Great Teacher in a Defense Game

#56 Advice From The Future

*Snap!*

The Clown, with a weary face, flicked his fingers.

The fake Enoch, the End Dragon, the sprawling forms of people in the background, all blurred.

Their forms faded slowly, gradually, until they vanished completely.

The space settled into a silence.

A silence so profound, so like death, that Lacrimosa raised her hand with a quiet rustle.

“Um… Teacher?”

“What is it?”

“By chance… are you acquainted with that clown? Something about his manner of speaking, his presence… it feels familiar.”

Lacrimosa asked with tentative care.

The air between Enoch and the clown felt…charged.

The way they traded barbs upon first sight, the aloofness that suggested a deep familiarity – it was unsettling.

Lacrimosa felt a prickle of unease.

A sudden shiver ran down her spine.

Ever since that strange phenomenon, she’d found herself confiding in the clown things she probably shouldn’t have.

What if she’d grievously offended an acquaintance of her Teacher?

And if so, how could she possibly remedy the situation?

“Worry not, Lacrimosa.”

“Y-yes?”

“Today is the first time we’ve met. We are hardly close.”

Enoch explained, his words short, meant to soothe.

Lacrimosa felt a sliver of relief wash over her.

But the core question remained, a heavy stone in her gut.

“Is that so…? Then, when did you first encounter… him?”

“Just as you were approaching the circus. Then was our first meeting.”

“Y-you mean you saw everything?”

“Indeed, more or less.”

Lacrimosa froze.

That meant he’d heard and seen it all.

Just as she was sinking into despair, the clown, who had been observing silently, finally spoke, a touch of delay in his voice.

“…Still can’t quite shed that greenhorn veneer, can you?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Your question is flawed. You should have asked about my true nature, not when we met. Shouldn’t a magician be wise to such things?”

The clown’s words were sharp, laced with reprimand.

There were thorns in his words.

“Indeed. Not entirely incorrect.”

“S-sorry…”

“Enough. Not worth nagging about. The explanation can be given now.”

Enoch said that, turning his gaze away.

Inside the circus, within the tent’s confines. He swept his eyes over the entire scene, scrutinizing every detail before speaking.

“Lacrimosa.”

“Yes.”

“Where do you believe we are right now?”

“Here? Well… inside some magic, perhaps?”

“Let me rephrase the question. What *kind* of magic do you think we’re inside?”

Enoch posed the query.

It was a rather tricky task.

“…It’s definitely not elemental magic. More along the lines of concepts and phenomena. Rather, it feels similar to a language-based spell.”

“Continue.”

“All magic has a center. Which is the mage themselves, the user. However… it’s strangely faint here.”

Lacrimosa, while speaking, gazed at the clown.

She pushed her senses to their limits, yet his presence was unusually weak.

As if he could vanish like smoke at any moment.

“…His presence is faint. There’s no weight to the magic. Surely, he must be the mage. But even with him right before my eyes, it’s difficult to be certain.”

“What exactly does it feel like?”

“…Smoke? Or perhaps, an illusion?”

Either seemed plausible.

For some reason, it was hard to be sure.

Come to think of it, it was like that from the start. When he appeared, Lacrimosa had only belatedly become aware of his presence.

“As if the magic itself had such properties-“

“Enough.”

“Yes?”

“You can stop speaking. You’ve just spoken the correct answer.”

“I spoke the correct answer?”

“Indeed. Didn’t I just say? That its presence is faint, that the magic itself seems to possess that quality – that is the correct answer. Your senses did not deceive you.”

Enoch spoke thus, and moved his hand.

With long, outstretched fingers, he gestured towards the circus tent and everything else.

“Lacrimosa. Looking at this backdrop, what thoughts arise?”

“Backdrop… you mean? Just that it’s a circus… I’ve never deeply considered it, only that it’s somewhat unsettling…”

“Why do you find it unsettling?”

“? Well… circuses draw large crowds. And strange rumors always seem to follow them.”

Lacrimosa conjured images of circuses in her mind.

Noisy, boisterous.

And ultimately, dangerous.

The circus is a place where countless people come and go.

In such places, incidents and accidents inevitably occur.

Especially disappearances.

Parents lose children, grown children lose elderly parents.

Such events were incessant.

“Even, there are strange rumors about the circus itself. That they abduct children at the circus. That vanished children are taken in and work as employees.”

“…”

“Anyway, the image is a bit like that.”

It’s not for nothing that some people fear clowns.

Circuses – or rather, festivals – are, unknowingly, breeding grounds for incidents.

“Orphans like me never even went near a circus. What if we went to play and got kidnapped to some strange place-“

At that moment, Lacrimosa’s eyes flickered.

