Teacher (Extra Chapter #3)

The owner of an unnamed orphanage in the city, Tisha, who was called Teacher by everyone who knew him, took care of the children whose parents died or abandoned them.

When Tisha was only fourteen, he became a member of the country's army, quickly learning, improving and getting stronger, and in a certain war a year ago, he gained massive achievements. His achievements were so important that the King estimated the victory to be 25% due to him. He unraveled important information on the enemy side, fought many battles, and ultimately was responsible for taking down the enemy King's right-hand man, thus making the enemy King fall under the one on Teacher's side.

Having had his hand impaired due to the last fight before having achieved victory, Tisha was no longer allowed to be part of the military.

The King, Having to reward such man, asked Tisha to demand whatever he wished for. And that is how Tisha opened the orphanage. the funds for it would be given by the Kingdom, and the food and whatever other needs the children had would be paid by with part of the taxes given by the people to the Kingdom.

And so, after taking a year to be built, Tisha became Director of the orphanage in the capital of that Kingdom. he taught the children about many different topics, like math, history, how to write and read, how to cook, among many other things.

In the beginning, it was all perfect.

Teacher would take care of children that would otherwise be begging on the streets, wandering aimlessly, maybe stealing from some fruits post, getting grabbed by some pervert to be sold off, or just being kidnapped to have their organs extracted.

The news of the orphanage being built spread out among that city quickly and so, on the day it opened, around 70 kids were standing at the doorstep to be taken in.

Teacher took them all in, giving them a comfortable bed, three meals a day, a place where they could play and exercise in, and many more things that they wouldn't even dream of having otherwise.

The King employed people to help Teacher, two men and two women who worked at a school before. the meals would be settled by those four, and when the meal time was over, they'd wash the dishes and help with various matters around the orphanage, like teaching a subject in case Teacher was sick or if he had an especially important matter to attend to.

The orphanage continued to flourish, and the kids began to grow up, as more children were taken in. the kids who had now become men and women would join the rest of society, taking works that ranged from construction to the ones that retained more knowledge continuing their studies and taking jobs like becoming teachers, accountants or some other jobs that required more learning compared to what would be possible with just the education given by the orphanage. the fees needed for the higher learning institutes would be granted by the Kingdom after passing a preliminary test that would make it worthwhile to spend the money on them.

Time moved forward, and in the blink of an eye, 10 years went by.

many kids had left the orphanage to look for a better life, and the Kingdom flourished. but on a particular day, the King died and his son became the new one.

The new King wasn't as kind as the last one, and felt that spending money from his pocket to maintain what he felt like were the 'waste' of society, was not worth the effort. He stopped sending money to the orphanage and dismissed the 4 employees, leaving Tisha alone to take care of everything.

The Kids who had 'graduated' from the orphanage tried their best to help out, giving part of their salaries to try and cover for the orphanage's expenses, coming to help out on the weekends, and even going as far as saving up to have money to survive a few months and then going to work to the orphanage as voluntaries.

But as it turns out, running an orphanage privately is insanely expensive.

And just a short year later, the orphanage had to close down.

Teacher lost the orphanage, but the orphans that had lost their home didn't stay put. They had to resort to stealing to have a way of feeding themselves, and so the criminal rate in the city grew.

The new King, looking at his capital suffering from a higher criminal rate which in turn generated more social unrest, decided to put a capture order on Tisha, blaming him of starting a Thieves' association with the Orphan children, and with Teacher having no say in the matter, he could only become a runaway.

On this day, Teacher was moving around the suburbs of the city when he saw an unusual amount of smoke coming off of a house. At this time of the day, people who lived in the suburbs would be in the inner parts of the city, working in construction, or doing some other jobs in the fleas-market next to the city's entrance.

'What's wrong, there's so much smoke coming out of there, is that a fire?'

Teacher walked towards the source of the smoke, and when he was close enough to see what it was, he could see that an extremely poor-looking house was being consumed by the flames. The front side of the house was emitting the most amount of smoke, so Teacher assumed that's where the fire had started, and thus he went to the back of the house to try and see inside of it, as the fire couldn't have randomly started and there could be someone in there that needed his help.

