Cream Stew and the Ending I Wanted to Change
Kyra Bell Arenas
“Mmm….”
The first things I felt the moment I opened my eyes were the heavy weight pinning down my left arm and the ticklish breath brushing against the nape of my neck.
I turned my head through the haze of half-sleep.
Filling my entire field of vision was Kyra’s face, silver-gray hair spilled across the bed, sleeping without a care in the world.
“…….”
She was close.
So close I felt like I could count every last eyelash.
Normally she was impossible to pin down—headmaster’s dignity one second, multiple personalities the next—but looking at her like this, simply asleep, she was the very picture of Sleeping Beauty.
Damn… she really is insanely pretty.
I held my breath and carefully, thoroughly admired her face.
Flawless white skin without a single blemish. A high, straight nose and slightly parted red lips.
Back when I read the novel in my past life, I had written the headmaster off as nothing more than a quirky villain who enjoyed watching students suffer.
Who knew she had been hiding national-treasure-level beauty under that robe.
Haah. I’m glad I sent those letters. Seriously.
Of course, the price had been a continent-wide manhunt and my entire life going sideways.
But looking at this woman sleeping soundly in my arms, I found myself thinking that much hardship was worth enduring.
If I was going to keep a beauty like this as a girlfriend… no, as an accomplice, I had to accept that level of risk.
Sssssk.
While I was lost in those idle thoughts, still drinking in her features, her hair color suddenly began to change like paint bleeding through water.
A faint purple light washed over the silver-gray base, then shifted into a calm teal, only for a passionate red to streak through it a moment later.
Were the four personalities fighting for control even inside her dreams? Or were her emotions simply fluctuating with whatever she was dreaming about?
I let out a quiet chuckle at the mysterious sight, as if I were watching the aurora.
“It’s really amazing how her hair color changes with her personality.”
I carefully extracted my arm so as not to wake her.
Fortunately she only mumbled “Uuung…” in her sleep and hugged the pillow tighter, without opening her eyes.
I pulled the blanket up to her shoulders and quietly snuck downstairs to the first floor.
The kitchen on the first floor of the igloo.
Ingredients we had bought at the village festival yesterday were piled in one corner.
“Let’s see. It’s morning, so something light….”
I took out a pot and lit the fire.
The menu was cream stew.
Nothing melted the northern cold quite like a bowl of hot soup.
Probably. Not that I had ever actually lived in the north long enough to know for sure.
Anyway, I diced the potatoes and carrots, seared the meat for fragrance, then added milk and roux and let it simmer gently.
Bubble, bubble.
A rich, mellow aroma began to fill the igloo.
Crack, crack.
The sound of burning firewood blended with the soft bubbling of the stew, creating a peaceful morning atmosphere.
It was such a cozy stretch of time that it was hard to believe I was a fugitive.
That was when it happened.
Thump, thump, thump.
Hurried footsteps pounded down the stairs from the second floor.
“Erevan—!!”
Kyra came flying down the steps.
Her hair was still half-messy from sleep, but the color itself blazed a dazzling golden bright enough to hurt the eyes.
Her irises sparkled amber as well.
Looks like the Pleasure personality was mixed in pretty strongly….
“Huh? Food? That’s food smell!”
The moment she spotted me she scampered over and latched onto my back like a cicada.
“Wooow… did you make this for me? For me?”
“Who else would I make it for, Headmaster? The snowman outside?”
“Hing, I’m so moved! Erevan, you can cook too? Is there anything you can’t do?”
She locked her arms tight around my waist and rubbed her face against my back.
Golden hair tickled the nape of my neck.
“W-wait a second! That tickles. Just let go for a moment—I need to check the seasoning.”
“No! I’m recharging! Erevan smells so good!”
“Haa… give me a break.”
I said that, but I couldn’t stop the corners of my mouth from lifting.
What man alive could hate being clung to with that kind of energy first thing in the morning?
We finished preparing breakfast still stuck together like that, one body.
Sitting across from me at the table, Kyra let out a string of delighted noises with every spoonful of stew.
“It’s delicious! It melts in my mouth! Erevan, will you marry me? Make this for me every day!”
“You’re going to choke. Calm down a little.”
“I can’t calm down! When I eat something this good my mood skyrockets and my hair starts dancing!”
Sure enough, her golden hair was swaying as if it were a living creature.
I gave a wry smile at that pure, childlike expression.
To think that inside a face this innocent slept enough power to destroy the continent.
After we finished eating, we rinsed our mouths with a cup of warm tea.
The gold in Kyra’s hair gradually faded, and calm silver-gray began to mix again with sharp streaks of red.
A signal that training time was approaching.
“Thanks for the meal.”
Kyra set down her teacup and the light in her eyes changed.
The clingy girl who had been shouting “Marry me!” moments ago vanished, replaced by the gaze of a strict teacher.
And somewhere in that expression was a hint of embarrassment.
