The Scumbag's Guide To Heroism novel Chapter 231

Chapter 231: 231 | She’s Not Combat-Capable, But...

Her eyes widened further, which I hadn’t thought was possible given how wide they’d already been. "Oh no, did I hurt you? I didn’t mean to hurt you, I was just walking and thinking and I should have been more careful—"

"You definitely didn’t hurt me." I crouched down to pick up what she’d dropped, which turned out to be a tablet and a folder full of papers that had scattered across the walkway. The tablet was intact. The papers were reorganizable. "See? No damage."

She watched me gather her things with an expression that suggested she was waiting for the other shoe to drop, for me to suddenly get angry or demand something or otherwise confirm whatever negative expectations she’d been building up since the collision. Her hands were clasped in front of her chest in a gesture that read as defensive and also pulled her arms together in a way that emphasized her figure in ways she probably wasn’t aware of and definitely wasn’t intending.

Small. Cute. Anxious. Bunny ears.

The Ecchi Logic trait was absolutely responsible for this encounter. I’d bet money on it.

"Here." I held out her things. "All present and accounted for."

She took them with both hands, clutching them against her chest like they might try to escape. Her ears had relaxed slightly, moving from pressed-back distress to something more neutral. Up close, I could see that her eyes weren’t just brown, they had flecks of gold in them that caught the light when she blinked.

"Thank you." Her voice had dropped to something closer to normal speaking volume. "I’m really sorry. I wasn’t watching where I was going."

"Neither was I. Mutual fault."

"But I was the one who—"

"Mutual fault," I repeated. "Unless you want to argue about who gets to be more apologetic, which seems like a weird use of both our evenings."

A sound escaped her that might have been a laugh if it hadn’t been strangled by residual anxiety. Her ears twitched again.

"I’m Saya." She said it like she was expecting me to already know the answer to a question she hadn’t asked yet. "Saya Usami. I’m a first-year in the Business department."

"Lukas Belmont. Combat Operations."

Her ears went fully upright at that, which I was learning to read as surprise or intense interest. "You’re in Combat Ops?"

"1-B, specifically. Why?"

"I saw the rankings." Her anxiety shifted into something closer to nervous excitement, her words coming faster again but with a different quality than before. "From the entrance exams. You came in third overall. Third. And your Aspect is just telekinesis? How did you—" She stopped herself, cheeks flushing pink. "Sorry. That’s probably rude to ask. I get too curious sometimes."

"It’s fine." The System had generated an explanation for exactly this situation. "Creativity and tactical positioning. The practical exam rewarded adaptability more than raw power."

"That makes sense." She nodded rapidly enough that her ears bounced. "I mean, I’m in Business so I don’t know a lot about combat stuff, but that makes sense. Strategy matters as much as strength, right?"

"Usually more."

"That’s what the textbooks say." She clutched her folder tighter. "I’ve been reading a lot of them. About Hero industries and agency management and market positioning. I want to understand how it all works before I have to start working with actual Heroes."

Business department. That meant support track, the people who handled the administrative and commercial side of heroics. Agency managers. PR specialists. Accountants and lawyers and the entire infrastructure that made the Hero industry function. They didn’t train for combat, but they trained alongside combat students because the relationship between Heroes and their support staff started forming early.

"First day on campus?"

"My move-in was today." She gestured vaguely in a direction that I thought was toward the Business department dormitories. "I got lost trying to find the cafeteria and then I got lost trying to get back and then I ran into you and now I don’t even know which direction my building is and I’m probably going to miss curfew and—"

"Breathe."

She stopped. Blinked. Her ears twitched.

"Right. Breathing. That’s a thing I should do."

Note: The Host has encountered a support-track student with an Aspect that has given her permanent rabbit characteristics. The System notes that this is exactly the kind of encounter that Ecchi Logic was designed to generate and encourages the Host to consider whether a harem truly needs to be limited to combat-capable heroines.

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