The precognitive dream of Déjà vu.
The boy-shaped Apostle’s ability was to turn the scenery he looked at into the future he desired.
Of course, it was not omnipotence.
It was not the power of creation that could bring forth what did not exist.
At most, he could only erase what already existed.
But regardless of an opponent’s strength, that power to erase existence itself was arguably the strongest among all the Apostles.
However—
[Endless? How...]
Déjà vu kept erasing whatever his eyes touched.
With every glance, steam golems—like mass-produced factory models—vanished, dissolving like cotton candy in water.
Even so, Déjà vu was flustered. Because more golems were being created than he could erase.
The cause was Brino.
Mechanical parts appeared around him, assembling at rapid speed.
In an instant, the pieces formed a frame, mounted with plating, and completed the structure.
Chiiiik.
A brass-colored golem lit with blue light in its eyes roared to life.
Steam gushed out fiercely from the cylinders on its shoulders.
At a towering three meters tall, its metallic form radiated sheer intimidation.
Brino had taken less than two seconds to build it.
Each blink of an eye, new parts assembled in the air, and another golem stood complete.
“My word...”
Even Elisa could not hide her admiration at the uncanny sight.
She knew of Brino.
A commoner-born instructor, gentle in nature, specializing in magitech.
He had earned his place as a teacher at Seorn, proof of his competence—but his presence had always been faint.
Even more so compared to the other new instructors who had joined at the same time.
Indeed, among them, Brino had not stood out at all.
His plump figure and kindly demeanor had made him seem even more unremarkable.
‘And yet Professor Brino...’
Was now gaining the upper hand against the unbelievable power of Déjà vu.
Even eyes that could erase 6th-circle magic struggled before the endless onslaught of steam golems.
It was simply a matter of compatibility.
Though Déjà vu’s dream could erase anything he looked at, he could erase only one thing at a time.
And it took between three to five seconds to erase even that.
But Brino was creating countless golems in less time than that, like a factory stamping out products.
He was Déjà vu’s perfect counter.
‘Still... Professor Brino looks strained.’
After all, it was his first time using dream-concepts in such a strange environment.
He was holding out for now, but he would not last long.
Elisa immediately stirred her mana to support him.
Her target, of course, was Déjà vu, retreating as he erased golems.
Though his eyes remained fixed on the constructs, the boy knew full well Elisa Willow had set her sights on him.
As the Apostle of Precognition, Déjà vu could see the future.
Thus he saw exactly what magic Elisa would cast, where it would strike, and in what form.
‘And so what?’
What good was seeing the future?
If the sky itself collapsed, would seeing it allow one to survive under its fall?
A limited glimpse of the future was meaningless against an attack impossible to block or avoid even if foreseen.
[This...]
Realizing this, Déjà vu’s once gentle expression hardened.
His clear eyes fixed on Elisa, brimming with mana.
He intended to erase the most dangerous foe before him.
But his dream was disrupted—by the obstacle that forced itself between.
Clank. Chiiiiik!
Huge golems stubbornly blocked his sight.
Willingly becoming shields, they vanished under his power, but in that interval Elisa completed her spell.
“Let’s see you block this.”
6th-Circle Original Magic.
[Petals Scattered in Paradise]
Pink flames erupted from her fingertips.
Reaching critical mass, the mana split into nine streams, each attacking Déjà vu from a different angle.
His expression froze.
He saw every trajectory.
[Not aiming for a direct hit...]
The paths all targeted the space around him.
Its intent was clear.
Knowing he would dodge anyway, she aimed to engulf the area in a sweeping strike.
Kwa-gwa-gwa-gwang!
Pink flames exploded, ripping the space apart.
It was not a simple one-dimensional blast.
The nine streams resonated, each detonation triggering another, chaining explosions one after another.
Whiooo!
Shockwaves tore through, winds raging.
Elisa smiled faintly as she watched the billowing cloud of dust.
Within, residual mana still flared in continuous blasts.
