Chapter 22: The Bizarre House and Door-Kicking Tactics!

The boy muttered to the teddy bear in his arms, his expression somewhat vacant, as though he were not entirely lucid.

A faint smile played across his numb, pale face, casting a subtle, eerie aura over him.

Leaving Benjamin’s desiccated corpse ignored, the pitch-black shadow arms retreated from the darkness.

One could see that each palm clutched something faintly shimmering.

After every hand withdrew into the teddy bear's body, the battered toy seemed to recover somewhat.

The cotton that had originally spilled out pulled back inward.

The teddy bear's eyes, once obscured by dust and clouded a dull grey, grew significantly more lifelike.

The boy paid no heed to anything else, cradling the newly animated and whole teddy bear as he walked out the door.

The dark arms extended from the bear once more to close the door, their fingertips melting into fine threads to lock it from the outside.

The boy walked along, the path entirely deserted, his pace not hurried but calm, as if nothing had happened at all.

His face bore no expression; aside from the dirt and injuries, there was only a numb blankness and a deathly pallor.

He walked toward the west, heading deeper into the western reaches of Oakclaw Town.

As he drew nearer to that place, the numbness on his face began to fracture.

First came an expression mingled with dread and fear, followed by a touch of sorrow laced with anger, and finally, a faint smile tinged with pleasant surprise.

His expressions shifted in this manner, unprompted by anything in the outside world.

Instead, he resembled a sleepwalker whose emotions and facial expressions altered in tandem with the shifts of his inner dreamscape.

Maintaining his slightly rigid smile, the boy threaded through the empty streets until, at last, his steps halted; he had reached his destination.

The boy stood in place before a crude little wooden cabin, a standard hunter's shack.

A poorly dressed fox still hung beneath the eaves; the blood had dried, and the fur had stiffened, suggesting the hunter had not handled it well.

The boy knocked on the door, his face alight with anticipation and a trace of joy.

Soft, hurried footsteps echoed from inside, yet a flicker of unease surfaced on the boy's stiffening face as he stood before the door.

The old wooden door, marred by cracks and splinters, scraped against the floor, letting out a strained, agonizing creak.

The boy’s unease dissolved into relief, and with a faint smile, he stepped toward the person who had so hurriedly opened the door for him.

It was a girl who opened the door, looking a bit younger than the boy, with the exact same brownish hair, though hers appeared wilder and more withered.

A prominent scar marked her temple, where the trace of blood remained despite being wiped away; her face was paler still, possessing a distinctly coarse texture.

The only thing that lent her a sense of life was her pair of vibrant eyes.

She seemed unable to speak, merely staring at the boy with those emerald eyes, clear and bright, her pale complexion and frail frame instantly evoking pity.

"Rose, I'm back. Here, your teddy bear," the boy spoke, his voice raspy and deep despite being a child.

Looking at his younger sister, his stiff and vacant expression softened into something far more normal, his eyes brimming with tenderness and affection.

Rose took the proffered teddy bear, which visibly emitted a faint glow before reverting to its battered, ancient state once more.

It was only slightly more restored than when the boy had first appeared before Benjamin.

Yet as the teddy bear deteriorated again, Rose’s own condition improved correspondingly.

Her dry, long hair became cleaner and smoother, and a semblance of color returned to her pale cheeks.

Her overall vitality improved significantly, making her look far less deathly quiet.

"Drip..." As her color improved, the scar upon her temple grew a shade more crimson.

The blood that had already coagulated now began to dissolve, turning into flowing crimson that cascaded drop by drop from Rose's forehead, splashing softly onto the ground.

Noticing the strange sensation on her forehead, Rose's lively eyes filled with confusion.

She reached up, her hand meeting a sticky, wet warmth; perplexed, she tried to look at it, but another hand intercepted her first.

The boy reached out to stop Rose from lowering her hand to her eyes, speaking softly.

"Rose, it's fine. Just some water dripping from the roof. Go on inside, don't let the teddy bear get wet."

Rose seemed none too lucid either, nodding in a daze and ignoring the anomaly upon her head.

She waited as the youth tore a piece of cloth from his clothes to bind her head, ensuring the blood would not flow down, before cradling the teddy bear into the house.

With a heavy sigh, the boy followed his sister into the cabin.

The interior was grim and bleak, the windows shut tight and blocked with materials to banish the light.

