The First Transcendent Alliance
Kyra Bell Arenas.
"…It seems we'll have to put our fight on hold until after we've properly schooled that arrogant little bitch."
Serene, who had been staring blankly at the place where the two beings had vanished, was the first to speak.
The murderous snarling that had filled the air only moments before was gone without a trace.
They now shared a common enemy.
And not just any enemy—one who was brazen, insolent, and who had dared to snatch a Transcendent's "property" and flee.
"I agree completely."
Arsiena was the first to voice her assent, hopping lightly down from the hilt of her greatsword.
At the same moment, the World Tree's greatsword scattered like flower petals and vanished.
"Catching that raccoon-faced brat—younger than the rings of my forest—would be a bit of a nuisance to do alone."
"A nuisance? That woman is just plain insane."
Nemesia clicked her tongue and crossed her arms.
"But you know what? This is fun. The gall of barking 'loser' at the Demon King herself. Just thinking about catching her and slowly yanking out her tailbone from the base already has my blood boiling."
"Hmph."
Serapagnia snorted, polymorphing back into the form of a young girl before fixing them with a glare.
"Do not misunderstand. This lady is not joining hands with the likes of you. This is merely…"
Her vertical pupils shone bright.
"…a temporary ceasefire, proposed so that none of you get in the way while I reclaim my toy."
"You might want to choose your words a little more carefully, White Dragon Empress."
Serene watched Serapagnia's little display and let out a soft, almost fond chuckle.
"We all know you couldn't track Kyra Bell Arenas's teleportation magic alone anyway."
"…Tch. Insolent human."
Serapagnia pouted.
But she offered no real rebuttal.
Of the four present, she knew it better than anyone.
Kyra Bell Arenas.
Among Transcendents, the woman who juggled four distinct personalities was the greatest wild card of them all.
Her teleportation magic and stealth capabilities, in particular, were the finest on the continent.
No matter how overwhelming a Transcendent's raw power, finding her once she had truly decided to hide was all but impossible alone.
But if the four of them worked together, that was a different story.
The Empire's intelligence network.
The World Tree's sensory reach.
The Demon Realm's tracking arts.
And a dragon's mana detection.
Combined, those forces could find Kyra even if she fled to the edge of the continent—or slipped into the cracks between dimensions themselves.
"Then this is a provisional alliance."
"Yes."
And so something that had never once occurred in all of history came to pass.
Four Transcendents who had spent ages checking and watching one another to keep the continent's balance, joined hands over nothing more than the search for a single male student.
Future historians might well record the incident as a war of love—or as the First Transcendent Alliance.
"Then shall we move somewhere more private for the real discussion…"
That was when it happened.
Mid-sentence, Serene suddenly looked up at the sky.
The sunlight filtering through the clouds seemed unusually sharp, more vivid than usual.
She studied the heavens for a moment, then tilted her head and murmured,
"Doesn't something feel… off?"
"What does?"
"That. Don't the chains of restraint feel a little weaker to you?"
At Serene's words, Nemesia and Arsiena only tilted their heads, uncomprehending.
Serapagnia, however, seemed to agree; she lightly clenched and unclenched her small palm as she answered.
"Indeed… the force of the bindings does feel diminished."
The invisible chains that had always constricted a Transcendent's throat.
The world's causality.
That binding pressure that rose whenever a Transcendent moved to create a great ripple in the world was, for the moment, strangely slack.
"You're right… Normally a warning would have hit the instant I unleashed my power like that earlier."
Nemesia confirmed the same sensation after watching Serapagnia, then shifted her gaze to her own hand, opening and closing her fist as she muttered,
"It's quiet. Almost as if someone's looking the other way."
"Could it be because of that boy?"
Arsiena asked carefully.
"I don't know what he is, but that man may have created some kind of variable."
"Hmph. Variable or not, it makes no difference to me."
Serapagnia dusted off her skirt and turned away.
"Isn't this better, if anything? With the shackles loosened a little, this lady can flip the entire continent upside down to find that child if she must. That is enough."
Platinum wings sprouted from her back.
"I shall head north. That woman Kyra is originally from the northern reaches of the continent, so the odds of her bolting for the snowfields are rather high."
"I'll take the south. I'll mobilize the Empire's intelligence network."
Serene said as she put away her bow.
"I will listen to the earth's resonance through the roots of the forest."
"Then I'll turn the Demon Realm's hounds loose and have them take a scent. I'll find her even if she's hiding in a sewer."
The four Transcendents locked eyes with one another once each.
No further words were needed.
The goal was one.
Crush Kyra Bell Arenas, and make KJH their own.
Fwaaat—!
Four lights scattered simultaneously in every direction.
And in the place where Argentina had vanished, only a quiet wind remained.
At that same moment.
"Haaah… haaah… koff!"
The instant I slammed face-first into the freezing snowfield, I coughed hard enough to tear my lungs open.
A coppery, metallic taste filled my mouth.