A sudden realization dawned.

“Kidnapped… to some place?”

“I see you’ve caught on.”

Enoch nodded.

His eyes swept over everything around them once more.

“You have just touched upon the very core of the magic. Kidnapping. Or disappearance. That is the essence of this magic.”

Sequential Harmony.

Azure lightning scattered quickly.

He sifted the real from the false in a heartbeat.

From this string of places, only one held true.

“Disregard what you see. A magician must rely on sensation.”

“…”

“Two truths we must focus on. First, we have been transported to a strange place. Second, the ground we stand on now. Only that is real.”

“In that case…”

“Yes. We have been abducted. To a place separate from the world.”

The people, the dolls, the circus.

All of it is false.

All of it is illusion, a phantom.

A magician need only consider one thing. That we have been transported to a strange place. Only that.

“And that is the core of the magic the author has woven. This is the magic of disappearance.”

“Disappearance…?”

“Yes. Disappearance.”

Enoch fixed his gaze on the clown.

He spoke as if delivering a sentence.

“He is a magician of disappearance, of loss, or of the lost child. He has created an entire space anew, abandoning us within it.”

@

Lacrena listened to Enoch’s words, dazed.

A world unlike the one she knew. To create an entire space as one wishes, abandoning others within it.

It was an unbelievable tale.

That a person could do such a thing.

No matter how magical, it defied common sense.

“Is such a thing, possible…?”

“What do you mean?”

“Even with magic, to create a different world…”

Lacrena shivered unconsciously.

A fresh wave of fear washed over her.

Without realizing it, she took a few steps back from the clown.

“…I simply cannot believe it. Even the Master of the Magic Tower, a Grand Tier magician, could not accomplish such a feat… Can a person, really do such a thing?”

“The answer lies in the question itself.”

“Pardon?”

“You yourself said it, didn’t you? That even a Boundary-class mage couldn’t do it. Therefore, there’s only one answer. The author is a Boundary-class mage, or stronger.”

Enoch stated flatly.

The Boundary-class mage: the apex of all mages.

An existence tightrope-walking between the concept and the phenomenon of magic.

But, could that truly be the end?

Was the Boundary the limit of a mage’s dominion?

“It’s impossible.”

“What is?”

“I know, as a mage myself. The Boundary is the state just before being consumed by magic. They’re only enduring through their own power. If one were to advance beyond that, their consciousness would vanish, assimilated into magic itself.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. Maintaining a human form like that is impossible. Absolutely.”

“Then perhaps it’s not human.”

“…Pardon?”

“There’s no use denying it. It won’t change the situation. Or rather, you would have noticed it long ago, wouldn’t you?”

“…”

Lakrina fell silent.

Enoch’s words were true.

From the very beginning, she had noticed the jester was not human.

Even if she belatedly denied it out of fear, nothing would change.

“I’ll stop my explanation here.”

Enoch looked at the jester once more.

He spoke as if giving a command.

“How about you explain the rest yourself?”

“…That would be for the best.”

The jester nodded.

Stepping forward, he pointed at Lakrina as he spoke.

“Your explanation is not incorrect.”

“…”

“Surely, a Boundary-class mage is humanity’s pinnacle, and soon its terminus. Yet, that is not the true end. If one abandons being human, one can advance to the next stage without limit.”

“…The next?”

“Indeed, unification. To be consumed by magic itself, to be wholly assimilated into concept and phenomenon. Not a mere avatar of magic, but magic incarnate.”

The jester spread his hands wide.

Behind him, space rippled.

Across the warped space, fragments of the continent reflected like a shattered mirror.

“I was consumed by the concept of disappearance. Everywhere and nowhere at once.”

The jester reached through the mirror.

The reflected image shuddered.

From a deep forest, somewhere on the continent. He plucked a fruit from a tree there, and brought it here.

-Thud

“…That is the true end of a mage.”

Unified with a concept, manipulating phenomena at will.

“I have named this ‘Phenomenon-class Mage.'”

The jester tossed the fruit to the floor.

The moment it struck, the fruit vanished.

Disappearance.

Gone forever from this world.

Its origin now unknown to all.

Even to the jester himself, the one who wielded the magic.

“…Phenomenon-class…mage…”

Lacrina quietly mulled over the explanation she had heard.

The true end of magic.

She witnessed its sliver with her own eyes.

Unbeknownst to Lacrina, it was vastly expanding her cognitive realm.

Magic has no limit. She felt that fact firsthand.

At that instant.

The jester clapped his hands suddenly.

-Clap!

“Now then, class dismissed.”

“…?”

“Off you go. Time for the adults to talk now.”

