"Are you done?"
Hearing the man's voice, Tesh could only gulp her tears down, not really sure what she was supposed to be done with.
'Damn it! Damn it all!'
In the safety of her mind, she cursed, too far out of her comfort zone to get a grip over herself.
After all, this was by no means how this encounter was supposed to play out.
//\ //\ //\ //\ //\
'It's been five accursed hours!'
By now, Tesh couldn't even clench her hands or grit her teeth, not after literal hours of doing so.
At first, she swallowed her pride and waited for two whole hours for that teacher's lesson to end, knowing full well he was unlikely to return before that.
She ignored the occasional weird stares thrown at her by the various professors retreating to their chambers nearby, ignored the outright attention of the several students who chanced upon her as they rushed to their teachers for some private lessons.
She ignored it all, eager to find out more about this one weird teacher that just didn't fit the bill of… anything.
He wasn't like any other teacher; his infamy was more than enough to claim that.
But he was nothing like what the rumors about him said, eluding Tesh's classification again.
'But if he isn't a normal teacher, if he isn't a trash teacher… Then just who the hell is he?'
Long gone were Tesh's thoughts about humiliating the man for his daring choice to ignore her before.
Now she was going to find out whatever it was that he was hiding and then expose him to the whole academy!
Or so she thought, her emotions only building up on themselves as hours passed, long beyond the limits of the two hours of Frank's magical engineering lesson…
And yet, that bastard still refused to return to his chambers!
'It's as if he could tell I'm waiting for him here…'
By now, several hours' worth of effort and wasted time in, Tesh invested way too much of her time and her emotions to spare the man.
But no matter how long she waited, he still refused to come in!
'Okay, that's it!'
Long after the day had turned into the night, turning what was supposed to be a quick deal into a prolonged mission, Tesh pulled out a simple communication token before snapping it in two, sending her coordinates over to one of her closest allies.
And before long…
"My lady," Trisha appeared within minutes, regardless of the distance she had to cross to get here all the way from the girl's dormitory. She skipped the usual formalities normally expected within the relationship the two had, limiting herself to just a spare nod of her head, substituting for a full-on bow.
"Don't ask any questions. Stand here and pretend to be me if someone walks by. But if it's that trash teacher, make sure to alert me."
With so many hours wasted on pointless waiting, Tesh was too far gone to care about how authoritative her voice sounded, making her like all of those nobles that she personally despised.
It was one thing to throw her weight around because of the standing she obtained with the struggle of her own two hands, but doing the same just because one was born right?
That idea was so silly, so outright stupid, Tesh just couldn't help but think little of anyone that subscribed to it.
Still, right now, she simply couldn't care less. And before Trisha could bow her head with a silent "yes, my lady," Tesh already turned towards that damned teacher's room before kneeling down to get a better look at the lock.
Contrary to her expectations, it was exactly the same kind of trash lock installed in the student dormitory, making it simple for even the first years to break it open after just a few moments of foolhardy attempts.
For Tesh, who climbed up to her current position through every means she had access to, raiding her opponents' rooms included?
It was child's play!
'There,' Tesh smiled as the lock gave in with a satisfactory click, not a match to the precise movements of her trusty old pick. 'To a degree, it feels like a waste to even use such a good tool on a lock like this,' Tesh thought as she pried the doors open and, after a preliminary scan, snuck inside before softly closing the doors behind her.
Then, rather than rushing to rummage through that damned teacher's stuff, she made sure to reset the lock behind her, a standard procedure for anyone who didn't outright wish for their raid to be discovered right away.
Yet, with that step done, as she turned to inspect the room, her face twisted into surprise.
"Are you for real?" she whispered with a bated breath, taken aback by the simplicity… No, the crudeness of the man's chamber.
It was a standard design chamber with a bed, small library, study, and the workshop related to the man's teaching specialization.
There was no carpet, exposing one's feet to the cold stones of the chamber's floor. There were no curtains covering the windows, making it more than just easy for anyone to peer through. And no matter how hard Tesh looked, this room was deprived of any of the many basic improvements that even the first-year students would scramble to get their hands on to make their life at the academy a little less insufferable.
That's how the academy operated, after all.
Anything the students wanted, be it better food, better teachers, better lessons, or better furniture… They had to get it themselves, either by receiving sponsorships, racking up achievements, or fulfilling any of the hundreds of possible missions and additional tasks either designed by the academy itself or created by anyone with a specific desire or need.
This room, though?
'It's like he can't even afford the most basic stuff,' Tesh thought, rummaging through the room in a slow, steady way that ensured nothing would be left out of place once she would be done.
This process lasted for over an hour, time she never expected to have, allowing the girl to set up several contingency plans just in case before going back to turning every single item in the room over in search of clues.
In the end, it wouldn't be before the very end of her search when she approached the alchemy stand for the first clue to reveal itself to her eyes.
"Wait, if he's so dirt poor, just how could he afford all those resources?"
Muttering to herself as she messed up with all sorts of raw materials, acids, herbs, and half-made concoctions, Tesh couldn't help but sit and watch as her confusion grew through the roof.