Crash!
Tesh's body flew through the open corridor only to crash into the wall, fall down to the floor, and then crash against the opposite wall before finally losing all of its momentum, leaving her to cover on the cold floor while trying to hold the pain in.
'AAAARGH!'
Internally, Tesh screamed out.
Despite how it would've looked to a potential observer, she wasn't really hurt all that much. In fact, being held up by her wrist and then pressed against the wall caused her more pain than the results of Theo's toss.
By staying curled down on the floor, pretending to be in great pain, however, Tesh bought herself some extremely precious time to process what had happened.
And a lot of things did.
'First, I'm alive.'
This, all by itself, was the biggest point of it all.
Even though she intruded upon Theo's quarters for the second time, intentional or not, he opted out of fulfilling his earlier warning.
Was it because he somehow noticed it was all but an accident?
'Nah, no way. Not with the way I'm dressed,' Tesh thought, gulping her saliva down as a shiver of cold terror moved up her spine, nearly causing her to spring up from the floor and run as far away from this dangerous place as she could. 'But then again…' she gritted her teeth, 'he didn't kill me!'
Whatever the reason why Theo decided to hold back, Tesh could tell she wasn't going to learn more about it anytime soon. And in all honesty, did it even matter?
"There will be no third warning."
The only six words he spoke to her still rang in the girl's ears. The man's voice was filled with such conviction, such determination, Tesh couldn't doubt them even if she wanted to.
Yet, as her thoughts came back to that very moment, as they prompted her mind to recreate every single detail she, in her panic, got to precisely etch into her memory…
'Ugh…'
A tingle moved up the girl's spine as she recalled the shirtless, sweaty man, his glistening skin covered in some sort of herbal-smelling grease that still failed to mask the distinctive, pungent smell of someone who just expelled the impurities of their flesh.
The image Tesh evoked in her mind was so vivid, it took her a moment to actually connect the obvious dots hidden in plain sight.
'Wasn't he supposed to be incapable of cultivation?' she thought, adding yet another piece to the mosaic of puzzles that went directly against the picture the rumors painted about the man.
In fact, the more she learned about him from interaction, observation, and her own analysis… the further apart that man's real nature and the public image turned out to be!
And while Tesh's own strength meant that just crashing into a wall or two was never going to be a problem… For someone who still carried the distinctive pungency of impurities on their skin to exhibit enough strength to toss her, an actual human, several feet through the air and then make her bounce from one wall to the floor and then the other wall?
'Was he hiding his strength all along?' Tesh thought, only to gulp her spit as her throat suddenly felt parched. 'Wait, what if…' the girl held her breath for a second.
'What if all that time he kept his head low at the academy, allowing all of the insults and bullying… all so he could properly prepare for the activation of his talents?'
Neither of those cases would be unheard of.
Some people simply found it hilarious when their enemies discounted them, only to end up slapping them in the face by revealing their actual strength. Others took this approach purely for the sake of practical, tactical aspects of keeping one's hand hidden from the view of others, making it all the harder for others to ever fight them.
When it came to the latter, taking one's time to prepare before taking a first step into cultivation, magic, or any other discipline…
Not only it wasn't something unheard of, it was actually quite common. The only thing that made Theo special in this regard was just how insanely long a time he took to prepare, easily topping the charts of patience if one were to be made about all those who ever attended, were attending, or would attend the academy!
'If I'm right about it…'
This single thought was enough to make the girl freeze in her curled-up spot on the floor, as she finally figured out just why this man was so protective of his privacy.
What would be the point of hiding his potential and biding his time until he was fully ready to train, if he were to allow a brat like her to just… spread the news she was never supposed to find out about?
'Oh shit…'
Gulping her saliva again, Tesh forced herself to stand up, dismissing any attempts at acting hurt and opting to merge into the shadows instead.
This time, however, rather than challenging her raw agility and nimbleness, she activated a series of her tools, the thieving queen's crown included, blasting herself with a combination of magic potent enough to hide her from the senses of even a sixth-tier mage.