Apparently she found the things her other personality had done a little mortifying.
“Ahem. I was being ridiculous, wasn’t I? She’s never felt pleasure like this before, so she completely lost her head. Sorry.”
“It’s fine. I didn’t mind.”
“…Thank you for understanding. Then I suppose it’s time I earned my keep, Student Erevan.”
“…Yes. I’m ready.”
“Yesterday we laid the foundation for defensive magic. Today is offense and application. You can’t catch Outer Gods by only blocking, after all.”
Kyra rose from her seat and pulled on her robe.
At the same time the tips of her hair began to blaze red again.
“Let’s go! Time to paint the snowfield red again today! And just for you, I’m going to hit even harder than yesterday.”
“You mean with sweat, not blood, right? Right?”
“Who knows? Depends on how well you do.”
She grinned and threw open the igloo door.
Whoooosh—!
A vicious blizzard greeted us.
I took one deep breath and adjusted my grip on my staff.
The sweet morning was over.
From here on out, it was time once again to prepare for the fight against the Outer Gods—so that the story could reach its perfect ending.
Three hours later I collapsed face-first into the snow, no longer able to so much as twitch a finger.
Just for a moment of rest.
“Hah… hah….”
“A grown man collapsing after this little training… tch.”
Kyra—Anger personality running at about eighty-nine percent—looked down at me, clicked her tongue, and crouched beside me.
Then she started poking my cheek and forehead with a finger while muttering to herself.
“It’s really strange, you know? Your talent and your limits are both crystal clear, so why are you this dead-set on hunting Outer Gods?”
“….”
“Well, even they, once they fully descend on Rahelon, can match a Transcendent if about three of them gather….
That’s only by Transcendent standards, though. Even one proper descent would wipe out ordinary living beings in an instant. You do realize that, right?”
Even though I kept silent and gave no reaction, Kyra continued as if she still had plenty left to say.
“I didn’t have time to ask before, but since the chance has come up, let’s clear this up.
Erevan, why are you trying to stop the Outer Gods’ invasion? And why go so far as to play the helper behind Leon’s back?”
The tone sounded rough, but the intent underneath was clear.
Worry, mixed with a little genuine curiosity.
So I seriously thought it over again—why I had kept charging straight ahead until my third year, until jealousy and anger finally gave me a little breathing room.
The reason, huh….
If I had to put it as simply as possible, it was probably… affection.
I had loved the original novel more than anyone, and so I had read it more carefully than anyone.
Even when the author finally dumped an ending where the Outer Gods deliciously ate the academy without ever settling on an official heroine—The End~—and got absolutely roasted by the readers, I had more or less accepted it.
It wasn’t as if the author had completely drifted into a rushed finale. From the mid-point onward there had been plenty of foreshadowing pointing toward that ending.
The weird ones were the people who had watched all that and still screamed that it was a sudden bad ending.
Anyway, the bottom line was that I had been more sincere about this novel than anyone, and the moment I reincarnated into it—
Ah. I simply decided I would write a different ending from the author’s. A happy ending.
Of course, just like Kyra said, my talent, my physical ability—hell, everything about me was so average I barely even qualified as a side character, so I suffered quite a bit.
“…I just wanted to change the ending of the story a little.”
After thinking it through carefully, I cleaned up the words in my head and finally opened my mouth.
“If I borrow the example of ‘stories’ and the word ‘author’ that you used when you explained things to me, Kyra, I think I can put it exactly like that.”
“…Change the ending of the story?”
“Yes. Originally this world was a bad ending for everyone except five people—Her Majesty the Empress, the Queen of Silvairia, the Demon King, and finally the White Dragon Emperor Serapagnia and you, Headmaster.”
“…….”
I had thought I was dropping a pretty shocking revelation, but true to a woman who clearly kept many secrets, she reacted as if she already knew.
If I had to analyze it more carefully, there was even a faint trace of something like guilt in her expression.
Anger feeling guilty… interesting.
“Anyway, I didn’t want to see that ending, so I kept fighting even though I knew I fell far short of every standard.”
“…Ehh, fine. I get it.”
Before I noticed, more than half of the hair that had been blazing like a passionate sun had turned silver-gray again.
“I wasn’t trying to insult everything you’ve fought for until now… Ah, damn it, I only asked because I was worried about you!”
Mixed with Anger, her way of speaking became strangely unique.
I barely managed to hold back a laugh at the sight and answered.
“I didn’t say it so you’d feel guilty either. I just wanted you to know that I can tell the truth even without Truth Binding.”
“…Thank… you.”
Kyra, whose expression had darkened a little, recovered her usual smile and continued.
“Now that I clearly understand the reason and the will behind your fight… I should help you more seriously as well.”
“Thank you. And if possible, could you maybe ask Anger to go a little easier on the training….”
“Anger will change a bit after this conversation too. So just focus on training with peace of mind!”
“Understood!”
With that short rest finished, I began proper magic training in earnest.