There's no time, she just needs to leave!

The curtains Ralli had set up were like a barrier protecting her dignity. Surely, now that the barrier was secured, she'd be fine? With that in mind, the best thing for Harley to do would be to escape, preferably before any classmates showed up and she ended up explaining how she'd had to help their butt-naked instructor use a curtain drawstring.

To avoid any further risks to Ralli, Harley didn't even look at the problematic drawstring as she exited. Instead, she lowered herself to the floor and soldier-crawled beneath the fringe of the curtain. As soon as she exited, she headed to pick up her books and became aware of two things almost simultaneously:

First, facing the door, she saw the knob begin to turn. The other students were just arriving. With barely any time, Harley collected her study materials from the floor and completed the illusion that she'd also only just arrived.

The next thing she realized as she turned around...

The young knight trainee's jaw dropped as she realized what she hadn't before, since she'd been in such a rush inside the lit tent. From the outside, however, there was a very clear effect almost like a spotlight, broadcasting the sergeant's nude form as a shadow (but a tantalizingly clearly-defined shadow). "Oh crap!" she thought to herself. She was certain Ralli had intended not to be seen! Furthermore, Harley knew Ralli was definitely blind! Why had she lit a lantern?!

"Ah... that must be it," she thought to herself, standing proud and nearly at tears at her mentor's noble sacrifice. "Ralli's pride won't allow her to appear naked before us, but she understood that completely negating our victory would break our spirit! This is her knight's spirit, displaying as a... sexy silhouette," Harley convinced herself, gawking at the curtains along with every other member of the class who began to pile into the room behind her. "H-hey!" she yelped, turning around and slapping a classmate who had accidentally poked her with something indiscreet.

"All of you maggots!" Ralli shouted with her usual commanding voice, causing everyone to jump to attention. It was quite possible that before she did so, most of them hadn't quite believed it was their sergeant behind the curtains. Ralli could sense all of them standing out there. However, while the deathspeaker's senses often served her better than mere human vision would in combat, good old-fashioned eyesight would have been a boon in making it obvious the sneak peek the curtain was offering. Lacking that, and confident in her invisibility, she could maintain her usual presence. "Get your asses to your seats. The lesson for today will be a little different."

"Yes, we can see that, Teach," Liam commented with a dry chuckle, joining some other students in shuffling around the curtain to experiment with what angle offered the best view.

"Asses to seats, damn trainees!" Ralli shouted again, with enough authority to actually get them there. "The difference is that today, class will be inside. There will be no physical beating. Instead, prepare for a mental thrashing."

"Is Ms. Bella going to be teaching?!" a student with some very particular kinky ideas about that teacher shouted. Everyone gave him enough confused silence to confirm that was all in his head.

"No... I meant studying. All of you will study," Ralli clarified. "I will instruct all of you from in here."

"So... basically, you managed to weasel your way out of our reward, Ms. Ralli?" Liam asked with a note of irritation in his voice despite his very, very undeservedly good fortune to this point.

"Not at all. I am fully honoring your preposterous agreement. And then some," Ralli added turning her back and pouting with her face away from her audience... In a way that very much looked like she was offering an intentional turnaround of her nude form.

Liam found himself momentarily speechless at the shelf of his teacher's ass in profile. Evidently, everyone else was the same way. By this point, everyone had come to the same, unbelievable conclusion: Ralli "The Demon" Hellknox had, for whatever reason, decided to give them some erotic eye-candy for the lesson. Everyone had different internal explanations for why she'd choose to do that, but nobody could bring themselves to look the gift-horse in the mouth.

"If any of you were looking forward to today, I apologize. Today is a day to rue your fate," Ralli declared, turning to them again and pointing a finger dramatically... then withdrawing it as though she'd touched something dangerous when it poked the curtain. "T-today, you shall all perform self-directed study. Begin at chapter eleven of the textbook Advanced Resource Management for Small Squadron Formations. Read the entire chapter, taking notes. At the end, you will compose an essay that will inform me what you have learned and how you might apply that learning to the hypothetical squad formations we discussed... two weeks ago," Ralli tapered off, realizing just how long it had been since she had taught from the classroom instead of from the training yard.

Everyone let out a bit of a groan, and some began desperately searching their rucksacks and binders, hoping they would be able to locate their notes from that lecture.

Of course, there was one person in the class who didn't intend to do an honest day's work, and didn't intend to let his teacher get away with standing there like an (admittedly very womanly) statue while they did it. "I knew it! I knew she was hiding a proper beast of an ass down there, and I was right, as usual," Liam considered, opening his textbook with less than half his mind on it. "Now that I've gotten this far, I'm not going to waste this chance..."

"Teach! I think it's going to be just a little hard to concentrate on our lessons in this situation," Liam laughed, glancing to a couple of his lackeys and getting them to murmur in agreement. "Isn't there, perhaps, something you can offer to keep us motivated?"

"I am practically offering you a vault of treasure as it is," Ralli declared with irritation, crossing her arms and tapping her foot. "What the hell do you need now, Baldwin?"