'I've already drawn more attention to him than I should,' she thought, her sense of guilt suddenly exploding as she compared how she felt and acted before the most recent encounter and how it all looked now that she gained this fresh, new perspective on things. 'And attention…'
Before Tesh could fully form her thought, she - once again - recalled the sight of bare-chested Theo, his well-pronounced muscles, perfectly well-maintained waist, not an ounce of spare fat to spot, and the strangely intense heat radiating from his skin.
With her cheeks suddenly growing red, she stretched her hands out to better merge with the shadows and break up her regular outline… Only to feel the tingle of the pain from when Theo completely immobilized her before she could even see what was going on, only to pin her against the wall with her hands held up above her head…
The next tingle that Tesh felt came from quite the worrying part of her body, only causing her cheeks to grow even redder.
'What am I even thinking about?!' she internally cried out. 'Shit!'
//\\ //\\ //\\ //\\ //\\
Lukas cowered in the corner of the corridor, his mouth agape.
When he first decided to track whatever it was that Ludwig's nose picked up, he couldn't expect the show the two of them would end up witnessing.
From Ludwig's hunch turning out to be a possible lead on the elusive phantom thief, through her unorthodox target, all the way to her weird behavior as she approached it…
And the impossible scene that played out in just a matter of moments.
From the masked Tesh accidentally falling into the room of the academy's rumored worst teacher, to her suddenly vanishing from where she fell to the man's floor, only for a whisper of her pained groans to reach them down at the other end of the corridor before she came flying out, crashing into the walls before spending several moments down on the floor, struggling to contain the pain caused by the crash!
And her past identity as a Phantom Thief aside, wasn't Tesh supposed to be a third-rank mage-cultivator elite, on par with Lukas himself?!
Just how hard was she thrown to end up in such a sorry state?!
No matter how many questions this whole show sprouted in Lukas' mind, though, he patiently maintained his fragile spell, not even daring to imagine the consequences of being spotted.
'Heck, should I pretend that I wasn't here and that I didn't see a thing?!'
Slightly panicked, Lukas considered his options.
In situations that made as little sense as the one he just witnessed, most of the time, the smartest move was not to get involved in it.
But what Lukas just witnessed?
'That smells like something a little bit too big for me to just ignore,' he thought, only to feel Ludwig's tug on the edge of his sleeve.
Turning his head to his junior, he could see the look of absolute confusion, surprise… and fear.
While not among the academically gifted, Ludwig wasn't outright stupid. In a way, his smarts simply applied to different fields than books or theories. And the ability to read the situation was merely one of the things where he maybe didn't excel, but definitely didn't fall below the academy average.
'Right, it's not even something I could pretend not to see,' Lukas thought, slightly clenching his buttocks as he realized that Ludwig's presence here meant the path of just ignoring all that happened was now permanently closed.
If he was the only one with this knowledge, if he was the only witness, he could pretend not to have seen anything at all. But with another soul on board?
Lukas took a deep breath before slowly bringing his hand up to his mouth and then closing his lips by crossing his forefinger against the middle of his mouth in the popular hush-hush gesture.
And so, the two of them remained perfectly still, perfectly silent long after the masked girl already left the area, only daring to move after an entire hour passed, and only daring to open their mouths once they properly left the dormitory and casually strolled away up until they escaped all the way to one of the obscure parks hidden in the corners of the academy's compound.
"Senior…" when Ludwig finally dared to open his mouth, the raw, unadulterated fear in his voice told Lukas all that he had to know. "What do we do now?"
Lukas took another deep breath before slowly exhaling it all out while keeping his eyes closed, giving himself just a little bit longer to make the final adjustments to his judgment.
"It's not like we have much choice here," Lukas sighed before shaking his head a little, only to reveal an expression of someone that gave up, one that was quickly superseded by a look of determination. "We will have to go and report this to my master."