The Teddy Bear Sends the Insomniac Villain to Dreamland

Chapter 1

A dark dining room filled with suffocating silence.

The only sound echoing through the quiet dining hall was the clinking of cutlery—until the doors suddenly swung open.

A strikingly handsome man dressed in a black uniform sat down at the lavish dining table.

Then, he slowly pulled out the chair beside him and gently placed something on it.

Curious gazes gathered at the careful touch, as though he were handling an invaluable treasure.

“Blake. What is that beside you?”

The Duke of Leblanc, who had been silently eating the entire time, narrowed his eyes and pointed toward the teddy bear seated carefully on the chair.

“It’s my cherished doll.”

“…Your what?”

“My. Cherished. Doll.”

As if to make clear they had not misheard him, the man repeated each word slowly and distinctly before calmly beginning his meal.

Clang—

A knife fell onto the marble floor with a sharp metallic crash.

The Duke of Leblanc, who had dropped it, bit his tongue slightly in shock.

His expression looked as though he had just heard something he never should have.

And understandably so.

The worn-out teddy bear was completely incompatible with the cold, sculpted beauty of Blake, the eldest son of the Leblanc family.

“You… you couldn’t sleep and finally lost your mind?”

“On the contrary, I’ve finally become sane.”

“But why in the world would you bring such a filthy doll—”

Blake’s claim that he was sane had very little credibility.

Everyone knew Blake Leblanc suffered from a curse that prevented him from sleeping, but even so, the current him was far too different from usual.

Blake was the strongest knight in the Casdonia Empire.

In a nation constantly plagued by war, his fame only grew greater with every battlefield he conquered.

The butcher who ruled over war.

The grim reaper.

The commander of the bloody army.

Every title attached to him was terrifying.

And the number of knights who worshipped him was impossible to count.

But now…?

The commander of the army bringing a cute teddy bear to dinner?

The horrifying mismatch left the Duke speechless. Beside him, a silver-haired boy called out carefully.

“B-Brother… are you feeling unwell?”

“No, Aaron.”

“But… teddy bears are things insignificant young ladies and noble boys carry around.”

At those words, Blake’s shining violet eyes turned toward the doll.

He carefully reached out and cupped the teddy bear’s ear.

“Do not speak carelessly to my teddy bear. It’ll get hurt.”

“Hic!”

Faced with the chilling gaze that looked ready to cut him down on the spot, Aaron hurriedly covered his mouth with both hands.

Afraid he might embarrass himself by hiccuping, he desperately gulped down water.

“If Brother likes teddy bears… t-then I shall buy the exact same one as well!”

Aaron admired Blake to the point of worship.

If Blake did something, Aaron wanted to imitate it too.

But Blake shook his head firmly.

“No. You can’t buy one.”

“…Pardon?”

“This teddy bear cannot be obtained anywhere.”

A strange pride lingered on Blake’s handsome face as he said that.

Of course, the teddy bear truly did look impossible to buy anywhere considering how dirty and worn out it was.

The maid carrying a new knife for the Duke looked horrified.

What kind of dreadful combination was this?

Blake Leblanc and a teddy bear.

This was exactly the kind of situation that would make people say Blake had finally gone completely insane from lack of sleep.

The Duke simply could not believe his son, who looked utterly bewitched by an old teddy bear.

“Blake. It seems your inability to sleep has exhausted your mind. Go rest now.”

Seeing the maid’s shocked face, the Duke hurriedly tried to smooth over the situation.

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 brat… he’s truly gone mad.

The Duke’s violet eyes scanned his son carefully.

Deep concern settled in his gaze.

The curse upon the Leblanc family was not limited to Blake alone.

The Duke and Aaron also suffered from sleeplessness.

It was a curse handed down like punishment to the direct bloodline of the family.

Naturally, generations before them had spent enormous fortunes trying to break it, but there were barely any people who even knew information related to the curse.

And just like every generation before, it was expected to continue for the rest of their lives.

But now what?

Why couldn’t he sleep?

“Stop joking. I do not wish to discuss the curse.”

“Is that so?”

Blake answered briefly before tapping beneath his own eyes.

The Duke’s gaze landed on Blake’s face.

The dark circles beneath his eyes were gone.

The Duke’s eyes widened in disbelief.

“Y-Your dark circles…!”

The exhausted eyes that instantly marked someone as a member of the Leblanc bloodline were nowhere to be seen.

Aaron, equally shocked, leapt from his seat and rushed over to inspect Blake’s face.

“B-Brother… your dark circles really disappeared! I-I wish mine would disappear too…”

Aaron’s eyes sparkled brightly.

Whether Aaron reacted or not, Blake gently stroked the red ribbon tied around the teddy bear’s neck and spoke.

“Only this teddy bear allows me to sleep.”

Clang—

The trembling Duke dropped his knife for the second time.

His jaw nearly hit the floor.

They had struggled for countless years trying to break the curse, and now he was saying he could sleep because of one teddy bear?