I couldn't tell whether it was the aftereffects of the teleportation magic or the sheer terror of dying just moments ago.
Still—I'd survived. That was what mattered.
"I—I'm alive…"
I sprawled out in a star shape across the snow and stared up at the sky.
A dull, ash-gray canopy.
And cold snowflakes drifting down onto my face.
A landscape utterly different from Argentina's clear autumn sky.
"I really… I really almost died…"
My heart was still hammering like mad.
The flash of the Heavenly Palace Arrow as it came screaming down.
The heat of the dragon's breath as it was unleashed.
Every second of it was still vivid.
If Kyra had activated the magic circle even a tenth of a second later?
My body would already have been broken down to the atomic level and scattered into the atmosphere.
…Or maybe not. Maybe they would have held back just enough not to hit me. Hard to say.
"Ugh… cold…"
The second the tension left my body, the chill crashed in hard.
I trembled violently as I pushed myself upright.
Where the hell was I?
I looked around and found nothing but endless white snowfields.
An unbroken expanse of snow, a distant skeletal conifer forest, and a cutting wind that felt like knives on bare skin.
In all of Rahelon, there was only one place with a winter this brutal.
"You've got to be kidding me—that wasn't a joke? The Forgotten Snowfield… we really came all the way to the northern edge."
With shaking hands, I clutched my collar tighter.
Dropped into a snowfield wearing nothing but an academy uniform.
At this rate I'd freeze to death long before any Transcendent could kill me.
"Before I actually freeze solid, I need to warm up first—"
"Pwah! Augh, snow in my eyes!"
Just then, someone burst out of a snowdrift beside me.
"Are you all right, Erevan?"
It was Kyra.
She shook the snow from her hair and stood up with cheerful energy.
At some point her hair had returned to a calm silver-gray.
Gone without a trace was the furious figure who had been throwing haymakers at Transcendents only moments earlier.
Multiple personalities really do whatever they want, I thought, before opening my mouth.
"Headmaster… are you all right?"
"Yes, more or less. I used quite a bit of mana for the first time in a while, so I'm a little dizzy—but nothing fatal."
She brushed off her clothes as if nothing had happened, then stepped closer and held out a hand.
"Up you get. Fall asleep sprawled out here and your face will freeze crooked."
I took her hand and stood.
Her fingers were ice-cold.
Even a Transcendent couldn't come out unscathed after dodging four simultaneous attacks at that range and still casting a long-distance teleport in that tiny window of time.
"Thank you… for saving me."
Of course, only half of that gratitude was genuine.
Yes, I had survived the obliteration of Argentina thanks to Kyra.
But if this insane headmaster hadn't opened with that continent-scale taunt in the first place, I could have slipped away from that place just fine on my own.
"If you're grateful, pay me back. With your body."
"…Excuse me?"
"We made a promise earlier. That you'd play the role of my lover."
Kyra grinned and looped her arm through mine.
Her body pressed close against my arm.
A faint, soft scent, and an equally soft sensation, settled against me.
"All right. Starting now—our lovers' escape."
"…Excuse me?"
Kyra tugged my arm and pointed past the snowfield.
At the same time, a brilliant gold began to shimmer through her hair.
"First we head for that forest over there and build a hideout. Kyaa! My century-old dream of building an igloo in the middle of a snowfield and having a cozy little date is finally coming tr—wait, no."
She had been beaming and spilling TMI in pure delight, but the moment the number of years came out of her mouth, the playful expression vanished in an instant.
Her hair snapped back to silver-gray just as fast.
"Ahem. Let us prepare in earnest. We need to finish getting ready so we can deal with that Outer God of yours, Erevan."
As if nothing had happened, Kyra returned to the composed headmaster and pulled me along by the arm.
But the words I had just heard kept echoing in my ears, and I couldn't manage a proper reaction.
A hundred years? A snowfield date was her romantic fantasy?
Just how old is this woman?
Even the setting materials only said she had "lived a considerable time"—no concrete age.
She probably wasn't in the multi-millennia range like Serapagnia or Arsiena, but she had clearly left the human lifespan far behind.
I was still turning those stray thoughts over when—
"Headmaster."
"Yes? Don't tell me you're tired already? We've only been walking for ten minutes."
"No, it's not that… I just had a question."
We were pushing through snow that swallowed us up to the knees, heading for the conifer forest.
The freezing wind slapped my face, but thanks to the warming magic Kyra had cast, the felt temperature was more like a stroll along a warm beach.
"Ask away. We're going to be walking anyway, and it gets boring."
Arm still linked with mine, Kyra walked across the snow with the light steps of a woman out for a pleasant stroll.
Strangely, her footprints barely marked the snow at all.
"What you said earlier. That you wanted to intervene but couldn't."
"…Ah."
"Could I hear a more detailed explanation of exactly what that meant?"
I asked seriously.
This was directly tied to my survival.
