The Scumbag's Guide To Heroism novel Chapter 331

Chapter 331: 331 | The Forgotten Field Is Occupied

The remaining presentations blurred together the way other people’s homework always does when yours is already graded.

Two more groups tried variations on standard breach protocol. Steele took them apart with the patient precision of someone who’d expected exactly this and was using the wreckage as a live tutorial for the rest of the room.

A fourth group, built around Nyx’s obsessive analysis and Maribelle’s surprisingly sharp read on crowd psychology, put together a brief that Steele called "adequate with potential." From Steele, that was a standing ovation.

By three-fifteen, when she dismissed us, the room had the specific exhaustion of twenty teenagers who’d spent forty-five minutes thinking harder than most of them had ever thought about anything that wasn’t their own reflection or their Aspect’s flashiest application.

Felicity intercepted me at the door with the speed of someone who’d been planning her approach vector since the second presentation.

She linked her arm through mine with the casual territoriality she’d perfected over the past week, and I let her, because fighting Felicity on physical contact was like fighting the tide. You could do it. The ocean didn’t care about your feelings, and neither did she.

"That was fun," she said, her blue eyes still bright from the post-exercise high. "We should do crisis planning more often. Like a book club but with hostage scenarios."

"You want to start a tactical analysis social club."

"I want to start a group activity that gives me an excuse to sit close to interesting people and watch them think under pressure. The tactical analysis is just the wrapper."

Caden appeared on my other side with Marco in tow, both of them running on the specific energy of people who’d survived something difficult and now wanted to celebrate by doing absolutely nothing productive.

Caden’s presentation had gone well enough. His group pulled together a serviceable plan that Steele graded as "acceptable," with a side note about Caden’s documented tendency to let his teammates do the heavy lifting while he provided comic relief at critical junctures.

"Lunch round two?" Caden suggested, already steering us toward the Athena Wing. "I need carbs. That class broke something in my brain that only bread can fix."

"Your brain was pre-broken," Marco said. "The class just reorganized the debris."

"Harsh but medically accurate."

We ended up in the cafeteria for a session that stretched past an hour. Caden held court at the table with the natural magnetism of someone who understood that social energy was its own kind of currency and spent it freely.

Marco served as his counterpoint, dry and grounding, the straight man to Caden’s chaos in a partnership so well-rehearsed that their timing looked practiced even when it wasn’t.

Felicity contributed observations about our classmates that were simultaneously generous and devastating, her social intelligence running at a frequency most people registered as warmth without catching the analysis underneath it.

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