The Scumbag's Guide To Heroism novel Chapter 280

Chapter 280: 280 | An Unforeseen Variable

Petra toweled her hair dry and crossed to her dresser. Her standard sleepwear consisted of modest cotton sets in neutral colors, practical and unremarkable, the kind of thing you wore when you expected nothing more exciting than a full night of rest before another day of academic excellence.

Her hand passed over the cotton and landed on something else entirely.

The silk camisole set was emerald green. The same shade as her Aspect constructs. The same shade as her hero costume. She had packed it almost as an afterthought, a gift from an aunt who believed young women should own at least one piece of truly beautiful sleepwear even if they never had occasion to wear it.

The camisole was cut low across the chest. The matching shorts sat high on the hip. The fabric was thin enough that certain details would be visible in the right light or the wrong temperature.

There was no logical reason to wear this to a confrontation designed to intimidate and threaten.

Petra put it on anyway.

The silk slid against her still-sensitive skin as she dressed, the cool fabric catching on nipples that had not softened despite the cold shower or the toweling or any of the other interventions she had attempted. She looked at herself in the full-length mirror mounted on her closet door and felt her breath catch for reasons she refused to examine.

The camisole did remarkable things to her figure, showcasing curves that her hero costume kept strategically subdued beneath reinforced panels and structured armor.

Her breasts pressed against the thin silk in a way that made them impossible to ignore, the low cut revealing generous cleavage that she had spent years learning to downplay in professional contexts.

The matching shorts sat high enough on her hips that they made her legs look endless, emphasizing the lean muscle definition she maintained through daily training regimens and the softer curves above them that no amount of exercise had ever diminished.

She watched herself in the mirror and felt something flutter low in her stomach that had nothing to do with nervousness and everything to do with the specific quality of her own reflection.

Her mother had once told her that legs like hers were her best feature, then immediately added that best features were wasted on people who lacked the strategic awareness to deploy them effectively in contexts that mattered.

Petra had filed that assessment away as another example of Margot Lang’s approach to parenting and had spent the subsequent years ensuring that her professional presentation emphasized capability over aesthetics.

The emerald silk brought out something in her eyes that she rarely saw in her own reflection. They looked warmer somehow, less like the calculated precision instruments she presented in academic contexts and more like something alive and present and responding to stimulus she was actively choosing not to name. Her hair fell in dark waves over bare shoulders.

Her skin looked luminous against the green fabric. She looked like someone who had taken considerable time getting ready for something that was supposed to be casual, which meant she looked exactly like what she was.

She looked dangerous in a way that had nothing to do with her Aspect capability and everything to do with intent she had not fully admitted to herself yet.

Petra grabbed her silk robe from the back of her desk chair and pulled it on over the camisole set. The robe covered her to mid-thigh and restored some semblance of modesty to her appearance. She was simply a student going to handle a matter that required immediate attention. The fact that she was wearing the most revealing sleepwear she owned underneath the robe was irrelevant. The fact that she had chosen it deliberately was even more irrelevant.

She slipped into the hallway.

The dorm was quiet at this hour, most students already asleep or at least pretending to be. The fluorescent lights had dimmed to their nighttime setting, casting the corridor in the kind of ambient glow that made everything look softer and less institutional than it actually was. Petra’s bare feet made no sound on the industrial carpet as she walked.

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