The classroom emptied fast once the bell rang. Everyone was eager to go out and celebrate the high grades they’d received for the first time. Although it was nothing compared to what the students from the other classes received, this was the first time they’d gotten something good in a long time.
So it was still worth celebrating.
Aisha weighed whether she should pretend not to hear him, but her classmates had already turned to her with curiosity and pity. She didn’t need to see their expression to find out what they were thinking.
She could leave now and keep avoiding their new instructor, but how long can she do that? What if he kept on trying to speak to her and it happened in front of more people?
Inhaling deeply, Aisha resigned to her fate and turned around.
Sabel glanced between Aisha and the instructor standing at the front, and said, "We’ll wait for you outside the classroom."
Aisha shook her head, urging them to leave. "No need. You go on ahead."
Sabel didn’t move right away. She hesitated about leaving Aisha alone with an instructor who had just come to the academy with an unknown background. Although he made everyone in their class happy by giving them a good evaluation grade, she didn’t trust him.
But Vesper reached back through the door and yanked her by the collar.
"Come on, she’s not five. Let’s go."
"But—"
Sabel still looked reluctant, but Kane shook his head at her. Vesper dragged them out until their voices faded down the corridor.
Then the room was empty, save for the two of them.
Aisha stood near the aisle, keeping her expression blank. She waited for Zeke to speak first.
He didn’t quickly open his mouth to speak. He walked back to the center of the platform, rested one hand against the edge of his desk, and studied her for a moment before he finally asked, "What do you think of your performance today?"
Aisha blinked, slightly confused by his question. She’d expected him to ask something about last night or Nykos.
She replied, "I know I did worse than most of the class."
She let a touch of resignation into her voice, glancing briefly at the door before meeting his eyes again. Was this how Irene did it? "You must have heard already, Instructor. I’ve been demoted to this class because of my status."
Zeke recalled the student information the Academy had sent him when he was chosen to be their temporary combat instructor. Among them, there were several students they wanted him to take special notice of. Most of them were students from Class 1 - S. He knew what the Academy hoped to achieve by giving him that note.
They were talents the Imperial Star Academy thought the Guide-Sentinel Association might want to scout.
Zeke was not interested and never recommended anyone to the Association. Thus, he briefly skimmed it.
But after last night, especially learning that one of the students in the Academy was somehow involved with Nykos, he pulled the student information that he had thrown at the back of his mind.
It was Aisha Novalis, a D-rank guide with a low purification rate of 29 percent.
The first time he read her student information, he couldn’t deny that he was surprised. It didn’t quite match what he thought would be someone who could make Nykos, a notorious and dangerous wanted criminal, interested in her.
And that was why he appeared in her class.
He made a specific request to teach Class 7-D even with the opposition of the Academy Principal, Lucas Gin.
A convincing answer to his curiosity must come from Aisha herself.
"Do you really think so?"
Aisha didn’t respond, staring at him, before she heard him continue.
"But I don’t. I think you’re hiding your real strength."
Aisha felt her breath hitch for a second. Calming her beating heart, she told him, "Instructor, that’s a strange thing to accuse a student of. Do you think I’m lying about my rank?"
Zeke didn’t nod or shake his head.
That only made her frown.
"You’ve seen it just now, Instructor. I barely able to reach the sample before I drained my power," she reminded him.
Of course, he saw it. He was just right beside her when she used her purification ability to purify the miasma. It was tiny and wobbly. But... the intensity of that light certainly didn’t match its size.
"If you want to lie low, that’s up to you."
Aisha looked even more surprised, looking at him as if he didn’t make sense. After lying to him this much, he was still not buying it?
Zeke didn’t mind her rude stare and continued, "But you should start by learning how to fool a Purity Protocore. Whatever you did in front of the class won’t work. It has a more advanced feature than the energy measuring crystal they have for someone who awakened for the first time."
Aisha didn’t show any changes in her expression. But she told herself to search for what that was later.
"I’m not going to force you to reveal your secret." Zeke proceeded to say, "But I do want to know one thing... How did you guide Nykos?"
Aisha met his gaze, letting a flicker of confusion pass over her features. She genuinely didn’t understand what he meant.
How did she guide him?
Uh... by kiss—lip-to-lip contact? Aisha corrected herself immediately, refusing to put that word to her mind.
Aisha crushed the image before it could fully form in her mind.
"I don’t know why you’re asking me that. But my rank and purification rate aren’t secrets, Instructor. You can check the Association’s and Academy’s records yourself. They wouldn’t have demoted me to this class if there were anything to hide."
Zeke opened his mouth, but she kept going before he could speak.
"As for why he came looking for me. I don’t know either. Maybe because I stumbled on him when he appeared at the hospital I was admitted to? If he thought I guided him just because of that, then he must have mixed me up with someone else. Maybe another guide got close to him when he disappeared while the hospital guards came and fell unconscious somewhere."
It was a clean lie. Even to her own ears, it sounded plausible.
He could go to the hospital and investigate the incident personally. So, she didn’t hide that from him. Her story also coincided with what she told the hospital after the incident.
This should be enough to distract him from pointing everything at her.
Zeke studied her for a long moment, trying to make sense of her words. He kept looking at her as though he was trying to see through her lies.
But Aisha stared right into his eyes, not breaking their eye contact until he finally looked away.
"That’s all I wanted to ask," he finally said. "You can go."
Aisha didn’t need him to repeat it. She left the room without another word.
What she didn’t notice as she walked away was the faint shimmer left behind in the doorway.
A trace of pale, ghostly light, thin as smoke, floated where she’d pass before reaching toward Zeke.
Zeke lifted his hand, fingers touching it.
He’d known his spiritual beast was somewhere on campus grounds since he sensed it. He’d let it wander on its own, trusting it fully.
Last night, it found something interesting inside the Novalis family’s mansion, eager to explore after that burst of light. It wasn’t unusual for it to slip away in unfamiliar places looking for food to snack on.
What he hadn’t expected was for it to show up now.
And it certainly hadn’t returned to him once he arrived. Instead, it had latched onto her.
His spiritual beast had never taken a liking to anyone else before. Not once, not in all the years he’d had it. It barely tolerated being near other people without snapping his jaws or roaring loudly until their eardrums burst, let alone attaching itself to someone it had just met.
So, there might be something more about Aisha than she let on...
Zeke stood there a while longer.
He rubbed the trace left by his spiritual beast and fell into deep thought.
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