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Chapter 1 …
A dark dining room filled with suffocating silence.
Only the clinking of tableware echoed through the quiet restaurant when the doors suddenly burst open.
A strikingly handsome man dressed in a black uniform sat down at the neatly prepared dining table.
Then he slowly pulled out the chair beside him and gently placed something on it.
The careful touch, as though he were handling an incredible treasure, drew puzzled gazes.
“Blake. What is that beside you?”
Duke Leblanc, who had been quietly eating the entire time, narrowed his eyes and pointed at the teddy bear seated neatly on the chair.
“It’s my comfort doll.”
“…Your what?”
“My. Comfort. Doll.”
As if to make it clear they had heard correctly, the man repeated each syllable distinctly before calmly beginning his meal.
Clang—
A knife fell onto the marble floor with a sharp crashing sound.
Startled after dropping it, Duke Leblanc bit his tongue slightly.
His face looked like he had just heard something he never should have heard.
And understandably so.
The worn teddy bear looked completely out of place beside the cold, sculpted appearance of Blake, the eldest son of the Leblanc family.
“Y-you… have you finally gone insane from not sleeping?”
“On the contrary, I’m finally sane.”
“But why on earth did you bring such a filthy doll—”
Blake’s claim that he was sane sounded utterly unconvincing.
Everyone knew Blake Leblanc suffered under a curse that prevented him from sleeping, but even considering that, the current him was far too different from usual.
Blake was the strongest knight in the Casdonia Empire.
In a nation constantly at war, his fame grew day by day as he led every battlefield he entered to victory.
The Butcher Who Ruled the Battlefield.
The Grim Reaper.
The Bloody Commander.
Every title attached to him was terrifying.
There were countless knights who respected him.
But now…?
The commander who brought a cute teddy bear to dinner?
The horrifying mismatch was so absurd that Duke Leblanc found himself speechless.
Beside him, a silver-haired boy called out to Blake.
“B-big brother… are you feeling unwell?”
“No, Aaron.”
“But… teddy bears like that are things insignificant young ladies and young masters carry around, aren’t they?”
At those words, Blake’s shining violet eyes turned toward the doll.
He carefully reached out, cupped the teddy bear’s ear, and said,
“Do not speak carelessly to my teddy bear. You’ll hurt its feelings.”
“Hic!”
Aaron clamped both hands over his mouth at the icy gaze that looked ready to slice him down immediately.
Afraid he would embarrass himself by hiccuping out loud, Aaron hurriedly drank water.
“If big brother likes teddy bears… th-then I’ll buy the exact same one!”
Aaron admired Blake so much he practically worshipped him as a god.
He always tried to imitate everything Blake did.
Blake shook his head firmly.
“No. You can’t.”
“…Pardon?”
“This teddy bear cannot be obtained anywhere.”
A strange sense of pride appeared on Blake’s handsome face as he said it.
Of course, the teddy bear truly did look impossible to buy anywhere, considering how filthy and worn-out it was.
The maid carrying a new knife for the duke stared in horror.
What kind of terrible combination was this?
Blake Leblanc and a teddy bear.
This was exactly the sort of thing that would make rumors spread that Blake Leblanc had finally gone completely mad from sleep deprivation.
The duke simply could not believe the sight of Blake, who seemed utterly captivated by the shabby teddy bear.
“Blake. It seems your inability to sleep has worn down your mind. Go and rest.”
Seeing the maid’s shocked expression, Duke Leblanc attempted to smooth things over.
Blake frowned at the tone that clearly treated him like a patient and set down his utensils.
“Why would I be unable to sleep?”
This child… he’s truly gone insane.
Duke Leblanc’s violet eyes scanned his thoroughly deranged son.
Deep concern settled into his gaze.
The curse upon House Leblanc was not limited to Blake alone.
The duke and Aaron also suffered from the inability to sleep.
It was a curse passed down like punishment to the direct bloodline that inherited the family.
Naturally, generation after generation had spent enormous sums trying to break it, but there were barely any people who even knew information related to the curse.
And so, the curse was expected to continue through this generation as well, lasting until death.
But what?
Why couldn’t he sleep?
“Do not joke about such things. I do not wish to speak of the curse.”
“Is that so?”
Blake replied briefly and tapped beneath his eyes.
Duke Leblanc’s gaze landed on Blake’s face.
The dark circles under his eyes were gone.
The duke’s eyes widened in disbelief.
“Y-your dark circles…!”
The exhausted appearance that instantly marked someone as part of the Leblanc bloodline was nowhere to be seen.
Aaron seemed shocked as well. He jumped from his seat and ran over to examine Blake’s face.
“B-big brother… your dark circles really disappeared! I-I wish mine would disappear too…”
Aaron’s eyes sparkled brightly.
Ignoring him, Blake stroked the red ribbon tied around the teddy bear’s neck and spoke.
“Only this teddy bear allows me to sleep.”
Clang—
The duke, trembling violently, dropped his knife for the second time.
His jaw nearly hit the floor.
For all those years, they had desperately struggled to break the curse—
and now Blake claimed he could sleep because of a single teddy bear?
