Nanomancer Rising: Divine Alchemist Reborn as Academy's Worst Teacher
Chapter 57: Tesh’s Testimony

Chapter 57: Tesh’s Testimony

//\\ //\\ //A few moments earlier\\ //\\ //\\

’This is it, girl! Just press those damn doors open!’

Tesh stood a literal step away from the doors that would lead her to her destiny.

It was just several wooden planks bound together by some nails and several thin sheets of metal, nothing she couldn’t unlock in a second or directly smash through if the situation called for it.

And yet, right in this very moment, those doors became a towering barrier that Tesh simply couldn’t bear to even attempt opening up.

’You already made your choice, god damn it!’ she cursed herself in her thoughts, tightening her hands into fists to the point her nails started to dig into the soft skin of her inner palms.

’You’ve made your choice, so why the hell do you hesitate now?!’

Pushed forth by her determination, Tesh raised her tightened fist, ready to knock on the doors... only to freeze in place.

Doing anything that would bring her closer to stepping over the threshold would inevitably mean parting ways with the secrecy about her past exploits that Tesh made into a part of her identity.

And after over a year of closely guarding her secret, coming out before an audience of teachers only to reveal it with her own mouth simply didn’t feel right.

Even if it was the right thing to do.

In the end, however, Tesh was robbed of the opportunity to make this choice herself when the doors suddenly swung open, revealing quite the crowd of teachers gathered inside, Theo currently standing defiantly in the face of the quasi-star Julius and...

And the headmaster himself!

Staring at the domineering figure of the young man who, even whilst sitting in his throne, cast an overwhelming aura of authority, all she could do was gulp her spit down, too frozen in shock to do a thing.

’Come on! Move, stupid!’

Whatever determination her body lacked, her mind did not. And now that her presence was out for everyone to see, what was even the point of staying still?

Tesh took a breath before breaking free from the chains of her own hesitation and stepping over the door’s threshold, only to then fall down to one knee while slamming the floor with her fist.

"Student Tesh reporting," she exclaimed as loudly as she could, hoping for her voice to cut through all the chatter in the room.

In the time she spent troubled at the gate, she caught enough of what was said inside the room to have a small grasp of how things stood right now.

Unless she made herself be heard, then what would even be the point of coming here in the first place? And so, she brought her head up and locked her stare on the headmaster’s face before opening her mouth again, "I’m here to give my account on the matter!"

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

The one thing that separated this trial from an actual, proper, and just one was the absolute lack of anything that would give it weight.

The heaviest and most incriminating evidence Julius presented against Theo was the eyewitness account... but an account that came from his own disciple. Everything else was just an amalgamation of rumors, guesses, and ill-faith assumptions.

It was due to the difference in standing between Theo and Julius that people managed to ignore just how insanely unfair those things made this whole ordeal. But now?

Now that the potential victim of the two heaviest accusations came to personally report on the matter?

Some teachers in the audience looked at Julius with relief, thinking the headmaster’s bid for more power would now turn on its head with the victim of the disputed crime willing to sacrifice her own secrecy to condemn the man that sinned against her.

Others looked towards Theo, some with good-willed relief while others with simple curiosity.

Most of them, however, kept their eyes on the girl herself, eager to find out just what she had to say and how it would affect the current, extremely messy situation.

For Theo, however, this was a moment when he could finally breathe a sigh of relief.

Not because he was sure this girl would speak the truth that would, beyond any reasonable doubt, prove his innocence. In fact, he was quite sure she was there to take revenge on the both times when he foiled her plans, whatever they could’ve been.

No.

Theo sighed out with relief because now that Tesh came personally, this mess of a situation would finally unwind, going back from the current tangled chaos of agendas, factions, and schemes into a simple, clear-cut scenario.

"Speak up, then," the headmaster spoke in a soft yet still domineering voice. "On the day where you have been seen thrown out of teacher Theo’s room, what exactly happened?"

Tesh opened up her mouth, only for everyone else in the room to hold their breaths.

Rather than speaking, however, Tesh slowly pulled her mouth together and lowered her head, an expression of deep thought flashing on her face.

"My apologies, honorable headmaster, but to give justice to what happened, I need to start a little earlier than that," she announced, raising her head to peek at the solid-copper bell that hung down from the backrest of the headmaster’s throne.

’So his apparitions are not limited to just living beings?’ Theo thought, momentarily distracted from the actual meat of the matter by whatever it was that obscured the headmaster’s true face.

"My first encounter with teacher Theo happened completely by chance, back when I participated in teacher Celeste’s lesson. And it was his off-handed response to a sudden question that first caught my interest."

Hearing this, the crowd stirred again.

Not only because Tesh’s inherent role as a victim in this trial but mostly because her words perfectly aligned with what Celeste reported herself.

As for the girl’s role... while no one ever managed to prove her identity as the phantom thief of the academy, all those even remotely interested in the topic had long since known the true identity of that legendary figure.

It never was a matter of finding that out, but a matter of finding a way to prove it!

Still, Tesh was nowhere near done.

"After that lesson, pushed by curiosity, I approached teacher Theo to ask about the answer he gave... only for him to shrug me off," Tesh revealed, only for her cheeks to cover with a slight blush. "Back then..." she hesitated for a moment only to then swallow hard enough for everyone to see her throat move. "Back then, I took that personally, realizing that teacher Theo wasn’t the same person as the rumors about him made him to be. And with my curiosity poked, I just couldn’t let it go."

At this point, Tesh shook her head, as if disappointed with her own immature self of just a few days ago.

She then proceeded to detail the events of her second encounter with Theo, adding up quite the number of details Theo was never aware of.

"With my pride shattered," Tesh continued her recount, "once again, I just couldn’t let it go. That’s why I attempted to raid teacher Theo’s room again, coming to my senses only when I stood right at his doors. Yet, right when I attempted to turn away and leave..."

Tesh lowered her head.

"That’s when I slipped, falling through the unlocked doors and into teacher Theo’s room instead."