It sounded impossible to believe, but a faint thread of hope appeared in the Duke’s eyes.

Even if Blake’s behavior seemed abnormal, the healthy skin beneath his eyes was undeniable proof.

“I-Is that true, Blake? Let me see that teddy bear for a moment.”

His silver hair swayed wildly as he stood and reached for the teddy bear.

Just as the Duke’s hand was about to snatch it—

A firm hand smoothly pushed his away.

Blake picked up the worn brown teddy bear and hugged it tightly.

Then he rubbed the bridge of his nose affectionately against the bear’s head.

“No. Only I may touch this teddy bear.”

For someone called the commander of the bloody army, it was an unbelievably childish statement.

“…Brother?”

Aaron took a step back, unable to believe the sight of Blake acting cute toward a teddy bear.

An eerie obsession flickered in Blake’s violet eyes.

The teddy bear in his arms seemed to squirm slightly.

Blake hugged it even tighter and whispered softly.

“Right, Vivian?”

“……”

And from within the teddy bear squirming in his arms—that is to say, me—I screamed internally while staring at this lunatic.

‘Let me go, you crazy bastarddd!’

But as if 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 fate.

How in the world did I end up becoming a witch stuck in this desolate western wasteland full of sandstorms?

The moment I first woke up in this world,

I instinctively realized this place was one of those romance fantasy novels I used to read.

A familiar aristocratic society.

Nobles throwing extravagant parties.

Even dragons straight out of fantasy stories.

But if there was one strange thing…

‘Why am I a witch?’

Everyone else transmigrated as duchesses or count’s daughters, even if they were just extras.

Even villainesses managed to get entangled with the male lead.

‘So why am I the only one dumped into some non-human world like this?!’

No, more importantly, how common are romance fantasies with witches in them?

At this point, either it was some hidden setting that got glossed over, or the role was so insignificant that I didn’t even remember it.

“Ah, whatever. None of it matters anymore.”

After letting out a sigh, I unfolded the moving newspaper invented by the Eastern Witch.

Today’s headline from <Human World Special Report> was simple enough.

[Human World Special Report: Blake Leblanc’s unstoppable advance saves the territory of the Casdonia Empire once again!]

In the corner of the newspaper article praising Commander Blake Leblanc’s achievements, an astonishingly handsome man in uniform moved like a living image.

‘Blake Leblanc?’

That name sounded familiar somehow.

On this boring year-end evening, my eyes blinked slowly as I stared at the newspaper.

“He truly is remarkable.”

Without me noticing, the butler Max had appeared beside me and glanced at the paper admiringly.

“What is?”

“Blake Leblanc. Isn’t he quite extraordinary for a human? They say he annihilated an enemy army of ten thousand with only five hundred knights.”

“I suppose.”

I answered absentmindedly while savoring the wine again.

Perhaps because it was aged for centuries, the taste was absolutely exquisite.

“The Leblanc family also offered many tributes to our Halloway Castle long ago, when the portal still existed.”

“So that’s why you like them.”

“…Lady Vivian, you were the one who liked them the most back then.”

Was I?

I genuinely couldn’t remember.

It wasn’t a lie—I truly didn’t remember.

‘It was all far too long ago.’

The portal.

A passage connecting the world of magical races—where witches and dragons lived together, also called the Demon Realm—to the human world.

A special gateway that existed in the ancient era when humans, witches, and dragons coexisted together.

That portal had disappeared two hundred years ago.

Which means my age is now…

I slowly counted on my fingers before finally folding all ten fingers down.

Then my mouth dropped open in shock.

“Wait a second, Max. Don’t tell me…”

“Don’t tell you what?”

“Am I already three hundred years old?!”

“You’re only realizing that now? Honestly, no wonder you never act your age.”

The one going crazy here is me, Max…

As I sat there stunned by the realization of how much time had passed, the tactless Max kept chattering away without caring about my emotional state.

“But Lady Vivian, isn’t the Eastern Witch’s information network incredible? The portal disappeared ages ago, so how does she keep obtaining news from the human world?”

“No idea. Laura’s a weirdo.”

The Eastern Witch Laura was an eccentric among eccentrics obsessed with creating magical tools.

“It sounds strange hearing that from someone addicted to romance novels. Do you know how many of those novels I’ve thrown away over the years?”

“And do you remember how hard I worked retrieving them afterward?”

It had been my only hobby since my previous life!

I glared at him resentfully, but it had no effect.

“Anyway, this Blake person really seems to be famous in the human world. Last month’s newspapers were also filled with stories about Blake Leblanc. Everyone was going crazy saying he’s incredibly romantic.”

“Romantic?”

Sip—

The last mouthful of wine caught in my throat halfway down.

A powerful instinct told me this would be interesting, and I immediately whipped my head around as Max casually continued.

“You didn’t know? Apparently, it’s a heartbreaking love story about how he left for the battlefield in order to forget the young lady who had been his childhood friend.”