The item he had been so desperately searching for was also an old teddy bear that looked as though it had quite a story behind it.
The button that ought to have been attached to one eye had fallen off long ago, leaving only a dangling thread. Its side had split open, with tufts of yellowed stuffing poking out, and it was so filthy that one could not even guess what color it had originally been—a disagreeable blend of sickly yellow and dull gray.
Honestly, even the doll that the tin can was so delighted to have found did not look much different from the cursed-looking dolls scattered all around this place.
"So, now that you’ve found that teddy bear, can you finally pass on?"
The moment my question left my lips, the tin can—who had been happily jingling about with the ragged teddy bear in his arms—froze dead still.
"……"
An odd silence settled amid the stale air of the mansion’s basement. He blankly looked down at the old doll in his arms, its seams split and yellow stuffing spilling out.
"……Yeah. I should pass on."
For the first time, the voice of the fellow who had chattered so excessively it hurt my ears sank low and heavy, as if thick with emotion.
That teddy bear appeared to have a story of its own, but it seemed to mean enough to the tin can that it had silenced that endlessly babbling mouth of his.
"I should pass on. I should go… That was what I meant to do, friend."
The tin can gently brushed the spot where the teddy bear’s button eye had fallen off with the tips of his steel fingers.
"But seeing this… I suppose it can’t be helped that I have regrets."
After murmuring that, the tin can silently handed the teddy bear to me.
"Why are you giving this to me? Wasn’t it something you needed? Are you asking me to burn it?"
There was a custom of burning a dead person’s belongings so they could take them with them on their journey to the next world, wasn’t there?
Just as I wondered whether the tin can was thinking of that and about to make such a request,
he shook his head as if to say no and continued in a low voice.
"No. I just want you to have it, friend."
"Me?"
"Yeah. This was originally a gift I meant to give my daughter."
Having placed the teddy bear in my hand, the tin can stroked its head and murmured,
"I made this doll to give to her before I died. I wandered around for so long that it ended up down here in the mansion’s basement, rotting away like this."
"If you meant to give it to your daughter, then you should take it…"
Why was that?
I suddenly did not want to accept the teddy bear he was offering me as a gift.
It was not because the bear was so decrepit that it disgusted me, nor because I was worried it might be a cursed doll.
Perhaps it was because the atmosphere had changed so abruptly, or because the word daughter, which he had spoken so proudly, lingered in my mind.
Maybe I simply did not like the sight of the tin can trying to hand over to someone else, without regret, the thing he had refused to give up on finding even after getting doused in holy water.
I wanted this tin can to take the teddy bear with him.
But the tin can softly shook his head, his suit of armor clinking.
"A gift only has meaning when it is given to someone else. I could not give it to that child, and I never will be able to. But this teddy bear should not rot away in this basement. That is why I want to give it to you, my friend."
This was ridiculous.
"We only just met."
"If we can understand each other, doesn’t that make us friends? Please don’t trouble yourself over it, friend!"
The tin can’s voice, which had grown subdued, regained its usual frivolous lilt.
Still, I was not sure whether it was right for me to accept this.
It was something he had intended as a gift for someone else, so at the very least, it did not belong to me.
At that moment—
"Then, Ian, may I take that?"
Whoooosh—
The shadow at my feet began to bubble blackly, and Kafka rose smoothly from within it.
Stepping out of the shadows, Kafka quietly stared at the teddy bear in my hand.
How strange.
When we first entered this storeroom, her telepathy had stuttered like a broken computer because she had been so frightened. But now she appeared perfectly composed.
No, I take that back.
Looking more closely, I could see that her legs were trembling ever so slightly.
Then why?
Didn’t she hate ghosts?
She had clearly been terrified when we entered this storeroom, which was packed full of objects with stories attached to them.
Judging by the way her legs were still shaking, it was not as though she was no longer afraid. So why had she come out?
Did she want this doll so much that the fear of this room had become a lower priority?
This doll did not look much different from the others piled around here, though?
"So, that thing. Do you need it?"
"No, it’s not like I need it exactly…"
Kafka mumbled in response to my indifferent question.
I casually handed the teddy bear I was holding over to Kafka.
Kafka accepted the doll in both hands while cautiously checking my reaction. Her narrow eyes quietly looked down at the ragged doll nestled in her arms.
Then, with slender white fingers, she carefully stroked the doll’s head, from which coarse stuffing was protruding.
It was such an unsightly and grotesque doll that calling it merely old would not suffice; it would be more accurate to say it was almost rotten.
Yet she seemed to like it quite a bit.