“? W-Wait! Teacher!”

Lacrimosa reached out a hurried hand toward Enoch.

But Enoch remained still.

He, too, had agreed to this beforehand.

“Take a nap. It’ll be over soon.”

“Teacher?!”

Lacrimosa’s eyes widened.

The last voice of the clown echoed in her stunned ears.

Untransformed, in its original timbre.

“Farewell, Lacrimosa.”

“…Eh?”

“It was delightful to meet you again.”

-Snap!

The clown flicked his fingers.

Lacrimosa’s consciousness snapped shut.

@

Thud. Lacrimosa collapsed, as if broken.

Enoch rushed to check her condition.

A simple faint.

“How did you do that?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did you learn some kind of fainting magic?”

Enoch tilted his head, questioning.

The clown shook his head in denial.

“Of course not. The principle is simple. I merely displaced her consciousness for a while.”

“…That sounds dangerously close.”

“It’s fine. Consciousness is close to the soul, after all. Eventually, with time, it will return to its original vessel. It will be a good lesson for her, even.”

“A lesson?”

“Consciousness adrift, a curious experience, wouldn’t you say? Bound to be quite helpful in discarding the limits of common sense.”

The Clown said this, and removed his mask.

Half-smiling, half-weeping.

Beneath it, his original face was revealed.

Enoch watched it in silence.

As he expected.

Behind the mask was none other than Enoch.

His own face, in truth.

“So it was,” he said.

“You sensed it long ago, I imagine. Thanks to Chain Harmony?”

“Indeed. The skill revealed it all, unhidden. Quite the novel experience, delving into myself.”

Chain Harmony was a remarkably useful skill.

For Enoch, who mimicked a mage without being one, it was the best means to delve into them.

“What should I call you, then?”

“What do you mean?”

“A title, of course. We can’t exactly call each other by name, can we? Shall I call you… ‘Future Me’?”

“…Just call me Clown. That will be easier, I think.”

Future Enoch sighed and sat down.

A chair had materialized in the air, somehow.

He sat, then rubbed at his eyes.

His aura was quite different than when Lacrima was present.

A weariness emanated from him, a feeling of exhaustion.

“…You must have much to say. Many questions.”

“That I do.”

“Speak, then. This is Essnos, the chance she has created. I will answer as best I can, within my limits.”

“Why are you dressed as a clown, of all things?”

“……”

“Has my taste changed so drastically, then?”

Future Enoch furrowed his brow.

“…Is that truly the only question you have?”

“That kind of thing? It’s rather important, wouldn’t you say.”

Enoch clicked his tongue first, oddly enough.

The future Enoch, aghast, retorted,

“What else is there to-“

“There’s no guarantee you and I are perfectly identical. If our tastes themselves differ to such an extent, shouldn’t that be considered first, before I heed any advice?”

Enoch countered, resolute.

It was a plausible argument, in truth.

The future Enoch inhaled sharply, dumbfounded.

“…Hah, never yields an inch. Was I really like this when I was younger?”

“Don’t be sarcastic. I *am* you.”

“…Orban. Now I understand a bit why that fellow was so enraged.”

The future Enoch said, almost lamenting.

Orban, the Golden Mage.

Enoch’s interest was piqued by the mention of him.

“You know Orban well?”

“Well enough. I was practically attached to him at the hip, working.”

“Really? What happens to him in the future? Surely he doesn’t succeed in reforming, does he?”

Enoch asked, his curiosity piqued.

Securing Orban would be a great help.

No, even just avoiding conflict with him would be a significant boon.

“What nonsense are you spouting? Orban, that b*stard, reform? Never.”

“…? Didn’t you just say you were attached to him, working?”

Enoch, bewildered, asked back.

The future Enoch clicked his tongue, irritated.

“I just beat him up.”

“…”

“They say time heals all wounds, but it seems he’s an exception. So, I just beat him up and then dragged him along. Forced him.”

“…That was alright, then?”

“It’s fine. No real problems. Actually, trying it out, it was pretty good. You can’t fix trash. You just use it as it is, however inescapably. Like Lacrima, passed out over there.”

The future Enoch gestured with his chin towards Lacrima.

It was a remark tailored to her nature, her very being.

Crude, perhaps, but not entirely without merit.

“…Regardless, I’ll keep that in mind. Maybe I should beat him senseless and drag him around too.”

“Aye. He throws a fit about going to the red-light district sometimes, but if you can just get past that…”

“…Red-light district? How did you handle that?”

“I just went with him.”

“……”

Enoch frowned, pinching the bridge of his nose.

He was speechless.

‘This is my future, truly?’

He refused to accept it.