring at the empty seats before accepting what had happened.
The second ti, I found a staircase that went down one level and deposited directly in front of a maintenance closet. The sign on the door said ELECTRICAL. I read it twice like it might change.
The third ti, I ended up at the north entrance sohow. I don’t know how. I’m not proud of it.
The fourth ti, I followed a girl with a 36DD chest and forgot I was supposed to be navigating.
She turned left into a bathroom. I kept walking and found the south entrance by accident.
There it was. Four long folding tables staffed by upperclassn in academy uniforms, each table representing a house. Long lines in front of each one. Students collecting their orientation packets with the practiced efficiency of people who knew exactly where they were going and had probably reviewed the campus map three tis already.
People like that were insufferable.
I joined the shortest line, which happened to be House Obsidian’s table. The upperclassman running it was a broad-shouldered guy with a jaw like a brick and zero interest in being here. He had a clipboard and the expression of soone counting down the minutes to literally anywhere else.
The line moved fast. These were mostly guild kids who already knew their assignnts.
My turn ca.
"Na."
"Jace Monroe."
He didn’t look up. Just scrolled down his tablet, finger moving through the list. Then it stopped.
He looked up.
The look wasn’t hostile exactly. It was the specific look you give a parking ticket. Like, I’m not surprised this exists, but I’m definitely annoyed about it.
"Lottery," he said.
Not a question.
"Yeah."
He went back to the tablet. Tapped sothing. Scrolled. His expression did a thing where it got very careful and neutral in the way that people get when they’re trying not to say the thing they’re thinking.
"Monroe, Jace." He pulled a thick envelope from the Obsidian pile. Held it out. "House Obsidian. Welco."
The words ca out flat. Like two syllables away from "I’m sorry for your loss."
I took the envelope.
"Building C, fifth floor," he added. "Room 5E." He paused. Then, quieter, almost to himself: "Obsidian. Good luck, man."
He was already looking past to the next person in line.
I stepped away from the table and tore open the envelope.
House Obsidian. Room 5E. Class schedule tucked behind a campus map that was going to be completely useless to based on established evidence. A welco letter from soone called Dominic Vale, Horoom Instructor.
I stared at the house assignnt for a second.
Obsidian.
House Obsidian.
Of course.
I thought back to the novel. Tried to rember the important parts. "Hunter Academy: Arica’s Elite" had been a solid enough story. Generic protagonist with a hidden overpowered ability. Lottery winner who shocked everyone. Standard underdog arc. The author had decent worldbuilding instincts but wrote emotional scenes like a robot learning to cry from YouTube tutorials.
But I rembered the houses.
Sapphire was the prestige house. The champion house. Where Katerina Volkov lived like royalty and ran everything with an iron fist wrapped in platinum hair and ice-blue eyes that probably made lesser n forget their nas.
Ruby was chaos energy. Loud. Competitive. Good fights and better drama.
Erald was the nerd house. Smart kids who died in simulations because they overthought everything.
Amber was...
I almost groaned out loud.
Amber was the chill house. The support house. The house where Dr. Vivienne Cross was the horoom teacher. I’d read her description in the novel and the author, for once, had not undersold anything. 34FF. Purple hair. That outfit she wore where the blazer was basically decorative. The character existed in the story mostly as background flavor but the author had dedicated an entire paragraph to describing the way she crossed her legs during class like it was load-bearing plot information.
It wasn’t load-bearing plot information.
But I would have appreciated being in her house for about nine different System-related reasons.
Instead, I got Obsidian.
The Gryffindor of this world, if Gryffindor was split down the middle between the brave kids with sothing to prove and the legacy-obsessed sociopaths who’d push those kids into traffic if it helped their rankings.
Half the house genuinely wanted to be the best hunters alive. The other half wanted to be the best because their families had been the best and anything less was a personal insult to three generations of combat achievent.
The original protagonist, Javier ndoza, had been sorted here. Which ant this was where the story happened. The drama. The fights. The rivalries that defined the whole novel.
Also this was where Marcus Steele lived. The Rank #2 Elite Ten mber who was all jaw and guild money and an ability that amounted to "I built a room where I’m God, co inside so I can demonstrate."
And Dante Pope. Rank #10. The desperate first-year clinging to his Elite Ten spot by his fingernails.
And Bella Cortez, Rank #5, who the novel had described with the kind of detail usually reserved for religious iconography.
I looked at my campus map.
Building C.
I looked around the south entrance area. There were four visible buildings from where I stood. None of them had letters on them. Or if they did, I couldn’t see from here.
Great.
I picked a direction.
Building C was behind the Apex Dining Hall, which was behind the Recreation Center, which was not in the direction I’d initially walked.
It took eleven minutes to find it.
The Obsidian residence hall looked like every other building on campus from the outside. Glass, steel, clean modern lines. But soone had hung a banner above the entrance with the house insignia. Black raven on a purple crystal. The silver thread on the banner caught the afternoon sun.
It was kind of a nice building.
The lobby slled like expensive cleaning product and low-grade institutional anxiety. A few students were already moving through, dragging bags, checking phones. Everyone had that sa tightly controlled expression of people trying to project that they absolutely belonged here and were not at all terrified.
I took the elevator to the fifth floor.
Room 5E was at the end of the hall on the right.
I used the code from my packet. The door clicked open.
The apartnt was bigger than I expected.
I’d read the description in the novel. The academy provided good housing. But reading it and standing in 1,050 square feet of clean, modern living space were two different things. Big windows looking out at the Pacific. A kitchen with actual appliances. A couch that looked like it wouldn’t destroy your lower back.
Two bedrooms. Two bathrooms.
No roommate yet.
I dropped my duffel bag on the floor in the living room and walked to the window.
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