Nanomancer Rising: Divine Alchemist Reborn as Academy's Worst Teacher
Chapter 48: Drastic Gamble (Cascading Collapse - Part 3)

Chapter 48: Drastic Gamble (Cascading Collapse - Part 3)

"How very convenient, isn’t it?"

Theo stared right into Julius’ face, eager to see just what else this man had prepared.

There was no mistaking it.

The kind of over-the-top act he employed could only mean that once again, Theo was willingly stepping onto a mine.

In this exact moment, however, Theo couldn’t help but feel curious just how Julius wanted to spin the narrative.

A question that he soon found an answer to—aimed straight at Theo’s biggest post-reincarnation weakness.

His common sense.

"It might be," Julius shrugged his shoulders, a vile, almost sleazy smile appearing on his lips as he spread his arms out wide. "I guess it’s my word against yours, then!"

Theo failed to predict such a turn.

He could’ve never expected the man to own up to Theo’s point the same way Theo owned up to his extortion crime. Yet, before anyone could pay any attention to what happened, he shifted the narrative to something Theo understood but had yet to naturally include into his way of thinking.

In this academy, all the more in its tribune tower, merit was all that mattered.

And when it came to merit, the two of them weren’t even in the same league.

Theo was the rumored trash teacher, the clear stain on the academy’s honor, while Julius was a quasi-star teacher with a strong foundation to try to reach full-star status!

And now that the entire thing defaulted to just a matter of whose word had greater weight, the entire thing devolved worryingly away from reason.

"Are you really sure you want to play it this way?" Theo asked, lowering his voice to a faint whisper as the gears in his mind spun, supported by the grease of the hive’s calculating power, churning away to produce the next, most optimal step.

"It’s your word against mine!" Julius shouted again, as if to reinforce this simple idea, something that oh-so-deeply resonated with this academy’s main principle. "And before you even bring it up, I shall now read the whole report of the source, so that we can later merely confirm it once that student shows up to confirm it!"

Julius, on a roll, continued with the push from an angle Theo never expected.

Rather than pushing into the narrative of comparing raw merit, he was willing to bring out an actual report?

’Fake?’ Theo’s first thought was to dismiss whatever the man would say next, but...

"I’ve observed the person in Phantom Thief’s full gear getting thrown across the length of the corridor, only to end up silently sobbing on the ground for a prolonged while. Then, after calming down, she left the scene, covering for every shadow she could find on the way out as if to hide away her shame."

’As I thought?’ Theo squinted his eyes.

While not exactly fake... this could very well be the legitimate report. But one that was touched by just enough overexaggeration and overinterpretation to shift the narrative.

"It’s word against word, you bastard," Julius finally dropped all pretense of courtly behavior, running his mouth as soon as he felt Theo’s throat below his foot. "And I say, how else would a trash like you be able to make a Phantom Thief sob like that, if not by shaming her?! We all know that Phantom Thief has reached the fifth unified stage! There’s simply no way you could’ve reduced her to such a state with your laughable strength!"

Julius finished his tirade with his arms reaching out towards the hall’s ceiling, his chest heavily moving up and down as he tried to stabilize his breath after his passionate speech.

And the crowd on the tribunes clearly swayed, with various teachers turning to each other to silently discuss Julius’ last point.

Once again, through the focus on merit and ability, they couldn’t help but find some truth in Julius’ words.

How else could a man of absolutely no physical strength reduce a legendary student of considerable personal power to but a sobbing mess? And if it wasn’t direct power, then what else could it be?

Political pressure? Exiled from his family, Theo had absolutely none of that.

Societal press? In what society? The one that already made him out to be absolutely the worst?

Maybe the teacher’s authority? But since when did the Phantom Queen care whether her targets were students or teachers? And since she was smart enough not to target those she couldn’t overcome, she was nothing but a funny little story and student hero to the elites sitting at the tribunes!

’As long as there’s even a hint of truth to that report, this is pretty much a checkmate,’ Theo acknowledged the reality as he took a deep breath.

"Well, you have my condolences, man," Theo spoke, just as silently as when he warned Julius just now.

There were times when an apparent checkmate only required some degree of sacrifice to turn the situation around. And with his back pretty much against the wall, Theo could no longer hold back.

"What?"

"I really hope the headmaster likes you a whole lot, because you just planted a huge, stinking dump straight on his lap."

Julius’ face twisted, all weirded out.

"What the hell are you even talking about?"

"A question to everyone here," Theo raised his voice, ignoring Julius’ stare as he made sure to address everyone in the room right as his expression sank into cold indifference. "Back before everything started, I really didn’t believe people like you could all be so naive to buy this story. I refused to believe no one would ever ask but a few obvious questions to verify the rumors. Imagine my surprise when you’ve all gobbled it down—the bait, the line, and the sinker."

Theo shook his head with dejection, as if merely recalling the memory of it was enough to make him lose faith in humanity as a whole.

"And before you all put your life on the line before even knowing I hold all of your lives in the palm of my hand, let me ask you one of those obvious questions you had years to ask but never did."

Theo stood up from the chair and rested his hands down on his hips.

The plan was ready.

A marvel of the shared creativity of Theo’s brain and the hive’s computing power.

And Theo deemed it interesting enough to follow through, even if it looked like one hell of a big gamble at first, second, and all the later glances.

"In what world would a family like mine be incompetent enough to let a worthless bastard that I made out to be not only live but even leave the house’s authority?"

Stopping just a few feet away from Julius, Theo stared right into his eyes with the near limitless indifference on his face, as if he were several leagues above everything that was going on.

"In what world would someone like me ever be allowed to live in the first place?"

Theo shook his head, half-cold, half-amused.

"The truth is, from the moment I’ve spilled the wine..."

Ting!

Theo’s body suddenly froze, nanites within re-arranging his insides to shoot him up with a horse’s dose of adrenaline as a simple warning suddenly burned into Theo’s vision.

<Detected Anomaly from the direction of the empty chair>

In his frozen state, Theo... couldn’t feel a single difference.

But he knew better than to ignore Hive’s warning!

But what was this warning about? What was this warning supposed to stop him from doing?

The text before Theo’s eyes burned even brighter as he started to sense that something was terribly wrong...

BAM!

The doors behind Theo’s seat suddenly swung open as a young man in the academy robes burst into the hall.

"I’m sorry, respectable teachers," the kid cried out as he leaned forward and rested his hands down on his knees to catch his breath for a bit. And then, "I’m Lukas Buhia," the kid reported as he stood at attention, "and I’ve come to testify!"