🔊 TTS Settings
Chapter 3 …
I couldn’t move a single finger.
My entire body felt limp, and it felt as though there wasn’t a trace of magic power left inside me.
Which, honestly, made sense. My magic really was disappearing.
With my weakened body, I slowly looked around. I figured out where I was much faster than expected.
Judging from the conversation earlier, this place was Leah Everett’s banquet hall.
The place where the heroine’s birthday banquet was being held—in other words, the mansion of Count Everett!
‘This is ridiculous. What happened?’
The portals leading to the human world had already closed and vanished long ago.
“Ah. Besides, my strength….”
During the transfer, my heart had started throbbing painfully, and then my magic power evaporated in an instant.
“…I have no strength.”
This unfamiliar and unsettling sensation of losing my magic somehow also felt familiar.
“Don’t tell me this year is my sabbatical year?”
Slowly folding my fingers one by one, I counted back to the date of my last sabbatical year.
A witch’s sabbatical year came once every fifty years.
Witches were beings excluded from the “cycle of life,” the process where all things faded away and were reborn with time.
Because their existence went against the natural order, every fifty years from the moment they were born, they entered a period where they became strongly affected by the laws of nature.
That period was called the “Sabbatical Year.”
During this time, every witch without exception lost almost all of their magic power.
Which was why it was an unspoken rule for witches not to leave witch territory during that period.
And now I was a witch in her sabbatical year who had fallen into the human world?
“What kind of disaster is this… ugh, my head.”
At this rate, I needed to lie down somewhere immediately and recuperate.
Now that I was away from the castle overflowing with magical energy, even standing upright was exhausting.
Completely unaware of my suffering, the glamorous night of Count Everett’s estate was only just beginning.
At least it was fortunate that I had landed on the terrace.
‘Imagine some suspicious woman suddenly dropping out of thin air in the middle of the banquet hall.’
I blankly stared at the brilliantly lit lamps while wondering what I should do next.
“Commander!”
With an urgent shout, the terrace doors beside me suddenly flew open.
Startled out of my mind, I quickly crouched inside the flower bed next to the terrace.
Soon after, a man with silver hair resembling shimmering moonlight stepped outside.
“Commander, why haven’t you greeted Lady Everett yet? It seemed like the young lady was looking for you. I think this is your chance.”
The blond man who entered behind him lightly grabbed his shoulder as he spoke.
“Stop talking nonsense. I’m already exhausted enough from coming straight to this banquet the moment I returned.”
“You only came all the way here because you wanted to see Lady Everett, didn’t you?”
“I came because I was invited. That’s all.”
The man’s cold voice echoed softly beneath the moonlight.
Pale silver hair that sparkled like freshly fallen snow at first glance, thick brows, long deep-set eyes, and violet irises.
That sharply masculine man was…!
“Blake Leblanc!”
“…What?”
“Pardon?”
The moment I slapped both hands over my mouth, Blake—whose name had suddenly been called—whipped his head toward the blond man behind him.
“What exactly are you dissatisfied with to speak so casually to me, Rain?”
At the chilling voice that seemed to leak cold air itself, the man called Rain stepped back with a baffled expression.
“What? M-me? I didn’t say anything. You think I spoke casually to you?”
“You’re saying you weren’t the one who called me?”
“Even if I lost my mind, I would never do that!”
While Blake suspiciously stared at Rain waving his hands frantically, his gaze slowly shifted toward the flower bed.
‘Crap!’
This stupid mouth of mine!
I’d been so shocked and moved by seeing the tragic second male lead from the original novel in person that the words had slipped out unconsciously.
His sharp eyes scanned the flower bed coldly.
‘If I get caught, I’m dead.’
I desperately squeezed out what little magic I had left to conceal my presence as much as possible.
If it were the normal me, I wouldn’t have feared anything.
But right now, my instincts were screaming at me.
‘That man has already surpassed the limits of ordinary humans.’
The tension in the air made me instinctively hold my breath.
“Then did you prepare Lady Everett’s present?”
“Ah.”
At Rain’s sudden question, Blake’s gaze returned to him.
“D-don’t tell me… you didn’t prepare one?!”