“It’d be nice if you died here.”
Of course, that was too optimistic.
She had never expected this to finish him.
But it had bought time.
“Professor Brino. Are you all right?”
“Huff, huff... Yes, Headmaster.”
“Thank you. You saved me.”
“N-no, it’s nothing. Rather, you just helped me.”
Elisa glanced at the golem that had formed beside Brino.
She was no expert in magitech, but she had enough basic knowledge to know what she was seeing.
And what Brino had made was astonishingly close to the real thing.
“How did you build this?”
“I just thought, with all my will, that I wanted to make one. Thanks to Dreamland’s peculiarity, it worked.”
“It shouldn’t be so simple. Unless you remembered every single component needed to build one.”
“Well...”
Brino scratched his head with a sheepish smile.
“I’ve memorized every part.”
“...All of them?”
Just the components required for a steam golem exceeded ten thousand.
And factoring in the etched circuits to channel energy through manastones, even dozens of experts were needed to assemble one.
Even they could not build a golem without schematics.
Yet Brino did it alone.
Though he had not physically moved, the fact he had memorized every step of the process was beyond extraordinary.
“I know every material, and how to put them together, even with my eyes closed.”
He had been hired as a Seorn teacher thanks to his special talent.
But this level was truly beyond belief.
“...Amazing.”
“Hahaha. Thank you. Just a trivial trick, really. People often scolded me, saying it was useless to memorize such things.”
Elisa shook her head.
“I’m not flattering you. I mean it. The ones who said that just lacked vision.”
“Thank you for saying so.”
“Can you keep making them?”
“I wish I could, but...”
His eyes creased as though his head throbbed.
“I may have overdone it just now.”
“So it’s not something you can sustain long.”
“Yes. With that boy’s eyes still covered, shouldn’t we run?”
“Running is meaningless. He already knows where we are. Even if we flee, he’ll chase us. With his ability to erase anything he sees, retreating would only doom us.”
Elisa instinctively realized it.
If not now, there would be no way to defeat Déjà vu.
So it had to end here.
“But how?”
“We’ll have to finish it quickly, in a decisive strike. Professor, besides these ordinary industrial steam golems—can you create something new?”
“Something new?”
“Julia said so. Here, in this place, if you imagine it, you can achieve things far beyond reality.”
“In that case...”
Brino’s eyes lit up as he recalled something, and Elisa gave him a firm nod.
“Wouldn’t you like to build the kind of steam golem that could never exist outside—one that only existed as theory?”
At those words, the exhaustion clouding Brino’s eyes blazed into fire.
Even Elisa, who had suggested it, flinched for a moment at the intensity of his aura.
“To think... I could create what no one else has ever made, what has only ever been dismissed as fantasy?”
For the first time, Brino’s face—normally full of gentle smiles—was burning with raw passion.
They say elephants only graze peacefully, but when they are angered, nothing is more terrifying.
Right now, Brino was exactly that.
Perhaps it was as though a switch had been flipped; even Elisa, for a moment, shrank under the sheer intensity of it.
Brino regained his senses only after that flash of exhilaration.
“But if I try that, I won’t be able to keep up the speed of production.”
In fighting Déjà vu, he had learned.
The boy’s ability, from the moment it activated until it could activate again, took no more than five seconds.
Unless his sight was constantly blocked during that window, their defense—or evasion—would be meaningless.
That was what Brino’s golems were for.
An endless tide, outpacing the speed of Déjà vu’s erasure with sheer numbers—human-wave tactics against his eyes.
It was the most effective way to fight him.
“If I keep making golems to press him...”
“No. That won’t win. It would just turn into a war of attrition we can’t endure.”
Déjà vu had remarkable defenses.
Hadn’t he come out unscathed from the aftermath of multiple bombardments Elisa had launched?
There was something odd about how such a small body could withstand so much.
“I think some peculiar power is protecting his body.”
“You mean there’s more to him?”
