The Teddy Bear Sends the Insomniac Villain to Dreamland - Chapter 4

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 4
***
What was I going to do now?
The reality of my fall from the Western Territory’s most renowned witch to a teddy bear in a single night felt utterly hopeless.
I needed to find a way out.
A way to escape this wretched bear form and return home.
But how?
No matter how hard I racked my brain, no alternative presented itself.
Not a single soul knew my true identity, and no one would come to my rescue.
Unaware of my panic, Blake swiftly snatched me—the teddy bear—from Rein’s grasp.
Beneath the soft, luminous glow of the pale moonlight.
The figure of the man in the gray vest came into focus before my eyes like a slow-motion frame.
And in that instant.
‘Wait?’
I felt a tingling surge of magical energy coursing through my entire body.
It was like someone pouring spring water into an empty bucket.
‘This sensation!’
It was definitely mana.
Absolutely mana.
But how could mana be filling me?
Though brief, that moment when mana flowed weakly through me was vivid and unmistakable.
I rolled my eyes, sensing the tingling pathways of magic reopening.
It wasn’t enough to fully restore me yet.
‘This is definitely mana replenishment.’
I could distinctly feel mana charging into me bit by bit from the man holding my dangling limbs.
‘Wait, my arms and legs are starting to move a little now?’
Meanwhile, the two men were engaged in an intense discussion, completely unaware that the confused teddy bear—me—was frantically rolling its eyes.
“Sometimes I notice you act as though you have two lives. I don’t have that kind of patience. You understand, don’t you?”
Subtle irritation seeped through his measured tone.
Rein, catching the annoyance, stepped back slightly and spoke in a diminished voice.
“B-but that gift is really quite problematic.”
“Is this gift really so displeasing?”
“It’s just so different from ordinary gifts! To make a good impression on Miss Everett, a different present would surely be better.”
Rendered speechless by such a firm response, Blake glared sharply at Rein. After a moment of silence, he let out a deep sigh and muttered under his breath.
“I had no intention of doing such pointless things in the first place. Besides, why should I need to impress Lea Everett?”
His apathetic words, cold enough to send shivers down one’s spine and awkward enough to make anyone uncomfortable, left Rein in silence.
Pointless.
That composed, detached manner as if nothing in the world held any value.
That tone of someone old before their time, as if death itself would be of no consequence.
‘What is this?’
That bewitching mouth of his—so captivating that even I, lost in the throes of mana absorption, couldn’t help but stare!
‘That Blake fellow….’
He’s the type to accumulate all his karmic debts through his words alone, isn’t he?
“Handle this yourself.”
In the suffocating silence that followed, he tossed me to Rein with a casual, dismissive gesture.
The moment I landed in Rein’s arms with a soft exclamation, the torrent of mana that had been surging through my body came to an abrupt halt.
‘Wait… the mana stopped flowing the instant Blake moved away from me.’
It felt like having an exquisite wine snatched away mid-sip by Max’s interference.
I checked my mana channels again, but the power I had distinctly felt moments before had vanished without a trace.
Could this truly be coincidence?
Or perhaps…
‘Does that man possess an ability to supply mana to others?’
No, surely not.
Even as the thought crossed my mind, I nearly laughed at the absurdity of such an imagination.
Mana supply ability.
It was an ability spoken of only in legends, even in the world of other races.
Once every few centuries, there are humans born with the innate ability to supply mana to others, or so the stories go.
Honestly, I had never truly believed such an ability existed.
In all my years as a witch, I had never once witnessed it.
‘Yet just now, there was unmistakably a surge of mana being supplied to me.’
If he truly were a mana supplier, he would be an invaluably precious resource to beings like witches and dragons, for whom mana was essential to existence.
“Understood. I’ll have the other servants handle this matter discreetly. Shall I send another knight to a nearby jeweler to exchange the gift right away?”
So if, by any chance, Blake truly possessed a mana supply ability…
“Do as you wish. I’m returning to the Leblanc Estate now, so relay my message to her.”
“Pardon? You’re leaving without seeing Miss Everett? You mentioned that Prince Ian would be arriving soon….”
“Which is precisely why I must leave. If Ian arrives, those fools will only spew more nonsense.”
As Blake turned away with such coldness, my gaze fixed blankly on his fingertips, and suddenly an alarm blared in my mind.
‘I need to follow Blake!’
Truly, against all odds.
Though I was well aware it was an utterly ridiculous possibility.
If he were indeed a mana supplier…
‘Blake might be my only salvation in this wretched situation.’
I needed Blake.
More than anyone else.
And so, without thinking, I cried out with desperate urgency.
“Don’t go, Blake!”
His name.
“…?”
“…Rein.”