Tisha Approached the back of the house and when he was about to turn around the corner, he heard a very soft sound of Put Put which he didn't quite understand what represented, but which still made him hurry his steps.

When he turned around the corner he could see there was a window, and when he approached the window and looked into the house, he could see a little girl with her hands on the door handle of the door connecting to the middle of the house. The little girl opened the door and massive amounts of smoke came inside the room she was in, making her cough a little bit.

Tisha tried to open the window, but he realized it was blocked and couldn't be opened.

"Child!"

Cried Tisha, and when the girl turned to face him, he realized the kid was not panicking but looked somewhat surprised at the fact that there was a person who could find her at this moment.

Teacher quickly began pondering of a way to get the little kid out of the burning house, and soon his gaze rested on a rock the size of a fist laying on the ground. He signals the girl to move to the side, but after receiving no response he cries to her instead

"Move, I will break the window open!"

Which is properly heard by the Little girl, who then moves toward the wall in the room. Tisha kneels down and grabs the rock, which then he uses to smash the glass window down. Crash the window has a hole in it, but the hole is only slightly bigger than the hole, so Teacher has to hit the glass window once more.

The second hit breaks the window down by about half, and so Teacher hits it a third time, making the hole big enough for a person to go through, but before calling the girl over he uses the same rock to clean some of the glass in the sill of the window, so the girl doesn't cut herself with one of the big chunks of glass that are still stuck on it.

'She still might cut herself, I don't have the means to treat her if it happens with me and I can't take her to a hospital in the inner city like this'

is what went right after through Tisha's mind, but in just a few seconds of quick thinking he solves the problem, so he takes off his jacket and throws it to the girl.

"Cover yourself in that jacket, and come to me so you don't cut with the glass"

The little girl grabs the jacket and covers herself, and maybe because most of the danger has been dealt with, a stray thought goes through Tisha's mind.

'She looks like a burrito'

The little girl walks toward Tisha, who grabs her and then safely removes her from the inside of the house, which continues to burn down.

He continues to carry the Little girl and begins walking away from the burning house, and after walking non-stop for 10 minutes, he finally stops and puts the girl down.

'I could see how bad were the conditions in which she lived in. I don't even want her parents to see me lest they somehow recognize me and try to give me to the authorities. I'll check her state and then send her back'

He tries to remove the jacket from the frail little body, but the little girl is holding tight onto it, not wanting to release. In the end, he lets it go and instead helps the little girl put on the jacket properly. The jacket is obviously too big and so her hands disappear into the sleeves and the thing looks like a full body dress.

'Heh, this little thing'

"You don't seem to be hurt, are your parents working?"

In response to Teacher's words, the little girl shakes her head signaling two things to him: she can understand what he is saying, and that her parents were not working.

"Then... where are your parents?"

The Little girl raises her arm and with the too-big jacket on, and signals towards the direction the burning home is in.

'...'

"Your parents... they were inside the house?"

The Little girl nods her head somewhat weakly.

'Shit'

After Teacher's eyes dart everywhere while he thinks of what to do now, slowly, very slowly, the light in his eyes begins to grow and with that, a look of resolve surfaces on his face.

"What's your name?"

The Little girl shakes her head, and somehow with just that, conveys to Teacher the fact that she doesn't have one.

"We'll be on our own from now own, so I'll just call you Little girl"

She nods and smiles somewhat weakly to him.

"I'm Tisha, it's my pleasure to be with you, Little girl"

"Teacher?" (Little girl)

While making a Pui sound, Teacher quickly calms himself down from minding what a girl no more than 4 years old thinks.

'...It's fine, that's what everyone called me, and I'm calling her by something that isn't a name either'

"Yes, you can call me Teacher" (Teacher)

'Well then, I will go and get my stuff, then go to Romero and buy some more things to take with us. I can no longer stay in here and It's possible the King will make the capture order country-wide, as I have no means of stopping all the children, nor I can bring myself to do it, as that would be akin to killing them myself. I will go outside and build us a house, as I wasn't one of the best in the army for nothing'

"Let's go, Little girl" (Teacher)

"Un!"