"Criminals are supposed to be handled by the police. In comics, sure, everything looks cool—but if you think about it, the heroes break the law. Yes, they fight villains, but during their battles they often cause more destruction than the villain would have managed even if he'd tried. If heroes fought criminals legally, they'd be required not only to detain them, but to hand them over to the police, give statements to investigators, and testify in court. From an ordinary person's point of view, a fight between a hero and a villain just looks like a clash between people with superpowers. It's not always clear who's good and who's bad."
"Spider-Man is good!" Harry protested indignantly.
"Yes, that's true. But I believe Peter Parker could do more good for humanity by pursuing scientific research than by running around the streets chasing hooligans."
"No way!" Harry insisted stubbornly.
"Oh? Harry, let's do the math. How many people does Spider-Man save in a day?"
Harry Potter ruffled his unruly hair thoughtfully and fell silent for a moment.
"Well… about three or four people."
"I doubt it's that many, but fine. Let's take the maximum—four people per day. Suppose he works without days off and every single day he's 'lucky' enough to find that many villains. Multiply that by 365 days a year. That's 1,460 people per year."
"Something like that, but sometimes he saves a lot of people," Harry objected. "Like when the bandits took hostages in a bank."
"Fine, let's round it up to fifteen hundred. Let's assume Spider-Man's health allows him about thirty years of heroic street patrol. After that, he'll be too old for it."
To Harry, anyone older than twenty seemed ancient. He thought for a moment and calculated that Peter Parker would be around forty-five by then.
"Probably," Potter drawled. "It'd be hard for such an old man to swing around on webs."
"And that's not even considering the fact that all that time Peter Parker would be living paycheck to paycheck, working part-time as a journalist. He'd have tiny retirement contributions, no real work experience, no insurance, and he wouldn't even qualify for a mortgage. And there he is—not young anymore, but not yet old—without money and without the ability to keep chasing criminals, consoling himself with the thought that he saved forty-five thousand people in his lifetime. Not a bad number, right?"
"That's what I said!" Harry declared triumphantly. "See? Spider-Man can save a lot of people."
"Yes, but scientist Peter Parker could save even more," Richard countered. "Let's imagine Peter graduates from university and properly assists Dr. Connors. Then he continues his mentor's research and perfects a formula for regenerating lost limbs and organs. The treatment goes into mass production and is sold in pharmacies. Now tell me, Harry, how many people would need that kind of medicine?"
"I don't know," Potter shrugged.
"Every third person on the planet, Harry. But even if we only count people with disabilities and those needing organ transplants—that's around a billion people. And that medicine would keep saving lives even after Dr. Parker retires and lives in a luxurious house bought with his Nobel Prize money. And he'd still have a tidy sum left over from the invention itself. So tell me, Harry—which is better: to be rich and famous and save a billion people, or to remain poor and unknown while saving forty-five thousand?"
Harry Potter froze like a state-of-the-art computer of the era. His eyes stared into the distance.
"A billion?" he murmured. "That's… a lot."
"That's fucking insane amounts, Harry! More than forty-five thousand—almost twenty-three thousand times more. Harry, real heroes are doctors and scientists. The first save thousands of lives every day. The second create new technologies that make people's lives easier, help preserve their health, and let them live longer."
For some time afterward, the boys enthusiastically continued compiling their list. Richard could easily have added numerous technologies from his previous world, but he deliberately avoided doing so, instead searching for the closest equivalents among the comic-book gadgets. In doing this, young Grosvenor quietly handed victory to Harry. Potter was delighted and genuinely happy—he had never had such fun before.
Everything ended with a knock at the door.
"Come in," Richard called.
The door opened, and John's head appeared in the doorway.
"Master Richie, Mr. Potter, it's time to come down for dinner."
"Thank you, John. Harry, this is my valet—his name is John."
"Pleasure to meet you, sir," Harry said politely.
Dinner was held in a formal atmosphere. Harry felt out of place; it was the first time he had ever found himself in such a vast dining room. And meeting a real duke was something almost unbelievable to him. It was one thing to socialize with a peer—even knowing he was a lord—and quite another to face an adult nobleman.
(End of Chapter)
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