The Scumbag's Guide To Heroism novel Chapter 333

Chapter 333: 333 | The Inconvenience of Sincerity [PS BONUS]

"You were entertaining someone. The footage exists. People watched you pin Ortega against a wall and then kiss her with cameras running, and instead of expressing remorse you sat in Crane’s classroom while she praised the branding implications. You treated another student’s body as a tactical resource."

That one landed.

Not because Hiro was right about the tactical assessment. Kissing Camille had been the fastest available option to prevent a rivet through my frontal lobe, and I stood by that decision with the clear conscience of someone who preferred being alive to being dignified.

But the framing. Treating another student’s body as a tactical resource. That phrasing contained enough truth to sting in the specific places where my own guilt about the System and its requirements had already worn the skin thin. The missions queue was built on that exact logic.

The Temptation Gauge tracked exactly that kind of utility. Every time I completed a side quest that required proximity to someone the interface had flagged as relevant, I was making the same calculation Hiro had just accused me of.

The only difference was that my version came with notification prompts and currency rewards, and his version was just an observation he’d made by watching.

The fact that he’d identified it without ever seeing the interface meant he’d gotten closer to something real than I wanted him to be.

I didn’t let any of that reach my face. My expression stayed exactly where I’d left it, somewhere between mildly interested and waiting for him to finish the speech he’d clearly prepared.

"You done?" I asked.

"I’m done when the point is made," Hiro said, and his Corona flared brighter for a moment, casting a sharp, theatrical light across the space between us. A striking effect wasted on an audience of one.

"The point was made three sentences ago," I said. "Everything after that was performance. You could’ve stopped at ’tactical resource’ and walked away, but you’re still here, so either you’ve got something else you’re working up to or you just needed the monologue to land the way you rehearsed it."

Hiro’s eyes widened by a fraction, and the Corona in his chest flared bright enough to cast my shadow behind me against the oak trees.

His Radiant Presence kicked up a notch, making the air around him shimmer with that specific quality of visual magnetism that his Aspect generated without conscious effort, turning the confrontation into something that would have looked incredible on camera if anyone had been filming.

Which, of course, was the problem. Nobody was filming. And Hiro Sato, whose entire philosophy of heroism centered on the intersection of capability and image, had chosen to confront me in the one place on campus where there were no cameras and no audience.

"You don’t take this seriously," he said, and his voice dropped half a register into something that sounded closer to genuine than performed. "Any of it. The training, the public trust, the responsibility of wearing a costume in front of civilians who need to believe that the person wearing it represents something better than themselves. You treat the entire system like a game you figured out how to win without playing by the rules."

"And you treat the entire system like a runway show that happens to involve punching people."

The silence that followed was different from the first one. Heavier. Loaded with the specific tension of two people who had just said true things about each other and were now standing in the consequences.

Hiro uncrossed his arms. His hands opened at his sides, palms facing me, and the Corona in his chest settled into a steady glow that wasn’t aggressive but wasn’t neutral either.

Hiro Sato genuinely believed in heroism as a calling. Not as a profession, not as a career path, not as the optimized brand strategy that Crane taught or the institutional framework that Castillo described.

As a calling.

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