I’m reading Necroepilogos

There’s a certain kind of story where the hero starts out trying to save people, then realizes the setting is too dark and cynical for that and they can only survive by letting “weak” people die. Pira believes she’s in this setting, and it looks so much like she’s going to be the protagonist’s mentor after all the “weak” people die. Then it turns out Pira has no idea what she’s doing, and the “weak” people bail her out.

Edit: Oh shit, I get what this is going for now. Pira is a former member of a group that wants to kill “subhumans.” Elpida was originally murdered by a coup that took over her home city, Telokopolis, and killed all the “subhumans.”

Elpida repeats over and over that “Telokopolis is forever,” and at first it seems like denial. Telokopolis was destroyed literal ages ago, and everyone she knew is dead. But what she really means is that the ideal of Telokopolis lives so long as she lives. And that guiding ideal, the principle the city was built on, is that no one is subhuman.