Situated near a forest that received little sunlight to begin with, the obstruction made the indoors darker still.

In the room where one could scarcely see a thing, the two children walked without any hindrance.

The cabin was small, the living room doubling as the dining area; a table stood there, and in the gloom, two silhouettes could faintly be seen sitting beside it.

Judging by their frames, they were much taller than the two children; considering the circumstances, they ought to be the children's parents.

Yet the figures in the darkness merely sat in absolute silence, their postures oddly contorted, offering no reaction to the duo's entry, looking more like a pair of dolls.

Only when Rose drew near did the two figures at the table begin to move, seemingly offering a greeting, and the girl waved back in response.

But compared to the girl’s relatively fluid movements, the gestures of the two figures were starkly rigid.

They inevitably evoked the image of mechanized yet moving marionettes under a puppeteer's control.

Rose waved in acknowledgment and walked back to the room she shared with her brother without a second glance.

As the boy walked past, however, he could not help but look toward the silhouettes in the dining room gloom, his eyes reflecting an involuntary terror and a trace of resentment.

In the darkness, hands extended from the omnipresent shadows of the room, propping up the two stiff corpses to assume a rigid greeting posture at the table.

The shriveled arms of the corpses swayed up and down, emitting an overburdened creak as if they might shatter and snap at any moment.

Their expressionless faces revealed the distorted, hideous features of the dead.

Their lifeless eyes stared in Rose's direction, and the boy, standing behind his sister, happened to cross the path of their gaze.

That hollow stare, though belonging to the deceased, stirred a flicker of anger and an inescapable dread within the boy's heart.

Terror ultimately won; the boy quickened his pace, catching up to his sister who was heading further inside, and together they entered the small bedroom, closing the door behind them.

Upon their departure, the black hands within the room retracted on their own, no longer supporting the two corpses at the dining table.

With a dull thud, one of the corpses collapsed against the wooden table, its neck—already exceedingly fragile from the desiccation—snapping with a sharp crack upon impact.

The shriveled head rolled a few times across the table before finally plunging to the floor, whereupon several nameless black insects crawled from its mouth and vanished into the shadows.

Inside the boy and his sister's room, the space was cramped and oppressive, offering nothing but a single hide rug on the floor.

The surroundings were cluttered with various items, and a persistent, bizarre odor lingered in the air, resembling dry wood mixed with rot.

Rose held the teddy bear close, sitting on the corner of the hide rug with her back against a wooden crate, her clear eyes somewhat vacant as if lost in thought.

The boy stepped inside, closed the door, and sat beside his sister, reaching out to pat Rose on the head.

His sister obediently leaned into his touch; just as a faint smile appeared on the boy's face, he felt a sticky dampness on his hand.

As his eyes, growing accustomed to the dark, managed to discern the environment illuminated by the faint light, the boy looked down at the hand that had caressed the girl's head—it was entirely crimson, a metallic scent of iron wafting from it, his hand drenched in fresh blood.

His smile froze, and a profound sorrow and agony welled from the depths of his heart. "My sister is already dead..." he told himself.

"But..." he stared at Rose, who clutched her teddy bear with a vacant, glassy gaze, her eyes yet remaining clear, and he found he could not accept the truth.

His sister was dead; Jom knew this, for he had watched with his own eyes as their drunken father shoved her to the floor.

Her temple struck the sharp corner of a trunk, blood gushed like a fountain, and soon her body grew cold and rigid.

His useless father and cowardly mother—one continued to vent his futile rage, while the other did nothing but weep and cower.

He watched her corpse grow pale and stiff, grief flooding his soul, and he could only lock himself in that small room, seeking to turn the reality into a phantom through the haze of sleep.

Yet when he woke the next day, memory told him it was all real.

But another fact filled him with a strange, panicked joy: his sister Rose was still in the room, staring at the dark ceiling just as she always did.

As usual, when she saw him wake, she offered her customary smile.

Only, the wound on Rose’s temple still seeped blood, a scarlet liquid that whispered of the terrible truth already passed.

Only, the teddy bear in Rose’s arms had grown far more tattered.

As he saw the toy, scavenged from who knows where, falling into ruin, a voice of eerie temptation echoed in the depths of Jom’s heart.

"Your sister is dead, but I can help you; transfer the life force of others to me, and I shall grant her life anew."

