The Story of the Vanished Stage
“Get off him! Get the hell off right now, you crazy old lizard bitch!”
Kyra burst through the igloo door with her hair split half crimson and half silver-gray, eyes blazing as she charged straight at us.
Rage and her true self had both come roaring to the surface at once.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing in someone else’s front yard?! Take your hands off my lover this instant!”
Kyra stretched out her arms, trying to peel Serapagnia out of my embrace.
But Serapagnia didn’t budge an inch.
Instead she buried her face even deeper into my chest and mumbled in a tiny, fading voice.
“Aing… it’s so noisy… Sera’s head hurts too much to hear anything….”
“Bullshit! You’re faking anemia while wrapping your tail around Erevan’s leg—I can see the whole damn thing!”
Just as Kyra pointed out, a dragon’s tail had slipped out behind Serapagnia’s back and was slyly coiling around my thigh.
What kind of tail strength is that…
“Erevan! Are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere? Blood… oh my god, why is there so much blood?!”
Even while she was raining curses on Serapagnia, the moment Kyra saw the state I was in her face crumpled and she cupped my cheek with trembling hands.
“I’m sorry… I was too late… I’m really sorry….”
“Mmm… Oppa… I’m cold… hold me tighter….”
“Hey!! You shut up for a second!”
On my right, the strongest mage on the continent was switching between two personalities and throwing a full-blown crying fit.
In my arms, the strongest dragon on the continent was rubbing against me while chanting “Oppa.”
And right in front of us, the shattered remains of an Outer God were still drifting through the air.
…….
My mind went hazy.
Maybe it was the blood loss. Maybe the situation itself had simply become too much to process.
Either way, the world started spinning hard, my vision tilting in dizzy circles.
I would have loved nothing more than to just close my eyes and pass out on the spot, but stopping the two Transcendents from tearing into each other came first.
I squeezed my eyes shut once, forced them open again, and tried to calm them both down.
But—
“Um… both of you… please just calm—”
I never finished the sentence. Strength left my legs completely.
Thud.
“Huh? Erevan?!”
“Oppa?”
“Shit….”
In the end I couldn’t hold on. Their startled cries were the last things I heard before everything went black.
“…….”
The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was a ceiling that had already become familiar.
The igloo bedroom.
And the cool touch of a wet cloth resting on my forehead.
“Are you with us?”
A calm voice came from beside me.
I turned my head a little and found Kyra sitting in the chair by the bed, looking down at me.
Her hair was mostly silver-gray, with a soft, intellectual violet gently mixed through it.
The composed personality seemed to be in the driver’s seat right now.
“Headmistress….”
“Yes. It’s me.”
She replaced the cloth on my forehead and gave me a bitter little smile.
“How’s your body feeling? Magical exhaustion on top of internal injuries—you almost died.”
“Feels like I got beaten all over with a club. More importantly… what about the White Dragon Empress?”
“That damn lizard is downstairs snoring away. Literally snoring.”
Kyra ground her teeth, yet still kept her voice carefully low.
“When you collapsed she must have been startled too, because she quietly helped with my healing magic. She poured her mana into you and then just passed out from exhaustion.”
“That’s a relief. I was worried you two would start fighting.”
I let out a long breath of relief.
After shifting a little under the blankets, I asked the question that had been burning in me the most.
“But Headmistress… why didn’t you come out earlier?”
It wasn’t an accusation.
I was genuinely curious.
I knew she would never abandon me.
At my question, though, Kyra’s expression darkened.
The violet in her hair faded, and a guilt-soaked teal-black spread thickly through the strands.
“That is….”
Her lips moved faintly.
“It wasn’t that I couldn’t leave. It wasn’t that I chose not to leave… I was locked in.”
“Locked in? Inside the igloo?”
“No. Inside myself, to be precise.”
She pressed a fist against her chest.
“The moment I sensed the Outer God’s presence I tried to go out… but suddenly every one of my personalities lost control. Rage, Pleasure, Composure, and me. All four of us. It didn’t feel like we were fighting each other for the body—it felt like someone had forcibly sealed all four of us deep inside.”
“…Someone sealed you?”
“Yes. With ■■■ more than half unbound I should have been able to intervene in a fight against an Outer God the same way Serapagnia did, at least to some degree….”
“…I see.”
One word in the middle had fuzzed out like static, but the important part was clear.
Kyra’s failure to act when the Outer God descended had not been simple chance.
My best guess was that the will of the world—or the system itself—had blocked her intervention.
Whoever it is, that’s just cruel. Seriously cruel~
“By the time I came to my senses, smashed through the barrier, and got outside… Serapagnia had already arrived.”
Kyra carefully took my hand.
Hers was trembling ever so slightly.
“I’m sorry. We were supposed to be partners in this whole love-escape, and when things got most dangerous I wasn’t by your side.”
“It’s not your fault. I know that.”
I closed my hand around hers.
“If anything, I learned something because of it. This fight… is even more unfair than I thought.”
The Outer Gods ignore the rules and come crashing in, while the Transcendents on our side get their feet chained by some irresistible force.
And when you remember that in the original story Argentina Academy was eventually destroyed and the whole continent burned… this game was rigged from the start so we could never win.
But—
Serapagnia moved.
She punched through the system’s restrictions and came to save me.
How?
Because she’s the Dragon Lord? Or… because she’s crazy enough to call me Oppa?
No way… that can’t be it.
After drifting in those thoughts for a moment, I decided I wasn’t going to solve anything by stewing alone.
“I think I have a lot of questions for the White Dragon Empress. If we find out how she broke the restrictions, maybe you’ll be freer too, Headmistress.”
“…Hmph. I don’t want to ask that bitch anything… but it looks like we don’t have a choice.”
Kyra clicked her tongue and removed the wet cloth.
“Get some more sleep for now. I’ll go make hangover soup… no, nutritious porridge.”
She stood up.
The silver-gray and violet of her retreating figure looked somehow both reliable and lonely at the same time.
I watched her head downstairs for a second, then closed my eyes again.
My body still ached, but my head was clearer than it had been in a long time.
Because I was starting to understand, just a little, what we needed to do next.
Thirty minutes later.
Serapagnia, Kyra, and I sat around the dining table and began to eat together.
“Come on, open wide. Erevan.”
“No, Headmistress. My hands are perfectly fine. I can feed myse—mmph!”
Kyra completely ignored my right of refusal and shoved the spoon into my mouth.
Warm, savory vegetable porridge filled my mouth.
It was genuinely delicious.
She must have used magic to extract only the purest nutrients from the ingredients; every spoonful sent a little wave of vitality through my body.
The real problem was sitting across from me.
“Chew-chew… nom-nom….”
On the folding chair opposite my bed, Serapagnia was holding her bowl with both hands and vacuuming the porridge down.
Her cheeks were puffed out like a hamster’s while she wore the most blissful expression in the world, putting on a full-blown mukbang.
“Waaah! It’s so good! Kyra unnie really is amazing at cooking!”
“…….”
She was still clinging to the cute-little-sister concept.
The way she grinned with porridge stuck to the corner of her mouth was admittedly adorable, but the knowledge that a several-thousand-year-old Dragon Lord was inside that shell made me completely lose track of whether the food was going into my mouth or my nose.
Looking at her longer, it felt less like a girl cosplaying and more like she had undergone full-blown age regression….
“Who the hell is your unnie? Gross.”
Kyra grimaced and clicked her tongue.
Her hair was still silver-gray at the base, with flecks of red scattered through it.
“Still, at least you’re eating well. Finish up and get lost already.”
“No way! Oppa’s here, so why would I leave?”
Serapagnia looked at me and gave a little eye-smile.
“Oppa, give me more. Put lots of meat in it.”
“…Haha.”
I laughed awkwardly and looked away.
Oppa, seriously.
Please stop already.
Goosebumps were crawling all over my skin.
No matter how cute and tiny the outer shell was, some things were simply not okay.
Anyway, after that thoroughly uncomfortable meal finally wound down and warm tea was brought out, I decided the mood was ripe enough.
Fiddling with my teacup, I carefully opened my mouth.
“Um… White Dragon Empress.”
“Hm? What’s up, Oppa? And before that, don’t call me White Dragon Empress—call me Sera!”
“…Lady Sera. I have a question. A very important one.”
I looked at her with serious eyes.
“Earlier, when we fought the Outer God. The Headmistress said she was locked up and couldn’t even move. But….”
Kyra’s hand froze.
She must have been curious too, because she set her cup down and fixed her gaze on Serapagnia.
“How were you able to move, Lady Se—Sera? Even if you’re the Dragon Lord, defying the world’s system should be impossible.”
At my question Serapagnia took a leisurely sip of tea, dragging the silence out.
She stared up at the ceiling for a moment as if thinking, then broke into a mischievous smile and spoke.
“Well, you know….”
She twisted her body and threw me a wink.
“Maybe it’s because this lady—no, because Sera’s love for our KJH Oppa! is so deep and pure? The power of love is mighty, after all!”
“…….”
She even drew a little heart with her index fingers and poured on the aegyo.
That was the exact moment.
Clang!
The metal spoon Kyra had been holding hit the floor with a sharp, ringing crash.
And then—
Fwoooosh—!!!
Her hair, which had been silver-gray until a second ago, instantly blazed into a pure, burning blood-red.
Smoke looked ready to rise from the tips.
“You crazy lizard bitch, I swear to—!!!”
Bang!
Kyra slammed both hands on the table and shot to her feet.
It was Rage.
And not the usual kind—this was Rage concentrated at least two hundred percent thicker than normal.
“Know when to stop! Huh?! I feed you and you start wagging your tail?! There’s a limit to repaying kindness with betrayal!”
“Oh my, why are you getting so angry? You’re scaring me.”
“Shut up! KJH… no, Erevan is mine! I claimed him first, I lived with him first, I cooked for him first! What random reptile crawls in and sticks her spoon in?!”
Beams looked ready to shoot from Kyra’s eyes.
She seemed one second away from blasting the entire igloo to dust with magic.
I broke out in a cold sweat and tried to hold her back.
“H-Headmistress? Please calm down. She’s just messing with you.”
“This looks like a joke to you?! Look at those eyes! Those are the eyes of someone who actually wants to eat you!”
“Oh my, she noticed?”
Serapagnia stuck her tongue out playfully, and for a split second Kyra’s sanity looked ready to snap completely—
Sssss….
Between the blazing red strands, a cold blue and violet suddenly flooded in.
The other personalities had urgently forced Rage back down.
“Haa… haa….”
Kyra sucked in ragged breaths, scrubbing her face with shaking hands.
Only after she managed to settle herself did she glare at Serapagnia with icy eyes.
“Cut the crap and answer properly. Erevan asked you a question.”
“…Tch. You’re no fun.”
Serapagnia pouted and set her teacup down.
Every trace of playfulness vanished from her eyes.
She still wore the form of a young girl, but the air around her had once again become that of the arrogant Dragon Lord.
“If you want the real answer, I’ll give it to you.”
She folded her short arms and tossed the words out with complete indifference.
“It seems… thanks to Argentina vanishing, the leash of the shackles snapped.”
“…What?”
“What do you mean…?”
Both Kyra and I let out gasps at the same time.
More precisely, Kyra’s reaction looked like pure disbelief.
“The leash of the shackles… snapped?”
“That’s right.”
Serapagnia drew a rectangular frame in the empty air with one finger.
“This world is a giant stage, and Argentina Academy was the ‘center’ of that stage. Every important event and every thread of causality was tangled around that place.”
Her golden pupils turned toward me.
“But you blew that center to pieces, didn’t you? With the stage gone, the strings that bound the actors and the rules that aimed the spotlights have all fallen into chaos.”
“…….”
“That’s how I was able to come. While the system was panicking—‘Huh? The stage is gone? Then where are the actors supposed to go?’—I forced my way through with my own will.”
Her explanation hit like a hammer.
If she was right, the story hadn’t merely frayed a little—the very settings that held the world together had collapsed.
“The reason you got sealed, Kyra, is probably because of your title as ‘Headmistress’ of the academy. You took the direct impact of that collapse. The system’s error mass must have concentrated on you.”
“…Ah.”
Kyra let out a quiet sigh of realization.
Every piece of the puzzle finally clicked into place.
Why the order of the Outer Gods had become scrambled.
Why an unfamiliar Outer God had descended.
And why the Transcendents could now move more freely than before.
The day I vaporized Argentina Academy…
I had opened Pandora’s box.
“In other words, this world right now is….”
Serapagnia gave a wicked little smile as she delivered the conclusion.
“A complete lawless zone that has escaped the author’s control.”