The Night the Bears Moved
A few days after purchasing the teddy bears from Pecia.
Elaine, whose sleep had been restless that night, opened her eyes in the early hours of dawn.
"…Ah."
For some reason, despite having just woken, her mind was wide awake. She slowly stroked the goosebumps rising on her arms and blinked.
What was that?
She seemed to have had a rather frightening dream, yet she couldn't recall a single detail of it. She hadn't watched any particularly scary movies lately, nor had anything stressful happened, so she had no idea what might have caused it.
Why does this keep happening lately?
She had never been the type to sleep excessively, but neither had she suffered from insomnia bad enough to wake her at dawn. These strange symptoms had only started a few days ago — ever since the night she had confirmed Pecia's doll-making skills.
She had been so taken by that unexpected talent, by the thought that they might become real friends in the truest sense, that she hadn't been able to sleep. Pecia was a craftswoman. Not a pretty doll. But that night, at least, it had been excitement and joy keeping her awake. This eerie feeling now was clearly something else.
Feeling thirsty, she got out of bed. A slight chill ran through her, but a dream was only a dream, after all.
The Ispellen Estate boasted fortress-like security, a seamless blend of magic and modern technology. From the outside it looked like an ordinary mansion, but in truth it was a fortress wall protecting a mage family. Anyone attempting to break in would have to overcome hundreds of automated gun traps, intermediate elemental magic circles, and golems.
So just forget about it. I'm safe here.
Clatter—
"…?"
At that moment, Elaine's brow furrowed. The sound of dishes clinking was coming from the break room — a place stocked with food and drinks for the estate's servants to eat and rest, somewhere Elaine, who always preferred the finer things, rarely visited.
It wouldn't be strange if a live-in servant were having a late-night snack, but…
Clatter, clatter. Ting—!
There were far too many rustling sounds. Too many overlapping noises for just one person moving around.
Are they all having a midnight snack party? Quietly drinking or something?
Perhaps this was the cause of her insomnia. Drinking was forbidden at the Ispellen Estate outside of the party hall, so the servants would occasionally gather in the break room for these little thrills of rebellion. Even so — shouldn't they keep it down at this hour? She had turned a blind eye until now, but if it was interfering with her sleep, that was a different matter.
The moment Elaine rounded the corner, intending to give them a light scolding, the break room fell dead silent and all signs of presence vanished.
"Come out. I know you're in there."
But when she flipped on the lights, all she found were empty plates and snack bags. Not a single human form in sight.
A chill raced down her spine.
No way… right?
There were monsters in this world, and illusion-type magical beasts too. But ghosts still terrified her. No — if anything, the existence of such things made it even harder to deny that ghosts might be real. Stories of evil witches slain and then somehow resurrected to harm people were a common cliché, and similar incidents had actually happened. They just turned out to be zombies, ghouls, or mummies — tangible undead rather than ghosts.
Should I just scream?
…No.
A scion of a storied mage family, panicking over snack bags? If she screamed and it turned out to be the servants' doing, she'd never live it down!
After a moment of deliberation, Elaine decided to head back to her room first. If this were a real threat, the magic circles would have reacted first. And even if it were dangerous, acting alone was never a good idea.
But the instant she switched off the break room lights, a buzzing sound brushed past her ear — and a black shape the size of a thumb flitted by.
"…?"
She followed it with her eyes up to the ceiling. There, a bug with a glossy dark-brown carapace was rubbing its hind legs together.
That's…!
A Bloody Roach.
An invasive species from the gates, a pest that fed primarily on mana items. And coincidentally, its silhouette was the spitting image of a cockroach.
"Ah…! Ah…!"
If it had been a goblin or a vampire, she wouldn't have panicked this badly. Elaine was more terrified of bugs than anything else in the world — and of all bugs, she hated cockroaches the most. That skittering, spine-chilling movement and grotesque appearance. The mere thought of one touching her body, even for a moment, made her want to die.
Elaine's legs gave out and she landed hard on her rear — and as if on cue, the Bloody Roach on the ceiling spread its wings and dove straight at her.
No!
It was checking with its antennae whether she was something edible. Unlike Earth's cockroaches, which fled when people approached, this was a different beast entirely.
Elaine was, of course, horrified — but terror had locked her body in place. Still, the thought that she couldn't die like this made her load up a scream with everything she had, locking her gaze on the Bloody Roach at the same time. These pests chewed through household belongings like termites. Even if one touched her, she had to steel herself and kill it.
C-come on, then! Or don't! Either is fine!
Her right palm trembled pitifully.
And then — a long metallic object streaked past like lightning from somewhere, and the Bloody Roach vanished midair with a pwat!
When she forced her half-shut, terrified eyes fully open, she saw a steel needle embedded in the break room table leg — with the Bloody Roach skewered on it, still twitching.
"…?"
Bewildered, she turned around — just in time to see three or four forearm-sized teddy bears scrambling down the hallway. In the blink of an eye, they vanished one after another into the darkness.
"So? What happened next?"
I stood with my arms crossed in front of the Party Bears. I'd rushed over to her room the moment I heard Elaine's jaw-dropping report.
Elaine answered.