“That boy can see the future. Not far ahead, but far enough to know what his opponent will do. That’s how he dodged all of my spells.”
Indeed, Déjà vu had easily avoided Elisa’s attacks.
Knowing exactly where and how they would strike, he could simply evade.
But if he were truly that durable, would he even need to dodge?
“He was fine after the aftershock of my high-circle spell. Yet he avoided weaker probing spells.”
“So he deliberately avoided direct hits.”
“Exactly. He takes no harm from collateral effects, but a direct strike is another matter. His protection must be the kind that only works against indirect damage.”
Especially considering how he had faltered, retreating against Brino’s golems.
The way to bring him down was not magic, but a physical blow of sufficient power.
Elisa was convinced of it.
“So in summary, he can see the future, has resistance to magic, and can erase anything he looks at.”
“Yes. Put that together, and he’s utterly unreasonable.”
Seeing the future, erasing all he gazes upon—and the only way to beat him is physical strikes?
For a mage, that was the worst possible match-up.
Even for knights, they’d vanish before they got close.
How could anyone defeat such an opponent?
“...But we have Professor Brino, don’t we?”
Steam golems.
The field that combined magic, constructs, and mechanical science—a new horizon of magitech.
Yet mages often dismissed steam golems as more science than magic, looking down on them.
Even if their potential for the future couldn’t be ignored, most insisted they could never surpass magic.
It was never going to be mainstream.
And Brino had suffered much bitterness because of that.
“B-but...”
Even ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ now, with the stage set before him, he couldn’t feel joy.
Instead, anxiety and fear rose: could he really succeed?
“Don’t worry. I, and the other instructors, will keep up a relentless assault to draw his eyes.”
That only added to the pressure.
The timid Brino could not bring himself to say more.
At that moment, Merilda stepped between them.
“May I speak? I know this is an important discussion, but there’s something I must say.”
“Go ahead.”
“Thank you, Headmaster.”
With Elisa’s permission, Merilda turned to Brino.
“Professor Brino. I know this situation feels crushing for you. Honestly, I’d feel the same.”
“Professor Merilda...”
“But from what I’ve seen of you until now, I believe you can do this.”
“Why?”
“Because this time, it’s about building the greatest steam golem ever made.”
At those words, Brino’s eyes flew wide as though struck on the back of the head.
“Forget the pressure of lives depending on you. Don’t think about protecting anyone. Focus on one thing only—doing what you’ve never been able to do before. Creating something that will remain in your life forever. The steam golem that, until now, existed only in imagination—you will complete it.”
As she said this, Merilda watched Brino’s expression.
Then she smirked.
“You’ve made up your mind, haven’t you?”
“...Buy me time.”
His resolute voice made both Merilda and Elisa exchange a shrug.
The key was in his hands, and now he had declared it.
“You all heard him?”
The other instructors, who had been unable to intervene during Elisa’s fight, reacted at once.
To act as someone else’s backup was enough to wound anyone’s pride, but not one voiced complaint.
Even Chris Bennimore.
“Buying time? That sounds simple enough.”
He even pushed up his glasses with confidence.
At that moment, the storm of mana blasts subsided, and Déjà vu emerged unharmed.
He shed tears as he gazed at the professors staring at him with defiance.
[How sad. To still live resisting in such meaningless ways.]
“Meaningless? Weren’t you almost finished just now?”
Elisa mocked him as she raised her mana again.
Around her, the other instructors prepared their spells.
For the first time, Déjà vu’s transparent eyes warped.
As if irritated.
* * *
[Ha... haha. What an absurd situation.]
The daydream Mirage stared at Esmeralda as his fading body grew hazy.
The dark spirit had absorbed every attack he unleashed and even turned them into her own.
The more he fought, the stronger she became. His body was covered with marks of beasts tearing at him.
[They once called me a monster. And yet... the world is indeed small.]
The beasts under Esmeralda’s command advanced slowly toward him.
Sensing his end, Mirage looked up at her and spoke.
[Monster.]