It was impossible to believe, but a thread of hope quickly filled the duke’s eyes.
Blake’s mental state did not appear entirely normal, but the healthier look beneath his eyes was undeniable.
“I-is that true? Blake. Let me see that teddy bear.”
His silver hair whipping wildly as he stood, the duke reached for the doll.
Just as his hand was about to snatch the teddy bear—
A firm hand smoothly pushed his away.
Blake picked up the worn brown teddy bear and hugged it tightly.
Then he rubbed his straight nose affectionately against the top of the bear’s head.
“No. Only I will touch this teddy bear.”
It was an incredibly childish statement for someone known as the Bloody Commander.
“…Big brother?”
Aaron staggered backward, unable to believe the sight of Blake acting cute toward a teddy bear.
A bizarre obsession flickered within Blake’s violet eyes.
The teddy bear in his arms almost seemed to squirm.
He hugged it even tighter and whispered softly,
“Right, Vivian?”
“……”
And from within his arms, the squirming teddy bear—that is to say, me—screamed internally while staring at this lunatic before my eyes.
‘LET ME GO, YOU CRAZY BASTARD!!’
But as though mocking my desperate cries—
the man’s eyes had already completely lost it.
December 31st, New Year’s Eve.
I was sipping wine while lamenting my miserable life.
How exactly had I ended up as a witch stuck in this desolate western wasteland full of sandstorms?
When I first woke up here,
I instinctively realized this world was one of the many romance fantasy novels I had read.
The familiar class system.
Nobles throwing luxurious parties.
Even dragons that looked like they had stepped straight out of fantasy stories.
If there was one thing different…
‘Why am I a witch?’
Even side characters usually transmigrated into noble daughters or young ladies of count families.
Even villainesses ended up romantically involved with the male lead.
‘So why am I the only one trapped living in some non-human world like this?!’
No, more importantly, were romance fantasy novels with witches even common?
At this point, wasn’t it either some hidden setting that barely got mentioned, or something so insignificant I forgot it entirely even if I’d read it before?
“Ugh, whatever. None of it matters.”
After letting out a sigh, I unfolded the moving newspaper supposedly invented by the Eastern Witch.
The headline of today’s paper, Human World Special Report, was very simple.
[Human World Special Report: Blake Leblanc’s unstoppable advance saves the territory of the Casdonia Empire once again!]
At the corner of the newspaper article praising Commander Blake Leblanc’s achievements, an astonishingly handsome man in uniform moved like a living photograph.
‘Blake Leblanc?’
That name sounded familiar somehow.
My eyes blinked slowly as I stared at the newspaper during this boring year-end evening.
“He’s quite incredible.”
Apparently my butler Max had come over at some point, because he glanced at the paper and praised him.
“What is?”
“Blake Leblanc, of course. Isn’t he remarkable for a human? They say he swept away an army of ten thousand enemies with only five hundred knights.”
“I see.”
I answered absentmindedly and savored my wine again.
Maybe because it was several hundred years old, the taste was absolutely divine.
“The Leblanc family once offered many tributes to our Halloway Castle long ago, when the portals still existed.”
“So that’s why you like them.”
“…Lady Vivian. Back then, the one you liked most was you.”
Was that so? I didn’t remember.
I truly didn’t remember.
‘It’s all become far too long ago now.’
The Portal.
The passage connecting the world of magical races—where witches and dragons lived together (also called the Demon Realm)—to the human world.
A special portal that existed in the ancient era when humans, witches, and dragons coexisted together.
That passage had disappeared 200 years ago already.
Which meant my age was already…
Counting carefully on my fingers, I slowly folded them one by one before freezing in shock after using all ten fingers.
“Wait a second, Max. Don’t tell me…”
“Don’t tell you what?”
“Am I already 300 years old?!”
“You’re only realizing that now? Good grief. No wonder you never acted your age.”
The one losing his mind here is me, Max…
I was still reeling from the absurdity of all the time that had passed before I knew it.
Meanwhile, oblivious to my feelings, the tactless Max continued chattering away.
“But Lady Vivian, isn’t the Eastern Witch’s information network amazing? The portals disappeared long ago, yet somehow she still brings news from the human world.”
“How should I know? Laura’s a weirdo.”
The Eastern Witch, Laura, was the strangest eccentric among eccentrics, obsessed with developing magical tools.
“It sounds strange hearing that from someone obsessed with romance novels. Do you know how many of those romance novels I’ve thrown away?”
“Do you remember how hard I worked picking them back up?”
It was my only hobby carried over from my previous life!
I glared resentfully, but it had no effect.
“Anyway, it seems this Blake person is quite the sensation in the human world. Last month’s newspapers were filled with nothing but stories about Blake Leblanc. Everyone’s saying he’s incredibly romantic.”
“Romantic?”
Sip—
The last bit of wine that had been sliding smoothly down my throat suddenly caught there.
A strong instinct told me this sounded extremely interesting, and I whipped my head around.
Max asked casually,
“You didn’t know? It’s a heartbreaking love story about how he left for the battlefield to forget the young lady who had been his childhood friend.”
