The walk from Amphitheater A back to the East Faculty Tower felt three times longer than it had that morning. Nikolai Reindhart dragged his boots across the sunlit stone pathways, his mind replaying the disastrous events of the lecture hall with a mounting sense of doom.
I gave advice, he berated himself internally, his hands buried deep inside the pockets of his fur-lined cloak. I actually stood there and delivered a profound, soul-stirring speech to a student. What is wrong with me? Am I losing my touch? I am supposed to be a hardened, cynical underworld fixer who only cares about early retirement and soft pillows. Instead, I’m running a motivational seminar for talented youths.
He sighed so heavily that a nearby flock of resting mana-pigeons fluttered upward into the pale blue sky, startled by the sheer weight of his depression.
If he kept this up, he would accidentally reform the entire academy curriculum before the end of the semester. Students would start turning to him for guidance, the faculty would begin respecting him, and Dean Alistair Vance might actually promote him to head of the department. The very thought made Nikolai feel physically ill.
"I need to lay low," Nikolai muttered to himself as he finally turned the final corner of the East Faculty Tower hallway, staring up at the spiraling stone stairs that led to his beloved room four-hundred-and-twelve. "Starting tomorrow, I will wear a sleeping mask to every lecture. I will communicate entirely through grunts and vague hand gestures. If someone asks me a question, I will point at a wall and tell them to contemplate the brickwork. Yes. That's the way to preserve my lazy lifestyle."
He climbed the spiraling stairs with agonizing slowness, taking one step every three seconds, savoring the solitude of the empty corridor. The academy was quiet now, most students and faculty members having retreated to the dining halls or private laboratories for the afternoon lull.
When he finally reached the landing of the fourth floor, his eyes locked onto the heavy oak door of room four-hundred-and-twelve.
He expected silence. He expected a thin layer of undisturbed dust on the brass doorknob. He expected the sweet, unbothered peace of an empty room where he could finally crawl into his makeshift armchair cot and sleep for the next fourteen hours.
Instead, he found a person sitting cross-legged directly on the cold stone floor right outside his door, leaning casually against the wood with a massive stack of thick, leather-bound manuscripts piled neatly beside them.
Nikolai froze, his hand hovering mid-air.
The individual sitting at his doorstep wore the dark, crimson-trimmed robes of an upper-class faculty researcher—an elite rank far above standard instructors, usually reserved for eccentric scholars who spent decades locked in underground laboratories deciphering forbidden runes. A pair of silver-rimmed reading glasses rested precariously on the tip of a sharply pointed nose, and long, midnight-black hair was tied back in a messy, disorganized bun held together by a pair of carved bone hairpins.
As the sound of Nikolai’s slow footsteps echoed down the corridor, the person looked up.
Sharp, emerald-green eyes locked onto Nikolai with an intensity that could melt iron. A wide, knowing smile spread across her lips, revealing a faint, mischievous dimple on her left cheek.
"Ah," the woman said, her voice rich, melodic, and dripping with an unsettling amount of amusement. "The legendary Professor Reindhart finally deigns to return to his quarters. I was beginning to think you had crawled out a window to avoid my company."
Nikolai stood frozen for a moment, his brain desperately scanning his memory for any mention of this woman in the Reindhart family archives or academy registry. Nothing came up. She was completely unknown to him, which somehow made the situation infinitely more dangerous.
"Excuse me," Nikolai said, his tone dropping into its absolute lowest, laziest drawl. "You are sitting on my landing. Furthermore, you are blocking access to my afternoon nap station. Unless you are here to deliver a letter stating that I have been fired and my contract is terminated, I must ask you to kindly relocate to literally anywhere else on the continent."
The woman chuckled softly, standing up with a fluid, graceful motion that betrayed a hidden athleticism beneath her flowing scholar's robes. She dusted off her knees with a flick of her hand, picking up the top manuscript from her tall stack.
"Fired? Oh, perish the thought, Professor," she replied, stepping closer with an air of absolute familiarity that made Nikolai instinctively take a half-step back. "In fact, the Grand Chancellor is currently considering nominating you for a special faculty commendation after what happened in Amphitheater A this morning."
Nikolai’s heart skipped a beat. A commendation? They want to reward me for accidentally being a good teacher? This is an absolute catastrophe.
"I assure you, there has been a terrible misunderstanding," Nikolai said quickly, holding up a hand in defense. "I didn't teach anyone anything. I simply told them to read a book and stared blankly at a wall. Whatever rumor you heard is a malicious fabrication spread by people who clearly don't understand the art of doing nothing."
The woman tilted her head, her emerald eyes scanning Nikolai from head to toe with an unsettlingly clinical curiosity, as if she were inspecting a rare specimen found under a rotting log.
"Stared blankly at a wall while unweaving a foundational fire spell at the atomic level without a single syllable of incantation," she corrected smoothly, tapping her chin with the edge of the leather manuscript. "Word travels fast when you shatter three hundred years of established academic dogma in front of the brightest minds in Class 1-A, Professor Reindhart. Especially when those students include the children of the realm's most influential houses."
She extended her hand toward him, her expression shifting from playful amusement to a quiet, piercing seriousness.
"Allow me to introduce myself properly. I am Professor Vespera Vance, head of the Department of Arcane History and Anomalous Research. And more importantly, I am the only person in this entire academy who realizes that the incompetent, lazy scumbag routine you are putting on is the most elaborate, brilliant facade I have ever witnessed."
Nikolai stared at her extended hand, a profound, heavy silence settling over the hallway. Inside his mind, his soul let out a long, pathetic shriek of pure, unadulterated despair.
Vespera Vance? he thought, his eyes widening slightly. She's a Vance? Related to that stiff, ledger-obsessed Dean Alistair Vance? And worse—she sees right through my lazy persona! She thinks I'm some kind of strategic mastermind hiding in plain sight!
He didn't take her hand. Instead, he let out a long, weary sigh, his shoulders slumping further as the illusion of his carefree retirement crumbled into dust around his feet.
"You're a very imaginative woman, Professor Vance," Nikolai said flatly, his voice devoid of any warmth. "I am not a mastermind. I am simply a tired man who wants to go inside his office, close the door, and sleep for twenty consecutive years. Now, please move aside so I can reach my key."
Vespera grinned, her emerald eyes sparkling with a dangerous, intellectual thrill that suggested she had absolutely no intention of leaving him alone anytime soon.
"Oh, I have no doubt you want to sleep, Professor," Vespera murmured, stepping right up to the door and leaning against the frame, blocking his entry entirely. "But you see, I've spent the last ten years trying to solve a very particular, impossible riddle regarding ancient soul-bound traits. And the moment you walked onto this campus, my instruments started going wild."
She leaned in close, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper that echoed softly down the corridor.
"So, no, Professor Reindhart. You don't get to go inside and sleep just yet. You're going to invite me into your office, pour me a cup of that imported tea I know you keep in your trunk, and tell me how a man with a documented zero aptitude rating accidentally woke up enough power to reshape the continent."
Nikolai closed his eyes, letting out a groan of pure, unadulterated misery that shook his very soul.
I hate this world, he thought, wishing with every fiber of his being for a simple, quiet life that would never, ever arrive. I just wanted to be lazy.