I could see the corners of Kafka’s mouth curve upward ever so slightly, but unmistakably, as she lowered her head.
"Did you like dolls?"
When I casually asked about the doll, Kafka flinched.
To be honest, I did not really know whether she liked dolls or not.
Then again, considering her peculiar sleeping habit—she could only sleep without nightmares if she held me in her arms—it might have been natural for her to become attached to dolls.
But.
Didn’t she hate ghosts?
She had started stammering the moment she set foot in this storeroom, as if she had glitched.
When the clubroom furniture started moving by itself because of my system controls, she had gotten scared out of her wits before anything even happened.
She did not care much about the undead, yet ghosts terrified her to death.
Especially considering that the doll she held was so cursed-doll-like that it could have fit right in with all the dolls lying around this storeroom.
There should not have been a single thing about it for Kafka to like.
If anything, I would have expected her to throw it on the ground.
"Who knows…"
As though my question had touched something deep inside her, a faint, bitter smile appeared on Kafka’s lips.
"Things like dolls were luxuries in my life. But… this doll feels different somehow."
It certainly was different.
It was beyond old; it looked as though it might put a curse on someone.
Could it be like some kind of hypnosis app?
Kafka’s reaction was so unlike her usual self that, overcome by suspicion, I activated [Insight Eye] on the teddy bear.
Ding!
A translucent UI notification window slowly appeared before my eyes amid a bluish glow, and detailed information on the teddy bear began to rapidly fill its surface.
[Old Teddy Bear]
The doll that set out on a brief journey ultimately failed to return home.
Its journey, which lasted far too long, succeeded in transforming it.
But transformation did not necessarily mean growth, and that was true of the transformation that had befallen this doll as well.
◈ Grade: Common
◈ It is just an ordinary teddy bear.
◈ Its durability has been depleted.
It was not anything special.
It was simply an ordinary junk item that was old, looked as if it might be cursed, and nothing more.
It was neither a hidden piece nor an item with any kind of ability.
Well, if she liked it, I had nothing more to say.
Come to think of it, Iris was rather handy with her hands, wasn’t she? She knew how to sew, too.
Even if Kafka liked it, it looked far too hideous to leave as it was.
If she woke up and the first thing she saw was that teddy bear, she might die of a heart attack. Later, I would have to ask Iris to stitch up the loose seams for her.
"There wasn’t another one like it."
At that moment.
The tin can muttered those words in a voice that sounded as though he were talking to himself.
How should I put it? It was like something he had never intended to say, yet had carelessly slipped from his mouth without him even realizing it.
Of course, only I could clearly hear that abrupt muttering from the tin can.
To everyone else, it would have sounded like nothing more than a noise-filled, mechanical mumble leaking through the gaps in his helmet.
"What did you say?"
I pretended I had not heard his muttering at all and innocently asked the tin can again.
But the tin can merely shrugged his pauldrons lightly with the scrape of metal, as if it were nothing.
"It’s nothing, friend."
Come to think of it, he was being awfully quiet.
Kafka had suddenly popped out of my shadow. This should have been the perfect moment for him to make a huge fuss about it.
Instead, he had said nothing at all, as if his mouth had been locked shut, and merely watched Kafka. Hadn’t he?
Had a wolf beastkin appearing from the shadows been fascinating enough to silence even his incessant chatter?
Well, anyone would find that fascinating.
"Grete. That doll is named Grete, friend. A name I came up with only after much careful consideration! Isn’t it pretty? And now you must be wondering how I came to name it that. Well, you see…"
After shrugging, the tin can furtively checked my reaction, then puffed out his chest with pride and added that.
As though he intended to explain every last detail of the name’s origin, he began once again to spew needless information without pause, like a machine with broken brakes.
"Ian, then is that doll what the tin can was looking for?"
Kafka’s quiet voice cut through the storm of needless information and reached my ear.
With her brow deeply furrowed, she looked back and forth between the teddy bear in her arms and the tin can enthusiastically showing off by himself.
The tin can’s voice could only sound like a noise-filled mumble to Kafka too, of course, so the racket must have been grating on her nerves.
I gently nodded to say yes. After seeing my nod, Kafka stared at the teddy bear for a moment.
"Then what is this friend’s name?"
Kafka glanced down at the ragged teddy bear in her arms as she asked.
"Why do you suddenly want to know its name?"
When I asked back as though her question were random, she averted her eyes for a moment and hugged the doll a little closer.
"…I suddenly wanted to know."
The question had caught me off guard, but—
"He says it’s Grete."
