The Scumbag's Guide To Heroism novel Chapter 300

Chapter 300: 300 | The Bureaucratic Side of Being a Hero [PS BONUS]

We sat there for another ten minutes finishing our food, the bond between us settling into something warm and steady like embers after a fire burns down. Sloane demolished her chicken sandwich with the same aggressive efficiency she brought to everything else in her life. No small bites. No pretense. Just a girl who burned four thousand calories before noon eating like she meant it.

I watched her wipe her mouth with the back of her hand and then immediately correct herself by grabbing a napkin, which told me more about the competing influences of Diane and Sloane’s own feral nature than any psychological profile could.

"So today’s Tuesday," I said.

"Congratulations on knowing what day it is."

"Which means you’ve got Hero Basics this afternoon."

Her hand stopped halfway to her smoothie. The bond carried a jolt of something raw and electric. Not fear exactly, but that specific frequency of excitement that lives right next door to it.

"With Radiant."

"With Radiant," I confirmed.

"I wasn’t thinking about it."

"Your pulse just jumped thirty beats per minute."

"It did not."

"I can literally feel your heartbeat through our bond."

"That’s an invasion of privacy and I’m filing a complaint with the housing office."

I leaned back in my chair and let her process. The cafeteria noise washed around us like water around a rock. Two tables over, Caden was attempting to convince Marco that ranch dressing belonged on sushi, a crime against humanity that Marco was resisting with increasingly desperate hand gestures.

"Tell me about your Monday afternoon," I said. "What did your class do after lunch?"

Sloane blinked at the topic shift, then relaxed visibly. Safe ground. Academic territory. She could talk about this without her voice threatening to crack from the sheer weight of meeting her childhood hero.

"Hero Agencies and the Bureaucratic Side of Being a Hero," she said, delivering the course title like it personally offended her. "Which is exactly as soul-crushing as it sounds."

"Who taught it?"

"Some woman named Vera Castillo. Used to run agency operations for a mid-tier firm in San Diego before transitioning to academia. Her Aspect apparently lets her read contracts at superhuman speed, which is both the most boring power I’ve ever heard of and probably the most financially useful one in the entire Hero industry."

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