“I did.”
“Oh, you did. What did you get her?”
“This teddy bear.”
“…What?”
My ears perked up at the unexpectedly interesting conversation.
He prepared a teddy bear for the person he had an unrequited love for?
That was actually pretty romantic.
True to a romance novel, the cute gift made me smile warmly despite my miserable situation.
Now that I thought about it, he had been carrying around a teddy bear that totally didn’t suit him ever since he entered the terrace.
So that was why?
“…Wait a second. You can’t possibly mean this filthy brown teddy bear, haha. Right? Surely not?”
Muttering, “No way. Absolutely impossible,” Rain stared at the silent Blake before suddenly shrieking.
“You seriously mean this?! This old teddy bear?!”
“Is there a problem?”
“My god.”
Unable to continue speaking, Rain fell silent, and the terrace briefly grew quiet.
“N-now that I think about it, you were wandering around the streets after training earlier.”
“……”
“Don’t tell me you bought it from that old peddler woman who’s always there…?”
“I did. The old hag grabbed onto my pants and wouldn’t let go, so I bought it because she was annoying. It’s better than having nothing.”
“No, it is absolutely not better! Today is Lady Everett’s birthday! She’s one of the most important people in your social circle!”
“I know. But is a birthday really that important? This banquet is just a place for Count Everett’s business investments anyway. Leah probably doesn’t care about presents.”
“Gaaaaah….”
Rain pressed a hand against his forehead and groaned deeply.
Even I frowned at the painfully serious atmosphere.
I remembered the novel describing him as an emotionless monster without blood or tears, but…
‘Isn’t he basically just a robot?’
I stared blankly at the indifferent silver-haired man who truly looked like he couldn’t care less.
“Ah, this won’t do. Let’s throw this away!”
“Don’t act like some materialistic human, Rain. I despise those kinds of people.”
“What are you even talking about?! I’m not being materialistic—I’m trying to throw away trash. Give it here!”
“Hand it over.”
“No!”
“…Do you want to die?”
The argument between the two dragged on longer and longer.
Instead of leaving already, they kept bickering over the strangest reasons, and my legs were slowly going numb.
This wasn’t the time for this!
I needed to find a way back to the demon realm immediately.
Blake and the original novel were all well and good, but I couldn’t keep staying in the human world with absolutely no magic power.
‘But where’s the portal?’
There had to be a portal somewhere if I managed to fall into the human world.
Now’s my chance while those two are distracted!
Just as I started looking around carefully—
“Ah! Why would you throw the teddy bear?!”
Thud!
The shabby brown teddy bear suddenly dropped right onto my head.
“Eek!”
And in that exact moment—
Flash!
A blinding light burst around me, and suddenly my body felt lighter.
‘Huh?’
Dazed, I blinked repeatedly at my violently spinning vision.
I could feel a large hand gripping one of my arms.
“Honestly. You should’ve just thrown it away from the start instead of stubbornly insisting on keeping it.”
But why did my body feel so light and fluffy?
Slowly raising my arm, I saw a stubby paw covered in fur.
My entire body froze stiff.
I had no idea what was happening.
‘This fluffy fur and tiny body….’
Blankly staring at my shrunken body, realization struck me.
The teddy bear? I became the teddy bear?
‘Aaaaaaagh!’
Damn it. How could something like this happen?!
Even if my magic power disappeared, this was absurd.
How could a powerful witch be sucked into an ordinary teddy bear?
‘What the hell is this teddy bear?’
Unless it was an object enchanted with magic powerful enough to imprison a witch, this shouldn’t have been possible.
‘Okay, first, let’s get out of this doll.’
Focus. Calm down. Slowly breathe out.
If I just force enough power into it…!
Huh?
Then again… harder…!
Oh my god.
‘I can’t change back….’
I couldn’t return to my original body!
No matter what I did, I was still a fluffy teddy bear.
And on top of that—
‘I don’t have any magic left, so I can’t even move.’
One shocking disaster after another.
To think I’d become trapped inside a teddy bear without even being able to twitch.
At this point, I had no choice but to accept reality.
‘…I became a bear.’
