by Herge
Working is hard. Being a hero too. Doing both at the same time, for half the pay, is hell. Every day, Arthur wakes up early to sweep the filthy streets of Lumière in exchange for a pittance, zero recognition, and a terrible smell that seeps through his clothes and clings to his body. But when monsters appear and the city needs someone, he’s the one who steps up. Not to defeat them, of course, but because, apparently, no one else wants to clean up the mess that the real heroes leave behind. At the end of the day, his only consolation is heading to the corner diner, where the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen works. There, between a hot sandwich and a shy smile, Arthur almost forgets that he’s the lowest-paid (and most ridiculous) hero in Lumière. What kind of shit hero is this? A.N.: A short story set in the cyberpunk heroes universe of higgscrowl (Radiant).
No streak history
One state-enhanced oracle order, filtered by each list. Observed Royal Road ranks remain separate ground truth.
Rank updated 4 Oct 2026, 06:08 UTC
Entry forecast updated 4 Oct 2026, 06:08 UTC
Ranking model: rs-public-oracle-state-v1
Forecast model: rs-model-entry-v1
Chart history contains only this ranking model's runs; legacy points are not spliced in.
Not enough recent follower history to estimate a shadow rank yet.
beats 68% of similar stories
not enough data yet
beats 24% of similar stories
Hidden gem — exposure is the bottleneck
Readers who find this story follow it at a high rate; there just aren't enough of them. In our cohort data, near-daily posting lifted the odds of reaching 25 followers from ~0% to 17% — more chapters, shoutout swaps and ads buy the eyeballs this conversion deserves.
Benchmarks: 8,060 active Royal Road stories, percentiles within the 5–9 chapters band, cohort of 2026-07-02. Conversion is measured as followers gained per 1,000 views lifetime.
