Nanomancer Rising: Divine Alchemist Reborn as Academy's Worst Teacher Chapter 16: Theo’s bluff

"Are you done playing the victim yet?"

Theo squinted his eyes a bit.

'Like hell just a bit of tears can change the fact you intruded upon my room!'

There were many reasons why Theo would be angry about sothing like this.

From the very basic anger at soone daring to cross his privacy, through the lack of so basic respect towards his role as a teacher, all the way to all sorts of possible dangers that ddling with his stuff could entail.

Ultimately, however, the main reason why he was angry was sothing else.

It was the fear that if sothing like this were to happen ever again, then having the privacy of his room would ultimately be pointless.

'How am I going to work on stuff that this world is not ready for yet if any random student can have the gall to enter this place as they fucking wish?!'

Even if Theo didn't plan to remain in this academy for long, for as long as he did, he had every desire to make the most of what it offered. And just like he took full advantage of the knowledge he could freely access in the academy's library, he did plan to make full use of his alchemy stand in the room too!

And if he were to allow students to just waltz into his room unchallenged, how could he ever think about doing so?

"W-what?" Tesh mouthed, struggling to even produce a proper voice from her clenched throat.

The fear, anxiety, confusion... Those emotions were written all over her face, either making her a great actor or maybe proving that she truly was unprepared for the situation to take such a turn.

"You've co to my house. You've dared to touch my stuff. You even thought about using my half-product to do what?" Theo asked as he crossed his arms over his chest. "To blackmail ? To report ?"

He shook his head.

"I gave you so many chances to back off, so many chances not to bother , and yet, you still decided to go through with it?"

Theo shook his head again, his own words riling him up more and more.

Even if what this girl did was well within the norms established in this world, sothing that his forr self would have an easier ti accepting... For the current Theo, ho invasion was one of the highest offenses one could commit!

And even if the potential consequences of his retaliation made it impossible to actually punish the girl the way he wanted, there was no way he would let her get away scot-free.

A decision that he only grew more certain about when he saw Tesh trying to soothe his anger in the best way won knew how—with her tears.

"I... I-I'm sorry..."

Backing out a step and pressing her back against the back wall of Theo's room, the girl no longer even tried to hold her tears or stop the shaking of her legs.

Right now, she was in full-on panic mode, no longer gentle enough to put a doubt into its validity.

Right now, the terror in her eyes was too real to be just an act.

'In the end, if I do anything to her, it's only going to bite in the ass later, isn't it?'

For all his anger, all his slighted pride, all the risk of actually doing harm not only to herself but also to others if she were to carry away what Theo brewed... His hands were tied.

After all, in a world where people cultivated the strength of their punch to the levels where it could pierce mountains or their magic to the point where they could casually throw balls of fire at each other, what would the sliver of nanites Theo could control asure up to?

Still, even if he lacked the ans...

'It's not like she's aware of it.'

Theo closed his eyes for a second before relaxing his face and opening his eyes again, this ti cleansing all the emotions from his expression and staring down at the girl with cold, perfectly calm eyes. He then raised his hand and...

Snap

A tiny bit of liquid suddenly materialized right in front of Tesh's face, lingering in the air for just long enough for her eyes to focus on it before rushing through the air and shooting up her nose.

"You still rember that undiluted drug you nearly stole?" Theo asked, his face still the sa, expressionless mask as before.

Unable to produce a single word and with the terror in her eyes now turning into horror, Tesh rely nodded her head.

"Right now, I've infused a droplet of it near the base of your brain. Give a single damn reason, and you will beco the happiest person in the world for the few seconds it will take for it to lt your brain into a mush," he announced, still keeping the sa expression with just a hint of determination flashing in his eyes.

Obviously, Theo did no such thing.

Just gathering the condensation from the air and forming it into water before enhancing its thickness and viscosity enough to make it mimic the drug exhausted what little nanites he was still willing to spare. Any more than that, and his own mind could succumb to a feeding urge, where his body would throw itself at the nearest and most nutritious source of energy it could find.

And in this room, in this place, and in this ti, Theo wasn't willing to bet whether it would be so of the herbs or the terrified girl in the corner of his room.

'To think I would reach a point where I would actually have to worry about such a scenario,' Theo ntally gritted his teeth, too busy maintaining the expressionless mask to actually do it for real.

That's why, way too tired of this interaction and the whole ss to begin with, he simply raised his hand and pointed it at the doors.

"Now, scram. And I dare you," he added as the girl rely swallowed her spit, too terrified to leave the corner where she cowered in horror, "just give a damn reason."