The Scumbag's Guide To Heroism novel Chapter 304

Chapter 304: 304 | A Kingdom Built on Resentment [PS BONUS]

Percy took the chair on my other side and immediately began documenting the room’s dimensions, noting the distance between each chair and the smart board with quiet intensity.

Rina appeared in the doorway, hesitated for the length of one full breath, then walked to the chair beside Percy and sat without her usual preamble of apologies.

The sheep mug was conspicuously absent.

Her white hair fell across the collar of her blazer, and her horns caught the afternoon light with that opalescent quality that made them look carved from something more interesting than bone.

She caught me looking and offered a small nod. Not a smile. Something quieter than a smile, but warmer than politeness.

Camille entered and chose a seat at the opposite end of the table from me, her jaw set at the angle that communicated she was pretending I didn’t exist with such aggressive commitment that the pretending itself became a declaration. Her folder sat in front of her unopened, her arms crossed over the charcoal blazer that fit her body the way combat gear fits soldiers, which is to say it technically covered everything while somehow drawing attention to the exact contours it was supposed to obscure.

Petra came in last, because of course she did. She walked to her chair with the unhurried grace of someone who believed the class could not properly begin without her, settled her leather planner on the table’s surface with a soft click, and opened it to a page that already contained handwritten notes for a lecture that hadn’t started yet. Her emerald eyes swept the table once, found me for exactly half a second, and moved on.

The corner of her mouth twitched. Not a smile. Something closer to a warning that I had been weighed, measured, and filed under a category I would learn about later.

The room filled around me. Nyx and Maribelle claimed adjacent seats with the synchronized movement of people who had been orbiting each other since day one, Nyx’s choker catching light as she leaned back in her chair with the looseness of someone who had decided comfort was more important than posture.

Theo took a seat beside Camille and immediately began radiating the kind of friendly warmth that made everyone within three chairs feel marginally better about their lives without quite understanding why.

Percy settled into a middle seat with his blue hair catching the overhead lights in a way that made ignoring him functionally impossible.

Lyra materialized two seats over with such understated presence that I only registered she was there when the light caught her hazel-gold eyes and the faint shift of her position reminded me she had weight.

Twenty chairs. Twenty students. One instructor who still hadn’t looked up from her tablet.

At precisely two o’clock, Castillo set her mug down with the gentleness of someone handling a live explosive. The ceramic met the wood without a sound. She locked the tablet, placed it beside the mug, and looked up.

"Good afternoon. I’m Vera Castillo. Ms. Castillo is acceptable. Professor Castillo is also acceptable if the formality makes you comfortable. What is not acceptable is late arrival, incomplete readings, or the assumption that this course exists to bore you into compliance with institutional standards."

Her voice carried without effort. Low register. Warm in the way that Southern California accents become warm when the speaker has spent twenty years learning how to make difficult information sound conversational. No drawl. No affectation. Just someone who talked the way she breathed, which was to say without wasting anything.

"This course covers the operational, legal, and financial infrastructure that makes hero work possible. You are here because you believe you will become heroes. This class exists because heroes who do not understand how their profession actually functions become liabilities. Liabilities cost money. Money that comes from agencies, sponsors, and insurance companies who will drop you the moment your liability exceeds your value."

She tapped the table twice with one manicured nail.

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