Nanomancer Rising: Divine Alchemist Reborn as Academy's Worst Teacher
Chapter 46: Cascading Collapse

Chapter 46: Cascading Collapse

"But since you are so readily accusing me of abusing a female student, you surely can bring the victim here so that she could testify, wouldn’t you?"

By all means, Theo aimed this to be the game-changer, the checkmate of this entire discussion.

How could there be a crime without a victim?

How could one be condemned on nothing but some hearsay, especially when it came from an anonymous, hidden source only known to the accuser?

By all means, there should be nothing Julius could say in this situation to corner Theo’s point. Anything short of bringing the girl up to speak for herself would only make it all the easier for Theo to trash and then dismiss his points.

And yet, Julius smiled.

"Isn’t that quite the convenient thing to say when the woman in question is the academy’s retired phantom thief!"

Julius erupted with laughter, as if he just scored some major victory.

While that could be largely ignored, one couldn’t disrespect the visible change in the crowd.

Upon bringing up this childish nickname, Julius somehow managed to catch the attention from the tribunes, jolting it awake from what Julius and Theo’s fellow teachers had largely started to dismiss as just another bogus event.

Up until this point, Theo never acted like he was in any trouble.

And this confidence of his, while hugely arrogant, continued to work as a silent proof, an established fact of how Theo’s acting likely meant he was going to get away scot-free from this whole stupid mess.

"Who?"

Theo couldn’t attach a meaning to this clearly important name. While officially a teacher at the academy like everyone else, he was mostly cut off from all the socialization. He had no class, no worthy achievements to learn about. All one ensured by striking up a conversation was a share of Theo’s infamy.

As such, what everyone clearly considered common knowledge was nothing more than a blank page for his past self!

"Don’t you dare pretend!" Julius screamed out, regaining his vigor after watching Theo step right into the trap he clearly prepared. "There’s no way anyone wouldn’t know about the phantom thief!" he exclaimed while raising his hands as if to point at everyone in the tribunes.

And to give credit when credit was due, just this one name-drop revived all those who were starting to dismiss this whole ruse as something of absolutely no consequence.

"There is a way. A really simple one," seeing the situation deteriorate right before his eyes, Theo couldn’t afford to let the man continue speaking.

After all, using up his ace in the sleeve was reserved for an absolutely critical situation, not something Theo could still talk his way out of.

Regardless of how much he wanted to distance himself from the rumors about him, he was still the arrogant young master cast aside by his family.

And while in the middle of a politically born mess, Theo couldn’t afford to assume his family would be anything else but a viper’s nest full of scheming bastards.

In other words, by high-key losing a trail such as this one, Theo would stir enough waves for the word to reach his family and for someone to take the shot and... make him disappear.

’And from what I can tell from my memories about both this place and that family,’ Theo thought, tensing his fists up a little, ’it’s going to be a lot harder to deal with their men rather than with whatever this academy could throw at me.’

Theo took a short breath.

"All you would need to do is to have someone isolated from the rest, pushed to struggle for basic resources that are provided to everyone else," Theo stated in a steady, calm voice. He then shrugged his shoulders. "In this way, locked in their everyday grind for something as simple as survival, they will have neither time, opportunity, nor means to learn about some rumor or story all else considers common knowledge."

In the end, the best way was to still try to best explain the situation.

Theo, after all, was innocent.

And for both cases of his aggression towards that annoying girl, he was perfectly justified.

First, she tried to steal an extremely dangerous, lethally potent drug. During their next encounter, she interrupted Theo right as he was breaking through, unknowingly putting his cultivation at risk of going berserk.

And as much as Theo wanted to avoid bringing up that second point for a whole variety of other reasons... the judges and the spectators were all powerful teachers, people who couldn’t reach their current position without sufficient backing of simple, primal strength.

That made Theo’s plight something they would have an impossibly easy time sympathizing with!

’But doing so would force me to reveal I’m not as much of a trash as everyone thinks,’ Theo somberly thought. ’And if I reveal it, would they still let me peacefully retire from this stupid place?’

Just like he could imagine a scenario where that damned girl would try to screw him over for yet another, unapparent reason, Theo could picture the academy elders deciding to forcefully keep Theo locked in, be it to limit the spread of the news about this whole mess or to even figure out how he managed to break through the major reason behind all of his ill fate in life.

His magical disability that locked away pretty much all of Theo’s potential to ever wield magic, qi, prana, or whatever one used to call that omnipresent energy.

"So," shaking his head, Theo spoke again after giving everyone some food for thought and then several moments to let them properly digest his explanation. "Are you going to tell me who that phantom thief or something is, or keep assuming that stuff that’s obvious to a quasi-rank teacher like you is obvious to someone who had to work his noble ass off on low-paying missions just to eat and sleep?!"

This was the struggle not many in the academy knew.

Sure, the competition for resources, political power, and knowledge was insane—all according to the one rule of might makes right!

But those basic needs?

To eat and to have a shelter?

That degree of freedom was provided to all students and teachers.

Theo’s situation was a little bit more complicated, though, something not many knew and even fewer ever thought about.

As a nepotist insertion from a powerful, noble family, his status wasn’t that of an applicant, hired, or star teacher.

He was merely a guest allowed to practice teachings and participate in missions.

A procedural loophole that allowed Theo to join the ranks of the teachers in the first place inevitably became the doom of his past self.

And contrary to the risk of his cultivation going berserk and how everyone could sympathize with it as a reason for an outburst, the struggle to feed oneself and keep themselves hidden from bad weather was something so critically foreign to all those elites, they had no other choice but to root for an underdog forced to face it all on his own, with his already peculiar set of circumstances!

Still, by going down this path...

’Do I take the risk?’ Theo thought, staring as Julius slowly processed his words. And quite notably, his expression shifted a tiny little bit, as if Theo’s words just now offered him a... slightly different perspective on things.

Whether he reconsidered his actions or not, by now, the two of them were way too deep in this mess to just... backtrack to stop it.

"A phantom thief, a phantom queen," Julius started to silently explain, "she was a legendary student figure from some time ago, known never to be caught, the identity of which is merely suspected but not confirmed."

’In other words,’ Theo sighed as he realized the implications, ’she’s not someone that could easily step forward to give her testimony, huh?’

Once again, Julius—even if unknowingly—managed to turn things on Theo.

For if he were to bring her forward himself, not only would he risk her testimony turning fake and thus one that could easily condemn him... He would also forcibly reveal a secret of the kind that this academy respected the most.

For someone who managed to stir such a massive nest as to gain this kind of a name and be casually referenced to per ’legend’ by a quasi-star teacher, to have their identity revealed over a scandal with some dastardly trash teacher?

’If I do that, everyone’s favor will turn its ass to my face.’

Theo didn’t delude himself.

This wasn’t a trial of who was in the right and who was in the wrong.

As the name of his judges implied, it was a popular hearing designed to sway the opinions of the "judiciary tribunal of peers."

Meaning, unless he was willing to play his hidden ace, Theo had no other choice but to take a hit, swallow the partial defeat and, in doing so, switch the narrative.

Thankfully, there was one more avenue he could exploit before that.

"Okay, since that’s the circumstance, let’s put this aside for now and move over to something equally as curious," Theo suggested with a sigh, making himself appear as someone who, with heavy heart, decided to take an unjust loss for someone else’s sake. "Why is the one who reported all of those alleged crimes yet to step forward to give his first-hand testimony?"