There were five Outer God invasions left.
Stopping them would require Kyra's help, and if she bailed at the critical moment with some causality excuse again, I was screwed.
Kyra stopped walking for a moment and gazed into the distant sky.
Her silver-gray hair streamed in the wind.
"Mm… it's a fairly complicated concept to explain."
She tapped her lips thoughtfully for a moment, then smiled at me.
"I'll keep it as simple as I can. Erevan—do you like the theater?"
"The theater? Well… I don't dislike it."
"Think of this world as one enormous stage."
Kyra drew a rectangular frame in the empty air with her finger.
"And there's a script, written by a god—or by something called fate, if you prefer."
"……"
I flinched for a second.
This really was a world written by an actual author, after all.
She was only speaking in metaphor, but I couldn't help the little jolt of guilt.
Fortunately, Kyra didn't seem to notice my reaction, and she kept going.
"That script roughly lays out the lead actors' roles, the flow of events, and even the ending. The hero defeats the Demon King. The academy faces a crisis but overcomes it through the students' strength. That sort of thing."
She started walking again.
I quietly fell into step beside her.
"Transcendents like us… we're on that stage, but we aren't actors. We're closer to 'stage machinery' or 'scenery.'"
"Stage machinery?"
"Yes. We're simply too strong. What do you think happens if we charge into center stage and take over the lead's role?"
Kyra hugged my arm tightly and whispered,
"The genre changes. From a coming-of-age drama into a slaughter-fest. Then the audience—no, the laws of the world—flag it as an error and either force the stage closed or hit the reset button."
"…Reset."
"Exactly what it sounds like. Temporal regression—or dimensional collapse. The reason I sat there sucking my thumb when the Outer Gods invaded was because I knew that the moment I stepped in and wiped them out… the academy itself wouldn't be able to withstand the backlash of causality, and would collapse."
…Goosebumps.
If what she said was true, she had spent three years watching that nightmare unfold and still held herself back.
To prevent an even greater annihilation.
"Then… what about now? You said earlier a variable had appeared, so it was fine."
"That's right. Thanks to you."
Kyra smiled and looked up at me.
"An unprecedented maniac named KJH showed up and completely wrecked the stage, didn't he? With the academy stage gone, the existing script is a mess too."
"……"
"The author's script has been torn up, so now the actors have to improvise. And we stage machines… have gained a certain amount of freedom to move as we please."
Her explanation was clear.
And at the same time, chilling.
What I had done wasn't just blowing up a school—it had twisted the fate of the world itself.
"Of course, we aren't completely free. Use too much power and the restrictions will still kick in. But at least we no longer have to sit on our hands and just watch the way we used to."
Kyra gave my shoulder a light shove.
"So don't worry. If you go charging off to hunt Outer Gods, I'll make sure to pump you full of mana from the back line."
"Haha… that's reassuring."
A Transcendent's mana pump.
Just hearing the words made confidence surge—like I could crack an Outer God's skull open with my bare hands.
We kept talking as we pushed through the forest for maybe twenty minutes.
Then the view opened up all at once.
"Ah! We're here!"
Kyra let out a cheer and sprinted ahead.
Between the dense conifers, a broad, improbably flat snowfield stretched out as if it had been lying in wait.
Behind us, a massive snow-capped mountain rose like a folding screen; ahead, a frozen lake glittered under the sunlight—a perfect panorama.
Anyone looking at it would have said the place was practically advertising itself as a building site.
"Well? This is my secret villa lot! I marked it fifty years ago, and still no one's claimed it!"
Fifty years ago.
Yeah. Asking her age was definitely a breach of etiquette.
"All right then—shall we build our love nest right here?"
Kyra's hair began to take on a golden sheen again, and before long she was spinning in circles across the snow like an excited child.
"An igloo! A two-story igloo! With a terrace, a hearth inside, and a bearskin rug on the floor—no, wait, a magic carpet!"
Her giddy voice rang across the snowfield.
I watched her and let out a dry laugh.
Transcendents on our trail, Outer Gods looming, a scenario twisted beyond recognition.
I had a mountain of things to worry about—and yet looking at that pure, bright expression somehow drained the tension right out of me.
Yeah… whatever. It'll work out somehow.
And in the end, hadn't I gotten the girlfriend I'd wanted? Or something close enough, at least.
A little older than expected… but pretty, and capable. Perfect, really.
I was still turning those thoughts over as I stepped out onto the snow when something suddenly occurred to me, and I asked carefully,
"Headmaster—we're using separate bedrooms, right?"
"Oh my? What are you talking about? We're lovers on the run. Of course we share one bed!"
"…Excuse me?"
"I'm not joking. Besides, it's cold—if we don't sleep tangled up together, we'll freeze to death. Come on, start packing snow already! We have to finish before sundown!"
She flung a snowball at me.
Thwack.
Cold snow exploded across my face and snapped me wide awake.
Somehow… the road ahead was looking rough.