The Scumbag's Guide To Heroism novel Chapter 6

Chapter 6: 6 | Radiant is a God, and I Am an Insect With a Gacha System

I spent the next few hours at my desk, laptop open, diving into this world’s version of reality.

The memories gave me context. The internet gave me the actual picture.

I started with the basics. Hero rankings. Licensing requirements. The IHL Accord. All the institutional machinery that turned superpowers into a profession instead of chaos.

The Hero Network had a public-facing website. Rankings updated quarterly. California alone had three hundred licensed Heroes across all ranks. Nationally? Over two thousand. That was just the ones who passed the exam and kept their license current.

The top hundred got their own pages. Full profiles. Win rates. Case resolution stats. Public approval ratings that read like polling data for presidential candidates.

I scrolled through the California rankings first. Recognized a few names from Lukas’s memories. Stopped on number fourteen.

Grande Dame.

The profile photo showed a woman who understood exactly what she was selling. Jet black hair falling over one shoulder. Violet eyes that stared directly into the camera like she owned it. The costume was purple and gold, cut to emphasize curves that would make a mannequin weep with envy.

Aspect: Paradigm Shift. Classification: Flux. Rarity: Epic.

Size manipulation. She could go from eighteen inches to sixty-seven feet. The profile didn’t mention the obvious tactical applications. It did mention her debut six months ago.

I clicked the embedded video.

The footage opened on a downtown street. Villain threat, some guy with a concrete manipulation Aspect tearing up the pavement. Standard property damage scenario. Three Heroes already on scene, struggling to contain him.

Then Grande Dame arrived.

She walked into frame at normal height, hips swaying in a way that made the camera operator forget their job for two full seconds. The concrete manipulator didn’t even see her coming.

She grew mid-stride.

Twenty feet. Thirty. Forty. The growth didn’t stop until she towered over the entire street, purple costume stretching with her, somehow maintaining perfect coverage at scale.

The kick came next.

She pivoted, leg sweeping out in an arc that probably registered on seismographs. The villain flew backwards into a wall hard enough to crater the brick. Combat over. Threat neutralized.

And then she posed.

One hand on her hip, the other brushing hair from her face, looking down at the cameras with a smile that said she knew exactly how good she looked doing this.

The comment section was predictable. Half the posts were about her tactical performance. The other half were significantly less professional.

"Damn," I muttered. "America’s ass just got a new contender."

The Oracle Feed stayed silent. Apparently it had no opinion on Grande Dame’s posterior.

I kept scrolling. Found the net worth estimates some financial blog had compiled for the top ten nationally ranked Heroes.

Number ten clocked in at forty-two million. Endorsement deals, licensing fees, merchandise revenue. Being a top Hero wasn’t just prestigious. It was obscenely profitable.

The numbers climbed as the ranks descended.

Number five: eighty-seven million.

Number three: hundred and thirty million.

Number two: Prominence. Two hundred and eighteen million.

I clicked his profile. The photo showed a man built like a Greek statue come to life. Blonde hair, blue eyes, smile so perfect it looked photoshopped. The costume was white and gold with red accents, sun imagery everywhere.

Aspect: Solar Flare. Classification: Channeler. Rarity: Legendary.

Superheated plasma generation. Fire manipulation on a scale that made most other Channelers look like they were playing with matches. Based out of New York. Twelve years in the top ten. Never dropped below third place.

Never made it to first.

I scrolled to the top of the rankings.

Number one.

The number that every other Hero in the country measured themselves against.

Radiant.

Net worth: estimated over four hundred million, though the article noted his actual wealth was probably higher. Licensing deals alone put him in a different financial category. Add in government contracts, international consulting fees, and the fact that his face sold products in markets that had nothing to do with heroics, and the number became meaningless.

He wasn’t just rich. He was an institution.

The profile photo showed a man who looked like propaganda made flesh. Seven feet tall even in the picture. Blonde hair swept back into those distinctive horn-like bangs. Blue eyes that somehow conveyed warmth and absolute confidence simultaneously. The smile was genuine. You could tell because fake smiles didn’t reach the eyes like that.

Costume: red, white, blue. Gold accents. Primary colors that screamed American iconography without being subtle about it.

Aspect: Superpower. Classification: Flux. Rarity: Legendary+.

The plus sign was unusual. Most Aspects topped out at Legendary. Whatever Superpower did, it exceeded standard classification.

The description was vague. Physical enhancement. Durability. Strength on a scale that made standard metrics inadequate. He’d held the number one spot for over a decade. His approval rating hadn’t dropped below ninety-eight percent in fifteen years.

He was what every Hero candidate aspired to become.

I noticed the video thumbnail below his profile. Purple link. Small text underneath.

"You have visited this 47 times."

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