Blake turned around with a stiff, jerky motion on the now-silent Terrace.
“Have you completely lost your mind? No matter how much you want to keep me around, you’ve been speaking informally to me this whole time….”
“I-It wasn’t me! Why do you keep blaming me?! I didn’t say anything!”
“Then who was it.”
He raised an eyebrow slightly, surveying the Terrace where no one else stood besides the two of them.
“I don’t know either! But I heard it too. It was definitely a woman’s voice, wasn’t it?”
“A woman’s voice?”
The blond man called Rein struck his chest indignantly, as if to say Blake couldn’t even distinguish that properly.
Then he shuddered, saying it was getting scary.
No one seemed to think I was the one who screamed at all.
Hmm, why was that?
Was my voice too quiet?
I tilted my head in confusion, then took a deep breath with a whoosh.
And then I screamed loudly.
“Blake Leblanc! Over here, over here!”
The two men flinched at the sound, their gazes slowly turning toward where it came from.
Oh! Finally they see me!
“Where is that voice coming from….”
Rein lifted my body, which he’d been holding in his right hand, up into the air and laughed loudly.
“Ahaha, I must be going insane. I just heard this doll calling out the Commander’s name.”
“Wait, Rein. That bear is moving right now.”
“No matter what, there’s no way a teddy bear could move….”
Then he noticed me, blinking my pale green eyes like peas.
“….”
“Hello?”
“Kyaaaaaaah!”
At Rein’s scream, Blake urgently drew his sword from his waist.
“Rein!”
“A-A bear! The teddy bear is talking! It greeted me!”
“Calm yourself.”
“Ahhhhh! It’s a ghost!”
Rein, his face drained of all color, hurriedly threw me to the ground.
Oof, I’m dizzy!
I crashed against the wall with a thud and clutched my spinning head.
He was certainly rough. But at least I managed to escape from his grasp.
Barely regaining my balance and stumbling forward, I finally faced Blake—and that’s when I could be certain.
From him, standing less than a meter away from me, I felt the powerful force of an ability.
Mana Infusion ability.
Blake Leblanc was definitely a Mana Infusion user.
And an exceptionally powerful one at that.
“Hey, hey!”
That fool Rein screamed dramatically and pointed at me with an accusatory finger.
At last, Blake’s beautiful violet eyes widened slightly as he beheld the moving teddy bear—myself.
He froze as if he had seen a ghost.
I greeted the most beautiful and magnificent swordmaster in the Casthonia Empire with genuine delight.
“Hello, my savior!”
***
Blake Leblanc.
The Casthonia Empire’s foremost master swordsman.
The firstborn heir of the Leblanc Family and a man whose appearance commanded attention wherever he went.
He possessed every condition one could envy.
Yet if his life could be summed up in a single phrase, it was a nightmare experienced with eyes wide open.
Though Blake Leblanc was called a genius even within the illustrious Leblanc Family—a house of legendary swordsmanship that even the imperial court dared not treat carelessly—
people occasionally pitied him.
It was because of the Leblanc Family’s “curse of sleeplessness.”
The curse of sleeplessness.
An ancient curse flowing through the bloodline of the Leblanc Family, and the greatest mystery no one had ever solved.
Who had cursed them? When? Where?
Without knowing the cause, there was naturally no way to cure it.
‘The price of talent bestowed by demons.’
Some called their curse by this name.
They said their swordsmanship, which seemed to transcend human limits, was the price paid for selling their souls to demons.
Unparalleled skill with the blade and perpetually darkened eyes from sleeplessness.
Combined with their taciturn and irritable temperament and the Leblanc Family’s rare appearances in high society, they were always the center of rumors.
“Have you heard? The Leblanc Family swept away the Mekain Cartel this time. There’s talk that they’re now the de facto leaders.”
“The Mekain Cartel? You mean that mercenary organization that dominated the Eastern Region?”
“That’s the one. My business in the Eastern Region last time was completely ruined because of those bastards!”
“Be careful. I hear there’s not a single organization or cartel in the Empire that hasn’t felt the Leblanc Family’s reach. If you want to do business, you have to watch their mood.”
“Sigh… How am I supposed to gauge their mood?”
All the fearsome cartels and organizations were in the Leblanc Family’s grasp.
Their eyes and ears were everywhere, and those who crossed the Leblanc Family vanished without a trace.
Such was the rumor about the Leblanc Family that spread throughout the Empire.
Of course, it was all “true.”
But there was one thing people didn’t know…
Blake Leblanc, the master of the underworld and supposedly possessed of a ferocious temperament due to his curse, was—
‘…so sleepy.’
He was in a state of extreme helplessness brought on by severe sleep deprivation.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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