Nanomancer Rising: Divine Alchemist Reborn as Academy's Worst Teacher
Chapter 39: Collapse (Part 1)

Chapter 39: Collapse (Part 1)

’Why is it always like this with him?’

To say that Celeste’s interactions with Theo were limited would be a gross understatement. In reality, save for some occasional bumping shoulders while moving throughout the academy, her first real encounter with the man was back when he extorted her dinner from her.

An interaction that couldn’t get any weirder, already throwing Celeste for a loop, only to then end with him giving off an off-handed comment interesting enough to put entire schools of magical thought into a frenzy.

And before even three full days could go by, she was already tasked to bring the man over to the academy’s tribunal under the accusations of improper conduct and physical abuse of an academy student!

A request that the main accuser, one of the many quasi-star teachers of the academy, joyously brought up to Celeste, tasking her with bringing Theo over while commenting how it would serve as a good payback for how Theo apparently mistreated her.

Now, however?

Rather than panicking, getting angry, or even confused... Theo continued to throw small smirks here and there as he scoured his room in search of a clean robe.

"Isn’t there one sitting in the corner?" Annoyed by her inability to figure out this inconsistent mess, Celeste pointed her hand at a crumpled piece of cloth in the corner, one she could recognize as a teacher’s robe only thanks to its shoulder embroidery luckily happening to stick out of the bundle. "Will you stop trying to stall for time, or will I have to use force to bring you in?!"

’Whether he really is guilty or not is not my task to determine,’ Celeste pressed her lips together, pushing aside her doubts as she focused on her official mission. ’All that I need to care about is bringing him to the tribunal!’

//\ //\ //\ //\ //\

"Can’t you just wait one god damn second?" Theo rolled his eyes as he snapped back at the woman standing in his doors, both to keep an eye on him and to lock the only potential way out of the room. "Not everyone has the luxury of getting several uniforms to change between on a daily basis, you know?"

There was a massive disparity between Theo’s and Celeste’s lives. A disparity born from their status, extending to their material means and resulting in entirely different systems of common sense.

A difference that now threw Theo quite the curveball — for as far as he could tell, his search for a second robe was utterly and entirely pointless, for he could only ever afford a single piece of the academy’s uniform.

Even then, afford? That was quite a big word for someone who received said uniform during his admission into the academy ranks, rather than going out of his way to get himself a proper spare with his own money.

Still, while Theo had some pieces of normal, casual clothing... those too could be counted on fingers of just one hand. And mere three days after appearing in this world, Theo never had the time to worry about something as insignificant as where his former self threw those clothes away!

’Okay, screw it,’ throwing one last look towards the crumpled rag of the very shirt he used to wipe his body from the grime of the expelled impurities, Theo turned his eyes away and moved over to his bed instead, grabbing the relatively clean bedsheets before tearing them apart.

Using the white sheets as a simple cloth, he then wrapped it around his chest before adding up the outer part of the teacher’s robes, creating an illusion of being clothed properly to those who wouldn’t give him a closer look.

It was an illusion that would work on the anonymous crowd wandering the academy’s streets, but not in the academy tribunal where Theo was bound to be scrutinized in extreme detail.

Still, sensing the impatience in the girl still standing at his doorway, Theo didn’t really have much choice.

Not when stalling any further meant running the risk of Celeste outright ordering him to wear that crumpled, stinky shirt instead.

The awful smell Theo could handle. But the risk of the academy experts recognizing the stench as something born from expelled bodily impurities?

That was the risk he simply couldn’t allow.

Not when his plans for leaving this academy... and his whole identity as a noble-born trash teacher behind, even if it meant viciously burning all the bridges on his way out in quite the lethal, even if not at all spectacular, way.

"Okay, I’m ready. Shall we go?" he asked as he approached the woman in his doorway, only to feel her eyes dash all over his frame while Celeste’s face twisted, rapidly changing from one small expression to the other at a pace Theo could follow only by employing the help of his hive.

[Detected expressions: Astonishment (38%), Surprise (41%), Anger (17%), Confusion (72%), Doubt (52%), Deep reflection (22%)]

Sadly, due to the lack of prior instructions, there was no way for Theo to track which expression came in what order, leaving him with nothing but the knowledge of just how conflicted Celeste was in spite of the seemingly unbothered, cold look in her eyes.

"Like... this?" Celeste raised her hand, this time to point it at the simple cloth Theo used for a shirt. "Don’t you have any normal clothes to wear?"

Theo rolled his eyes.

"Are you here to judge my fashion sense, mock my poverty, or bring me over to that bogus trial?" he countered with a look of displeasure now clearly painted on his own face.

Celeste’s eyebrow moved up a bit, only for her to slightly squint her eyes before turning sideways and retreating from the doorway just a single step into the corridor.

By now, pretty much all the teachers living on the same floor had conveniently come to open their doors to air their rooms or outright come out to sweep the dust by their entrances, all doing the absolute minimum to pretend they weren’t there just to feed on the drama that could fuel the local rumors for, at the very least, the whole of the next week.

"After you," Celeste said, now pointing her hand down the corridor, implying Theo was supposed to be moving first.

’Is she worried I would jump her if I were to walk behind her? Or maybe she wants to keep me in her view at all times?’ Only slightly curious, Theo sighed out before removing all the expressions, good and bad, from his face as he stepped ahead.

"I don’t mind going first, but..."

He turned his head over his shoulder as he gave the woman a dismissive glare.

"I don’t exactly know the way."