Better in Person?

“Is the real thing even better?”

The day after the DCK finals. Viewers who normally watched Lily's streams were waiting for exactly two broadcasts. One was Yena's stream — the person with the deepest connection to the whole incident. And the other one was…

The main character of the incident herself — it was Lily's stream.

Her chat room wasn't even live yet, but messages were flooding in as if the broadcast had already started. Everyone watching wanted one thing.

Is that cosplayer really Lily?

Half the viewers — maybe more — believed it was her based on the circumstances. But that was all it was: circumstances. Most people with beautiful avatars look nothing like them in real life, and Yena was the rare, rare exception. Even for Yena, it was obvious reality fell short of Deo En. But Lily looked exactly the same — as if her real-life appearance had been carried over into the game untouched.

8 PM. A single red light flickered to life on the black screen.

The stream had been live for barely thirty seconds, but so many people had been lying in wait that the viewer count had already blown past 100,000. The number climbed so steeply that it crossed 500,000 within five minutes.

Ten minutes in, the viewer count passed one million — and the black screen bloomed into light.

A cleanly designed office. Beyond a panoramic glass wall crowned with an arch, a bright, cheerful city stretched into view. The soft scratch of pen on paper filled the quiet room, and the woman writing something at the desk gave her pen a light twirl.

Lily Elbrit.

Setting down her mana-infused pen with an audible click, Lily raised her head and looked straight into the camera.

“Ah. There you all are.”

“Yesterday? I was at home.”

Lily smiled lightly and picked the pen back up, then began scribbling something onto the mana paper laid across her desk.

“Let's see~ I was busy clearing out my backlog of work…”

“Yena? She said she was going to watch the finals with a friend. I caught a little of it on stream in my downtime, and — well, there I was. I certainly didn't expect the boss I'd been fighting to show up in the flesh.”

With that, Lily returned to her work. The viewer count was already racing toward 1.5 million, but Lily was maintaining a deliberately ambiguous attitude — seeming to deny it, yet not exactly shutting it down flat. An evasive middle ground.

Click.

“Phew… You all really are impossible.”

Swooosh.

Resting both elbows on the desk, Lily cupped her hands near her mouth and let out a peculiar little smile.

“Yes. It's me. Surprised that I look exactly the same? So was I, honestly.”

“So? Am I even better in person than in Deo En?”

Though we're identical, so I wonder if there's even anything to compare…

“No face cams, I'm afraid. I only stream in Deo En.”

Well… if another occasion like this ever comes up, I suppose I could show my face then, too.

Brushing it off with a light laugh, Lily placed her hand on the desk. At once, dozens of sheets of spell-laden paper rose into the air, glowing blue in unison. The dozens of magic formulas blazed to life and shot off somewhere beyond the window.

“Ahh, that's done.”

“What I've prepared for today is… an event I think you'll all really enjoy.”

I can see right through you.

I'd given it some thought.

With the floodgate now wide open on the question of my face, running an ordinary stream was out of the question. The whole thing had blown up in far more places than I'd anticipated, and my editor's Discord server was an absolute inferno. Who on earth is that person? And what could they possibly have to do with me?

BOSS!!! Is it really really REALLY true???

“……”

White Autumn, my editor, had gone into a full-blown fit over it, but I hadn't told her the truth. It wasn't that I distrusted her completely — it was simply that, for now, we were still just an editor and a streamer.

At any rate, to put all of this to bed, I needed something bigger — something that could pull everyone's attention away in one sweep.

Something to shift the spotlight, even a little.

So I prepared it.

“What I've prepared today is a tour of the Eli Academy — still under construction as we speak.”

Leaving the office behind, I arrived at a construction site where building after building was rising in rapid succession. No human laborers — everything was being built through magic alone. The construction materials floated weightlessly through the air, stacking themselves together like bricks of LEGO.

I'd originally planned to reveal it only after completion, but… well, no helping it.

I walked among the countless buildings, narration rolling as I went.

“Yes, all of you can enroll. There's the main lecture hall, of course, plus sparring arenas, the Dimension Space Implementation Chamber, and a whole range of other facilities. And you can consider every basic amenity and welfare facility fully stocked as well.”

I'd poured genuine care into the design, so they were welcome to look forward to it.

“I was actually just about to show you that. Perfect timing.”

Beyond an arena nearly the size of a small castle, a little farther off, stood one of the sites where only the foundation had been laid — and floating in its center was a grayish substance.

This was Metamor. A legendary material that freely reshaped its form and structure at the will of its wielder.

“The Dimension Space Implementation Chamber is… think of it as something like a dungeon.”

Question marks piled up across the chat window in droves. Explaining it in words was only going to be half-effective, at best.

I inscribed a sacred magic circle into the floor beneath the floating Metamor. Then, to fill the price the spell demanded, I poured in the costly magic stones I'd prepared in advance — and…

Ding!

A pristine white message window had appeared before my eyes — not a message sent by the Deo En system, but one I had created myself.

“Fun, right? It took an enormous amount of work to make this.”

I'd linked dozens of magic circles together to lock down its defenses and structure, and even that hadn't felt like enough — I'd pushed sacred magic and a mountain of magic stones in on top of it all.

If the Crown were active, I wouldn't need to make it this convoluted…

But I've chosen not to use it.

Nothing to be done about it.

“Yes. As long as you qualify, anyone can. In fact, we'll be using this as the entrance exam.”

The plan was already complete — any talented fan of mine would be admitted. I'd run every test, and I'd prepared thoroughly to make sure there'd be no repeat of the Yena incident, but…

“That said. There is one small problem.”

“As you just saw, I pushed in a truly enormous amount of magic stones, didn't I? Crossing through space demands a considerable price.”

And I do mean considerable.

“And the entrance exam will likely see several thousand applicants, and I'll keep using this chamber long into the future — I can't exactly keep feeding it magic stones every single time, can I?”

This was no ordinary space, after all. The price it demanded was for crossing nothing less than a dimension. Of course, since this was merely an 'implementation' rather than a true crossing, this much sufficed — to genuinely cross over, magic stones wouldn't even come close. I'd have to stake at least a part of myself.

But the real reason I'd built this thing was a single one.

To return to the Void Space.

To keep entering the Void Space without the Crown, the completion of this device was essential. Only then could I go fetch the professors who'd been gathering dust for thousands of years, too.

“Which ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠is why, starting now, I have to go hunting for magic stones.”

Beyond that sea.

To find the stones where mana is reborn.