Nanomancer Rising: Divine Alchemist Reborn as Academy's Worst Teacher
Chapter 42: Crashing the banquet (Collapse - Part 4)

Chapter 42: Crashing the banquet (Collapse - Part 4)

"Wasn’t he..."

"Shit!"

"Ever heard of knocking?!"

After the momentary shock of having Theo just waltz into the room, some murmurs started to circle around the crowd.

Some were simply surprised to see Theo appear early.

Others reacted as if they were just caught red-handed doing something they weren’t supposed to be doing.

Some just responded with anger, quickly directing it straight at Theo.

"As if we could expect basic courtesy from the biggest trash of our glorious academy..."

Finally, the leader of the entire crowd stepped out, turning out to be a middle-aged, relatively handsome man donning elegant teacher’s robes with an insignia of half of a star embroidered into his robe’s shoulder.

For a moment, the man just stared Theo in the face before looking away, as if he couldn’t bear to look at someone whom he held in such disregard.

Instead, the man looked over to the only person behind Theo, only for his expression to instantly soften and then turn all smiles.

"Teacher Celeste, thank you for bringing the accused. I knew if there was anyone, you were the one person this tribunal could count on."

"Teacher Julius," Celeste bounced the greeting with maybe a tenth of the enthusiasm exhibited by the man. "While I’m sorry for not stopping him from moving up before called for..." she muttered, only to ostensibly look around, more to point at the current state of their surroundings than to take an actual look.

A teacher of her level would’ve long since noticed everything there was to notice around the hall in the short moment after stepping inside, after all.

"Just what is all of this supposed to be?"

’So she didn’t know?’ Theo thought, patiently waiting with his arms defiantly crossed over his chest while he diligently observed how things developed.

For now, he decided to just play the "arrogant young master" card, but depending on how things would continue to go down, he still had to decide which permutation of this broad scenario to follow.

A naively arrogant young master? A spoiled brat? Or maybe...

"It’s a banquet, obviously," Julius announced with no hint of shame in his voice, even going as far as to raise a glass of wine in his hand in what looked like a toast. "To the looming expulsion of the greatest stain on our academy’s record!"

"CHEERS!"

The whole hall boomed when most of those present joined the cheer, raising all sorts of glasses and cups up to the ceiling.

’Is this how a tribunal is supposed to look like?’ Theo thought, almost failing to stop himself from raising his eyebrow.

The disregard for the rule of impartiality was so damn clear here, so in his — the accused’s — face, he just couldn’t believe it.

’Sure, the might makes right and all of that... but aren’t you being a bit too obvious?’ he thought, while tensing his facial muscles to make his face turn red, an easy trick to make himself appear as if he was struggling to hold back his anger.

"Don’t you think that’s... a little bit too much?" Celeste asked, her tone shifting in a rather slight manner, so slight — in fact — Theo couldn’t blame anyone without the hive to support them for missing it.

Strangely enough, however, this slight change somehow... It somehow just felt worlds apart from the usual shifts in her mood that he observed. As if the smaller, the less noticeable the change in expression, the heavier the cause of it was.

"A bit too much?" Julius smiled. "Maybe yes, maybe no," he shrugged his shoulders before taking a step back and then turning around. "The better question would be, isn’t all that this bastard did to our academy too much?"

As soon as he said his piece, Julius put his wine away before clapping his hands to get everyone’s attention on himself, as if there was even a single living soul in the building that was looking anywhere else.

"Seeing how kind of a soul our dearest Celeste is, let’s put our celebrations aside and focus on the job we are here to do. Work first, the fun can come later!"

Playing the role of a reasonable voice of the moment, Julius smiled again when he saw all those quasi-star and full-star teachers follow his request, with the staff already moving in to remove the food tables and drinks out of the way, magically spiriting them all away and leaving the place with nothing but the caged-in entrance, a single seat right by the staircase doors, and then double-layered tribunes lining up the room’s walls.

The tribunes quickly filled with all the formerly celebrating teachers, restoring some sense of grandeur and seriousness to the whole scene... if not for how some of the teachers opted not to put their glasses away, carrying them over to their seats instead.

During all of the commotion, Theo managed to secure the one thing he needed for the next step of the series of his more brutal plans — a simple glass of wine from one of the stands, grabbing it just before the servants could clean them away.

In the end, in just about five minutes, the room went through a total makeover, turning from a banquet hall into a proper place of justice... at least, for as long as one only focused on the major appearances and ignored all the minor stuff that broke the illusion.

"As for your question, dear Theo," using a condescendingly sweet tone, Julius finally addressed Theo directly, "how can you speak of us wasting your time, when free time is all that you have in your life?"

This was likely aimed to be some sort of a joke, a small jab either designed to throw Theo off the loop just before the start of the process... or just a small jab, aimed at nothing else but amusing Julius at Theo’s expense.

"Assuming that’s true," Theo smiled while leaning his head over his shoulder, his arms still crossed over his chest, "then as long as I can put an end to this farce, wouldn’t that mean that you willfully robbed me of the only thing I have to my name?" he asked, a small smirk finally making an appearance only to dance in the corner of his lips. "Or, in other words, rob me of all that I have?"

Julius squinted his eyes before raising his right eyebrow with a first weirded-out look that then soon transformed into one of even greater amusement.

Before he could say anything to counter Theo’s point, however...

’Get ready to deploy,’ Theo thought, still playing the role of just a closer undefined arrogant noble while stretching his arm out, as if to gather everyone’s attention to the cup he was armed with.

Then, slowly, deliberately... he twisted his wrist, all the way to the point where the wine started to spill out of his cup, slowly trickling over the cup’s edge and splashing against the clean, polished stones of the floor.

A process that, for at least a short moment, grabbed everyone’s attention as they tried to figure out the meaning behind it... only to soon roll their eyes as they discarded it as just another quirk of the academy’s trash.

Just another, potentially one last hurrah of his stupidity before they could finally rid the institution of this waste of space and air.

<Deployment completed>

Theo had to try really hard once he heard Hive’s message ring out in his ears.

’Great,’ he thought before moving over to his seat, displayed right at the center of the circle with the tribunal tribunes spreading all around him.

If anything, there was now just one empty seat positioned directly in front of Theo, a seat decorated enough to imply its importance. And a seat... that even with all the other elites and teachers crowding the tribunes, remained perfectly empty, with not even Julius daring to occupy it.

"Now then, let’s proceed with the vote!" Julius announced as he opened up his arms and then grinned right back at Theo. "Who here believes the suspect, low-rank teacher Theo, to be guilty of the..."

"Stop."

Theo calmly called out, crossing his legs as he relaxed back in his chair, his disposition that of someone who, contrary to his position, was in perfect control of this situation.

"I never expected any courtesy or sense from you, but won’t you find it prudent to first tell me what am I even accused of?"