The Scumbag's Guide To Heroism novel Chapter 582

Chapter 582: 582 | I Am Glad You Survived

There were WARDEN pillars stationed at every single building entrance across campus now. Not just the admin buildings or the training complexes, but every building.

The drones had multiplied too. Small ones, maybe the size of a dinner plate, drifting in slow, deliberate patterns along the Academic Spine. They’d pause whenever someone lingered too long in one spot, hovering just long enough to make a point before continuing their patrol routes.

Every single training field now had new signage posted at the gates. Four separate levels of access clearance listed in clean block text. The fields themselves looked exactly the same as they had three weeks ago, but the administrative layer on top of them had thickened considerably.

Then there was the covered walkway leading toward the residential district. Where there used to be just decorative planters with small trees and seasonal flowers, there were now Heroes. Actual licensed Heroes in full costume, standing in pairs at regular intervals along the path, on visible rotation schedules, watching eight hundred teenagers walk past them on the way back to their dorms after a terrorist attack had made national headlines.

The optics were deliberate. The message was clear.

"Fourteen on security contract before the incident," Diane said quietly, following my line of sight as we walked. "Twenty-six now. The requirement used to be two Heroes above Rank B on campus at all times. That’s been doubled to four."

We split at the fork. Sloane’s building up the hill, mine down the branch, the same geometry as three weeks ago except now there were two Heroes standing at the junction and a pillar at each door.

Diane hugged Sloane, then me, longer than she should have in public, then stepped back and became the CEO again in the space of one breath.

"Classes Wednesday," she said. "Text me tonight. Both of you. And Lukas."

"Yeah."

"When Reyes calls tomorrow, let her talk first."

Then she was walking back toward the visitor lot, gold earrings catching the grey light, and Sloane kissed me in front of a licensed A-rank who very deliberately looked at the sky.

1-B Prometheus House smelled like industrial cleaner and burned kettle corn, which meant Caden had already been home for at least an hour.

The pillar at the door said my name and welcomed me back and told me it was glad I survived, and I told it thanks, and then I pushed through into the common room and twelve people turned around at once.

"OH," Caden said, up off the couch, arms already spread. "The GOLD MAN RETURNS."

"Don’t."

"Four million posts, bro. Four million. There’s fan art. There’s a theory you’re a time traveler."

"There’s a theory I’m a government experiment."

"That one’s better, I’m switching to that one." He crashed into me and then immediately flinched back. "Wait. Ribs. Are the ribs a thing still?"

"The ribs are fine."

Marco threw a chip at me from the kitchen island. "You look disgustingly healthy for a guy who died."

"I didn’t die."

"Percy’s document says you were non-responsive for three seconds," Finn said from the couch, eyes closed, filaments drifting off his fingers in a shape I was pretty sure mapped the room’s exits. "That’s dying. That’s the whole definition."

Percy appeared at my elbow with his notebook already open, blue hair flat and combed, collar pins aligned. "Your gait has normalized to within two percent of your baseline. Your color has returned. Your left shoulder still carries a protective micro-adjustment when you reach above sixty degrees."

"Hello, Percy."

"Hello." He wrote something. Then he stopped writing, and he looked up, and for one second the analysis fell away entirely. "I did not like the part where the roster reached your name and nobody answered."

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify