What If the Strongest Villain from the Original Story Became the Protagonist's Ally?

Iris’s cooking, perhaps reflecting my anxiety exactly, magnificently failed right from the start. The knife in her hand sliced through the vegetables and cutting board, leaving a clean cross-section.

The fact that she didn’t cut through the counter too—was that because Iris held back in her own way?

“P-Princess Iris… what exactly is this…”

The head chef’s face turned blue seeing the devastation of the cutting board, never mind the vegetables.

In response, Iris—

“…It seems this cutting board was damaged.”

—brazened it out. A meaningless excuse.

“Eh? Ah, yes… I see. If that’s the case, please use this cutting board instead.”

The head chef swallowed the words “that can’t be right.”

I understand… the opponent was the princess. You can’t make unnecessary remarks. Even if that cutting board was as clean as new, it didn’t matter. If Iris said white, even crows would become white.

Receiving the new cutting board, this time Iris seriously held back.

“Don’t cut the cutting board… don’t cut the cutting board!”

I was seeing for the first time someone cooking who had to make an effort not to cut the cutting board.

Nana, standing beside me, also—

“I’m getting anxious.”

—muttered quietly.

“Yeah. At this rate, who knows what kind of cooking we’ll be forced to eat…”

I was starting to think it would be better to just eat the ingredients raw.

For now, believing that she was only bad with handling bladed tools, I continued watching her cook.

Then this time she cut only the vegetables without cutting the cutting board.

—Cleanly in half.

“Cut it smaller! And hold down what you’re cutting properly!”

Complaints about Iris’s knife work(?) came out involuntarily. Like at the beginning, Iris only moved the hand holding the knife when cutting.

Since she had strength and speed, the vegetables could be cut that way, but I wanted her to hold them down properly so they wouldn’t go flying partway through.

The nerve-wracking cooking continued.

Somehow, despite my anxiety, Iris cut vegetables one after another. The cut vegetables were rather thick, but since they weren’t inedible, I endured it.

The problem was really from here on.

▼△▼

After cutting the vegetables, she moved to the process of cooking them. She was handed a tool with a slightly unique shape like a frying pan and placed it over the fire.

This world didn’t have convenient things like gas stoves. The fire was also properly made by burning firewood. It would be troublesome to clean afterward.

“Next I just need to cook these, right?”

“Y-yes. Since it’s bad if they’re undercooked, please cook until they’re nicely browned.”

“Understood!”

Iris answered energetically and successively threw vegetables into the frying pan. On the heated frying pan, the vegetables danced magnificently.

—However.

“The vegetables are too big for stir-frying…”

That would take a long time to cook through.

There were small ones too, and they might burn at worst.

“It looks good! I feel like if I keep cooking like this, it’ll work out!”

Iris was a very positive girl. She was mistaking them for being cooked when they weren’t cooked at all. A typically bad cook. Rather, it was already a problem before being bad.

Cut the vegetables properly. However, up to this point, things were proceeding without major problems. The sacrifice of one cutting board was a small matter.

The vegetables gradually got some browning. Iris stared at them intently. They were starting to burn so I thought it was good enough, but… Iris wasn’t taking the vegetables out at all.

She was happily watching the burn marks spread.

That girl… was she the type who thought burnt food was more delicious?

Were there any burnt things among what she usually ate!? There weren’t! It’s normally bad for your health, so stop!

I thought about stepping in to stop her, but when I saw Iris’s smile, I couldn’t stop her.

I… really like that girl. She’s cute so I’ll forgive her.

Although Nana’s half-lidded glare stabbed me from beside, I pretended not to notice. Then the head chef placed seasonings down.

“If you use these to season the meat and vegetables, they’ll become delicious. Yuu-san apparently likes thick seasoning with lots of spices.”

Oh. As expected of the head chef. He properly understood my recent preferences.

It was worth being stubborn and asking.

“I see… Yuu-san is happy when lots of seasoning is added…”

—Hm? Just now, I had a tremendously bad feeling.

Specifically, exactly how much of that seasoning was she planning to add— Iris moved to action before my thoughts could finish.