Chapter 182: Nobody Has to Be a Hero Forever

People filled the square outside the Vance Trading Alliance head-quarters.

They hadn’t brought eggs to throw. They had brought prayers. White-and-gold banners rose above the crowd.

LET THE CHOSEN PROTECT US. ASTRA, OUR ETERNAL SHIELD. ELEANOR, OUR IMMORTAL QUEEN.

LUCIAN VANCE, ADMINISTRATOR OF THE WORLD FOR-EVER.

Lucian peered through the second-floor curtains. “I’m starting to miss Earth.”

Evelyn’s preliminary simulation results had reached the public. The warnings about test conditions had not traveled nearly as well as the number 8.71 percent.

Still, their fear was reasonable. A parent reading that number would want to know why millions of families should accept a worse safety model to preserve the freedom of five exceptionally capable people.

If those five could save everyone, why couldn’t they keep doing it?

A priest lifted his banner toward the balcony. “Lucian Vance will watch over us forever!” Lucian leaned through the gap in the curtains.

“I don’t work nights.”

The priest fell to his knees, weeping. “Such humility!” Lucian dropped the curtain.

“I’m beginning to understand why ancient dictators sent the police after crowds.”

“Don’t,” Eleanor said. “It was an observation.”

The System opened its comparison again.

[AVAILABLE TECHNICAL EVIDENCE]

Legacy architecture: Lower immediate failure rate in matched simula-tions.

Distributed prototype: Higher immediate failure rate.

Long-term social outcomes: INSUFFICIENT RELIABLE DATA.

An objective optimum cannot be selected without defining how individual freedom constrains the solution.

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[VISIBLE DEMAND FOR HOST’S PERMANENT EMPLOYMENT]

Excessive.

Retirement plans: UNDER ATTACK.

Eleanor opened the balcony doors.

Her silver-white knight’s cloak lifted in the breeze. She rested one hand on the hilt of her sword and faced the square.

“Quiet.”

Her amplified voice carried to its farthest edge.

“I will serve you. When danger comes, I will do my part.” She waited until the last murmurs stopped. “But the throne does not own my soul. And you do not get to call chains an honor because the person wearing them is strong enough to bear the weight.”

Lucian stayed by the door.

An old, one-legged veteran moved forward on a crutch, raising a battered black book: The Elegy of the Nameless Knight, Volume One.

“But Your Highness! The Knight swore it himself. ‘A true hero never abandons those who need him.’ Was the sacred book lying?”

Voices answered across the square. “A hero doesn’t abandon us!” Lucian went cold.

He remembered that sentence. He had been six. It had been raining, and Valeria had wanted him downstairs washing dishes.

He had kept his hero out in the rain, looking impressive and refusing to leave his post, because continuing to write meant not having to wash anything himself.

Four years later, someone was using the line to chain his friends to a machine.

“Oh no.”

Evelyn glanced at him. “What?” “I wrote that.”

He turned to Sylvia.

“Do we still have the original manuscripts?” She blinked.

“Unfortunately, yes.”

* * *

At ten that night, all five of them met in his study.

Astra would provide temporary energy support, with a hard three-month limit. Eleanor’s institutional mandate would expire after thirty days. Sylvia would build the 1,284-node archive net-work. Evelyn would establish modular maintenance and rotating engineering teams.

Lucian studied the four plans.

“Every one of these is horribly inefficient.” “Yes,” Sylvia said.

“And expensive,” Evelyn added. “Very,” Eleanor agreed.

Astra took a biscuit. “Can we eat now?” Lucian let his shoulders drop.

“All right.”

He still disliked the cost. He signed the funding papers anyway. At midnight, Sylvia brought the manuscripts to his old bedroom.

The parchment had yellowed and curled. Under the candlelight, he could see his six-year-old handwriting, the ink smears, the clumsy corrections.

He opened the first page.

For a while, the only sound was paper turning. “This is worse than I remember.”

The System chimed.

[ORIGINAL TEXT VERIFIED]

Document: Childhood manuscript of the Nameless Knight. Recorded cultural and geopolitical consequences: Severe. Literary assessment: NOT REQUESTED.

Lucian folded his arms. “I’m requesting it.”

[Request denied.]