"So I went to the doll room first. But surprisingly, they were all right back in their original spots. I started wondering if I'd been possessed or something."
But on closer inspection, she said, one of them was different. Among the ones that had fled, one had lagged slightly behind — the white Party Bear that Kang Jiye had praised. It was also the one Elaine had liked the most.
Probably late because it threw the steel needle.
Elaine picked up the culprit in question.
"This one alone had its head buried among the broken rabbit golems with its butt sticking out. Just in case, I poked it, and…"
"And?"
"Well, both its legs twitched."
You idiot!
I nearly swung a fist, but kept my cool and urged her on.
"…So then."
"So I got startled and kept poking it. It started squirming a little, and eventually it swatted my finger away with its leg."
"…"
They really went and did all that. And they couldn't even sit still for that? That would only stir up unnecessary curiosity.
Sure enough, Elaine said with a laugh,
"Eventually it was holding out so stubbornly that I just jammed both hands in like I was giving it a wedgie. Then it finally pulled its head out, turned around, and started flailing its arms like crazy. Like it was protesting."
Of course it'd be mad. From their perspective, they'd risked themselves to save someone in danger — only for this ungrateful human to hunt them down and keep jabbing them in the butt. Those guys took after my way of thinking, so my interpretation was probably pretty accurate.
I let out a long sigh, then slowly looked over the Party Bears and asked,
"Sorry for scaring you unintentionally. So who else knows about this?"
"Just Mom and me for now. For the record, my roommates don't know either. They never leave their bedrooms around here."
"That's a relief. What did your mother say?"
"She just marveled at it. Said she never expected you could already design something with this level of intelligence."
…So she doesn't know much about golems? Well, theirs isn't a family that primarily operates through gates, so maybe it never occurred to her that these could be magical beasts. Or maybe toy golems themselves involved more sophisticated craftsmanship than I'd assumed.
Either way, a silver lining.
I asked Elaine,
"What should we do?"
"Huh?"
"Them moving around wasn't something I intended yet. I think the right thing would be to collect them first and redeliver properly finished ones."
Magical design had similarities to coding — sometimes unintended phenomena would appear that even the original creator hadn't planned for. It works, but you don't know why it works. Of course the Party Bears were perfectly normal magical beasts, but for now, this excuse was the best I had.
Because I need to take them back and beat them up.
"Ppyuik—!"
"…?"
"…?"
The Party Bears, reading my killing intent, sprang up and latched onto Elaine's arms and back.
Elaine's eyes went wide.
"Huh? Weren't these guys not supposed to move during the day?"
I gritted my teeth inwardly.
"Exactly — they're defective. I'll take them. Hand them over."
I tried to take them by force, but they dove behind Elaine's back. Elaine watched them blankly for a moment, then let out a snicker.
"They're seriously adorable. I'll just keep them. Defective is fine."
"But…"
"They already wiped out the Bloody Roaches in our house, you know. At this point I couldn't send them away even if I wanted to — I've gotten attached. It's not like they attacked me or anything. What's the harm?"
I didn't know what a Bloody Roach was, but apparently the Party Bears had taken care of them. To Elaine, they were already grateful saviors who'd purged the lords of her nightmares.
Damn it.
Elaine stroked the white teddy bear as she spoke.
"Still, these were the only ones thrashing around. The rest seemed well-behaved?"
Oh, that's a relief. I replied with a laugh tinged with relief.
"Haha! I haven't designed those ones at all yet. Guess I'll have to work hard on upgrading them from now on?"
"…"
Then Elaine's gaze went cold.
"I said they didn't thrash around. Dummy. They were well-behaved, but they still moved."
"…!"
Hey, if you phrase it that confusingly, what's a scammer supposed to do? Seriously no consideration.
I couldn't think of a single excuse anymore and swallowed hard. Elaine eyed me suspiciously, then suddenly grabbed my forearm.
Thwack!
"Ah!"
My arm tensed instinctively, and Elaine staggered for a moment. Her eyes widened in surprise, then she slowly smiled.
"See? See this?"
"W-what."
"I'm a trained mana user myself, and you just shook me like that. So what does that mean?"
"I don't know, I don't know what. Let go already."
"Hold still. Just listen. You snapped a Scud Mantis's leg like it was nothing — crack! — and earlier when we were wrestling in your room, you almost body-slammed me."
"…"
Elaine pulled me closer and shoved her face right up to mine.
"You've trained in mana before. Quite a lot, actually."
Only then did I realize just how careless I'd been this whole time.
After a long pause, not knowing what else to say, I answered timidly.
"…Ppyu."
Elaine let out a hollow laugh.
"Playing cute won't work on me. If you don't tell me right now…"
"If I don't?"
"I'll tell Black Serpent everything."
"Huh?"
Black Serpent — that was the protagonist's nickname. Why was that name coming up all of a sudden? I hadn't even made contact yet. More importantly — she knew Elaine?
"Why Black Serpent?"
I tilted my head in confusion, and Elaine shrugged.
"Dunno. They just showed up at our estate out of nowhere asking if they could look at old gate records and relics. Then they stared at these little bears and asked who made them."
"Why my dolls…"
"I told you, I don't know. …Oh, but I did overhear them muttering something. 'Strange. This time it's a little different.'"