The old teddy bear had a name, and it was not difficult to tell her. So I readily passed on the name that the tin can beside me kept mentioning without stopping.
"Grete…"
Kafka quietly rolled the name from my lips around in her mouth, as if savoring it.
"Grete, Grete…"
As though it were familiar, Kafka held the name in her mouth and rolled it over and over on her tongue.
There was an obsession in her murmurs, as though she were desperately trying to retrieve a lost fragment from the far reaches of a very old memory.
But.
"I still can’t remember."
At last, she let out a deep, bitter sigh.
"It feels like I know it. I’m sure I’ve heard it somewhere… but I can’t remember at all."
She finally let the name, which had lingered at the tip of her tongue for so long, fall from her lips as though there was nothing more she could do.
A bitter smile, laden with deep emptiness, hung futilely on her lips.
At that moment.
The tin can’s rapid-fire stream of needless information cut off midway.
Was it because of the name Kafka had finally let out with that bitter smile?
Or perhaps even this tin can, who normally seemed utterly incapable of reading the room, had instinctively learned what the mood was by now.
Whatever the case, the tin can locked his mouth shut once more and simply stared at Kafka as she smiled bitterly.
"Daughter, daughter. Yeah. About this age. If my daughter were still alive now, she would probably be about this age."
Then the tin can began muttering to himself again.
Quietly murmuring those words, the tin can slowly began taking one step at a time toward Kafka.
"Did you give it this name?"
Clank.
At Kafka’s question about the name, the tin can’s slow footsteps came to a halt.
At her words, the tin can silently nodded.
The tin can I had seen until now would have responded to Kafka’s question by rattling off needless information, whether she could understand him or not.
But he merely nodded without a word.
"I think it’s a lovely name."
"………"
"I know you aren’t an evil spirit. I can see other people’s souls. You simply wanted to find this doll, didn’t you?"
What the tin can said in response to her quiet observation was—
"I wanted to give it to her."
Unlike before, it was merely a lament spoken in an even tone.
It was no different from the needless information he had rambled on about earlier regardless of whether anyone listened, and it came from the same futile desire to somehow unburden what had accumulated in his heart.
But this lament was merely another piece of needless information, spoken in loneliness by a pitiful wandering spirit who wanted someone, just once, to listen.
"Even though it was too late, I wanted to give this doll to that child."
I quietly decided to translate his words for Kafka.
It was the same sort of unasked-for rambling as before.
But I did not want to let this piece of needless information be buried and scattered amid that noise-filled mumbling.
I wanted that old voice, which had failed to reach the person it had wished to reach, to finally reach the ears of another who could not hear it.
Hearing the tin can’s sincerity through my voice, Kafka stopped her slow steps and lifted her head.
"…I see."
Her narrow gaze quietly rested on the crude face of the teddy bear.
"Little one, could I hug you just once?"
"Why?"
"Because by now, my daughter would probably be exactly your size."
I translated the tin can’s mumbling plainly and without filtering it.
I did not know why he called Kafka little one.
Nor did I know why he wanted to hug her.
But it was merely an odd request, and I could not sense a trace of ulterior motive in it.
So I neither stopped him nor replied on his behalf. I simply conveyed what he wanted to do.
And Kafka likely knew better than anyone that he had no ulterior motive.
Perhaps because of that, after receiving my translation, Kafka stared at the tin can’s helmet for a moment. Then she adjusted Grete, the teddy bear in her arms, with one arm and slowly extended her free arm.
She said nothing, but it was clearly permission.
And the instant permission was granted, the tin can stretched out a huge iron arm with a squeal of twisting metal and carefully wrapped it around her small shoulders.
"You’re hard."
Kafka offered her own assessment of hugging the tin can.
"You’ve grown so much."
The tin can offered his own assessment of hugging Kafka.
Shhhhhh…
In the storeroom, where silence had settled, an uncanny sound arose.
"It was too long. Far too damn long, friend. And little one."
The tin can slowly began crumbling into tiny particles as he held Kafka in his embrace.
But Kafka continued to hold the armor, as though its crumbling did not matter to her at all.
"Both I and the doll… What I thought would only be a brief journey turned into such a long journey. Really…"
The tin can’s murmur gradually scattered and became a very clear sound.
At the same time, his steel armor began to slowly crumble with soft tap, crackle sounds.
The armor fragments were no longer metal. They became softly glowing white dust and lightly drifted through the air. The large iron arm of the tin can embracing her turned into a cloud of dust and gently brushed past Kafka’s cheek.
And before long, in the place where the traveler who had completed his long journey had stood,
there remained only a single shoe that had walked alongside him.
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