"Look, it is your parents' life that has been returned to your sister, which is why she lives. Give me the life and soul of one hundred, and she shall be resurrected..."

Jom listened to the voice and, for reasons unknown, believed it; perhaps because he had nothing left to lose.

When he looked at the two mummified corpses by the dining table, Jom felt no ripple of emotion, only a faint sense of relief and sorrow.

He did not know the origin of the voice that spoke within him, nor if it were the devil of legend.

But he did not care; to him, the two corpses at the table were the true demons.

Yet, occasionally, seeing those husks again and recalling the past, he could not help but feel the old fear stir within.

The third victim was the town butcher, who often came to buy their hunted game.

The fat man was torn to shreds by countless black hands reaching from the teddy bear, his blood splattered everywhere, before he was drained dry into a shattered, withered corpse.

Jom retched violently, but as he watched his sister—who grew more like a cadaver with each passing day—become vibrant once more...

A force within his heart pushed him to continue, clutching that strange teddy bear, killing the townsfolk one by one.

He watched them turn into husks, watched their life force and souls dragged from their bodies, stuffed into the bear, and channeled into Rose.

Jom felt terror at first, but soon grew numb, and before he knew it, he had become calm and hollow.

He simply used his appearance and his familiarity with the townsfolk to gain their trust, seizing their lives when the moment was right.

But deeds done are eventually discovered, and people began to notice the missing.

Those who came to investigate were also killed by Jom and the teddy bear; the strange, shadowy limbs were too much even for the mighty knights, who were slain in helpless despair.

It was not until everyone in the west of town was evacuated that he could no longer continue his slaughter.

The teddy bear grew restless, searching for any soul to kill, a feverish impulse for murder and theft surging within its heart.

Wait, why the teddy bear? The bear had no heart; it was his own heart that burned.

He wanted to leave the west side to hunt, but a strange barrier blocked the bear, making it shrink back in fear, unable to cross the threshold.

It was as if something stood watch all around, eyeing him and the bear with malice, forbidding them from making a move.

Today, someone finally appeared in the west side; he did not know why they had come, and the shouts in his head were unclear, as if his ears were stuffed with cotton.

His mind was dizzy; how had it come to this? Regardless, he killed them again, and took what was theirs—but wait, why was he killing again?

Was it for joy? It seemed so; it felt good while he did it. No... Jom turned his head.

Rose’s beautiful eyes were fixed upon his face, filled with worry and confusion. She placed her hand on her brother’s cheek, as if finding him strange and unsettling.

Jom touched his face and felt blood—the blood from the wound on Rose’s temple that she had touched earlier.

He clawed at his own cheeks and found his mouth twisted into a grotesque, wide, and hideous grin.

Looking at his confused and worried sister, Jom’s mood gradually calmed, and the smile faded.

He stroked Rose’s now-coarse hair. "Why do I kill? For joy? No! It is to save Rose..."

"Boom!" A violent explosion shook the entire house, and dust rained down from the ancient ceiling.

The cramped space turned foul with smoke, and Jom, already frail, began to cough incessantly.

The coughing was so violent he felt his lungs might burst, and without noticing, he spat out blood.

The frantic shadows writhed; black hands crawled from the teddy bear to prop up the sagging roof, preventing the collapsing house from crushing the two below.

The shock of the blast left the cottage teetering, and the rotted floorboards splintered into cracks.

Sunlight poured in, illuminating the room and exposing Rose’s corpse-like face to the light.

Jom’s eyes narrowed, followed by a surge of fury. Who had done this to his sister!

Enraged, he threw open the door, behind him the countless frantic, waving shadow-limbs, and Rose, staring at him with hollow, vacant eyes...

As he pushed the door open, the sunlight stung his eyes, accustomed as they were to the dark.

The dining room had been blasted to ruin, charred marks and splintered wood everywhere.

The flames had not yet died, black smoke rose from the wreckage, and the air shimmered with heat.

The two mummified corpses had long since turned to dust, the roof was gone, and the sun shone down upon the scorched earth...

"Avia, hit it again!" A voice in the distance caught Jom’s attention.

Far from the house, a black-haired youth in leather armor commanded a flustered girl in mage’s robes to attack his home.

In her panic and hesitation, the young mage conjured another burning fireball, sending it flying toward the house.

The malice in Jom’s heart erupted; fury surged within the teddy bear—no, within his own heart—and countless black hands emerged from the shadows at his back...