Chapter 118: Evidence

Tisha folded her arms tightly, sneering down from the podium as if looking at a cockroach. "There is no way in hell you are being wronged. You’ve done nothing but cause trouble since the day you enrolled here."

"Then you have nothing to fear, do you?" I tilted my head, letting a faint, provocative curve touch my lips. "If you’re so certain of my guilt, why not make the bet?"

A heavy murmur rippled across the room.

Behind Kano, Valentina pressed her delicate lips into a thin line, her doe-like eyes flickering with suspicion.

She scanned my empty hands, my bag sitting untouched on the floor, and the corner of the ceiling where the security camera had been dead for months.

"She’s bluffing," the students began to whisper among themselves, exchanging nervous, sneering glances.

"There are no working cameras in this wing."

"Nobody’s going to testify for her."

"She has no proof."

"She’s just trying to save face."

That’s right. Keep thinking that way and fall into the trap, you dummies. This is exactly how you’ll become my punching bags.

"So what about it, Teacher?" I prompted, keeping my eyes locked on Tisha. "Are you in, or are you afraid of being proven wrong in front of your entire class?"

Tisha’s pride snapped under the weight of thirty pairs of watching eyes.

"Fine!" Tisha spat, her voice venomous. "You want a bet? If you cannot prove your innocence right now, you will leave Ravenhollow Academy today. I will personally process your permanent expulsion before lunch."

The students gasped, malicious excitement instantly returning to their grins.

They were finally going to get rid of the useless omega in their class.

Valentina, especially, had a hidden smirk on her lips.

"Deal," I replied without a second of hesitation. "But since the stakes fall so heavily against me—my entire education against a few words from you—let’s balance the scales."

Tisha narrowed her eyes. "What do you mean?"

"When I prove my innocence," I said, projecting my voice so every single student heard every syllable, "the ones found guilty will get on their hands and knees and clean every speck of rot, sauce, and garbage out of this classroom with their bare hands. And by tomorrow morning, each one of them will submit a formal, handwritten five-thousand-word letter of apology directly to me. No exceptions. No proxies."

Tisha hesitated for half a heartbeat. But glancing at the disgusting heap on the floor, the dead rat, and my completely isolated standing, she scoffed. To her, there was zero possibility an Omega from the slums had any leverage.

"Fine," Tisha barked. "The guilty one will definitely uphold their side of the bet. Now, show your proof. Otherwise, pack your things and get out."

The room fell into an eager, mocking hush.

Kano smirked, crossing his arms, while Jane and Stephanie puffed out their sauce-stained chests, ready to watch me get dragged out by security.

"Let’s see what trick she plans to pull with all eyes on her,"

I didn’t panic.

Instead, I slid two fingers into the small pocket of my uniform skirt and pulled out a sleek, matte-black metallic pen.

Before leaving the Morningstar estate this morning, the house manager had quietly pressed it into my hand in the foyer. "Alpha Edgar’s instructions, Miss Wells," the manager had whispered smoothly. "Switch it on the moment your feet cross into the Academy gates. It will prove useful in... unforeseen disputes."

I had recognized the tech immediately from online intelligence forums—a military-grade audio surveillance drive equipped with directional sound capture and instant playback. I thought it would definitely come in handy since everyone was out to get me in this school, so I did as he instructed, and here we are.

Someone in the third row snorted loudly. "What is she doing? Reaching for a pen?"

"What are you gonna do with that, Wells?" one of Kano’s lackeys sneered, drawing snickers from the crowd. "Write your own guilty plea before you get kicked to the curb?"

They all laughed.

I didn’t answer.

I simply raised the pen, held it between my thumb and index finger, and firmly clicked the top cap.

Click.

A soft, low beep sounded, followed by the faint rustle of static. And then, from the pen’s hidden micro-speaker, a crystal-clear, high-definition recording echoed through the silent classroom.

It played from the started, I forwarded it and then stopped at where it truly mattered.

"Consider it our special welcome-back gift, Wells!" the lackey’s loud, obnoxious voice rang out, vibrating off the walls with humiliating clarity. "We spent all morning gathering the best scraps from the cafeteria bins just to make you feel right at home. Savor every last bit of it, you beggar!"

The lackey’s smug grin instantly vanished, his face turning a sickening shade of ash.

The recording didn’t stop.

"Make sure you eat up every single bite, rat," Stephanie’s recorded voice chimed in next, sharp and unmistakable. "Don’t leave anything behind!"

"So..." my voice came next. "You all did this?"

"So what if we did?" Jane’s sneering laughter blasted through the speaker, sealing the coffin with brutal finality. "You’re trash, Wells. And trash belongs with trash."

Click.

I tapped the cap, pausing the audio right at the exact second before the desk went flying.

The silence that followed was suffocating.

Nobody laughed. Nobody breathed.

Jane stood frozen in place, her mouth hanging wide open in horror, her face draining of every drop of color.

Stephanie looked like she was about to faint. Kano’s hands dropped stiffly to his sides, his eyes bulging as he stared at the little black device in my fingers.

In the back, Valentina’s innocent mask completely cracked, her knuckles gripping the edge of her skirt until they turned bone-white.

Up at the podium, Tisha looked like she had just been slapped across the face with an iron gauntlet. Her jaw trembled, her eyes darting frantically from the pen to her beloved high-born students, completely, utterly speechless.

I smoothly slipped the pen back into my skirt pocket, tilted my head, and looked directly into Tisha’s horrified eyes.

"So, Teacher," I murmured, my voice dripping with pure, unapologetic venom. "Are you going to apologize first... or should we start handing out the mops?"

"That... that doesn’t prove anything!" Jane shrieked, her voice cracking as panic completely took over. She flailed her arms, desperately looking around the room for support. "It’s doctored! She—she set us up!"

"Quiet!" Tisha yelled, her voice breaking into a harsh, ragged screech.

Jane snapped her mouth shut, flinching backward as the entire classroom shrank under the sudden outburst.

Tisha’s chest heaved beneath her tailored blouse, her face alternating between a mortified scarlet and a sickening, ghostly pale.

She wasn’t an idiot. She knew that the little metallic pen in my hand hadn’t just captured the students’ smug admissions—it had been running while she strutted into the room, blindly accepted Valentina’s fabricated grievance, screamed accusations in my face, and proudly declared that an Omega from the slums was naturally responsible for filthy trash.

Every syllable of her gross negligence, blatant discrimination, and baseless abuse of authority was burned onto that military-grade drive in crystal-clear audio.

If I took that recording straight to the Academy’s governing board or leaked it to the student disciplinary committee, Tisha’s teaching license would be shredded before sundown.

Elite institution or not, an open-and-shut case of a faculty member framing an innocent student without a shred of an investigation was administrative suicide—especially with the Tournament of Power drawing national eyes to every candidate, including me.

Her manicured hands trembled against the edges of the podium, her knuckles turning white as cold sweat beaded along her hairline.

I didn’t utter a single word. I simply stood there, fingers loosely resting near the pen in my skirt pocket, meeting her panicked gaze with an icy, expectant stillness that weighed heavier than any threat.

After a moment, I let out a long, theatrical sigh.

"Right... maybe it was very unreasonable of me to begin with,"