The Chronicles of Teddy Bear Farm Part 1
I woke up in stages. First, I moved my limbs a little. I seed to be lying down on a soft, fluffy surface. Second, I heard the soft sound of soone breathing, obviously myself. That was strange because I was pretty sure that I had died earlier. Third, I opened my eyes and saw a white ceiling with gold crown molding.
“He’s awake,” said a familiar voice.
I turned my head a little and saw that it was The Dragon Who Erges From the Waters of Renewal to Reign Supre Over All She Beholds, aka Er.
“No, not you. I want my mom,” I said. I threw off the covers and swung my legs to the side of the bed. I was in a lavish bedroom decorated with plenty of gold and silver. The floor was made of gold coins, and the walls were marble with golden moldings, while the furniture was gilded wood hung with cloth of gold. “Where is she?”
“I thought you were his mom,” said soone I didn’t know. He was a tall, handso young man with long green hair and green eyes.
“Yes, this is my youngest son, The Blazing Inferno of Righteous Justice, Unyielding and Unstoppable,” she said. “We call him Blaze.”
“My na is Eggy,” I said. That was what my mother called .
“You ungrateful child!” said Er. She was wearing her ceremonial gold armor studded with rubies. Like , she had long blue-green hair and eyes. “I take the trouble to greet you in the afterlife, and instead of being grateful you look for that human?”
“Is this hell?” It couldn’t be heaven because she wasn’t here. “You might have given birth to , but Violet Is my mother.”
“It’s been almost three hundred years. Don’t tell you’re still looking for her?”
“Of course. You should have never taken away from her.”
“You’re my child! I’m not the one who pushed you out of the nest when you were an egg.”
No, it was my siblings. They had all hatched before and found an eyesore, so they had tried to get rid of . Thankfully, a human girl nad Violet had found . The worst day of my life was when Er swooped down on and carried off. Since then I have been looking for Violet. “Where is she?”
“Well, she’s not here!” Er threw her hands up and stomped off. The unknown man, who I guessed was her latest lover, followed behind her.
Good riddance.
I exited the room and found myself in a white space with a ball of black smoke with glowing eyes staring at maliciously.
Was this really hell?
“Welco to the afterlife,” said the ball of smoke. “Are you ready for the next stage of your existence?”
I suddenly regretted chasing Er away. Even though I blad her for my separation from my mother, she seed to be well-disposed towards . I should have asked her what was going on first, but I was really anxious to et mom again. “What next stage?”
“Allow to show you.”
A black square appeared in front of us and showed a scene of nightti on a farm. Half a dozen monsters appeared and trampled the crops then broke into the farmhouse. When they got to the bedroom, I saw a familiar figure peacefully sleeping there. I reached out a hand to try to stop the monsters, but my fingers passed right through the black square. “Stop them!”
The scene that was playing out froze. The monsters’ claws were almost touching her.
“I take it you don’t want this to happen,” said the ball of smoke. “Do you want to protect her?”
“Yes!”
“Then do you agree to reincarnate as her protector?”
“Yes!” I would like nothing better. Maybe this wasn’t hell if I was given the option to protect her.
“Done.”
There was no transition. In the blink of an eye, the white room and its strange inhabitant disappeared, and I heard a voice saying, “By unlocking this door with the key of imagination, you transcend into a realm beyond the physical world - a place where the senses are amplified, and the mind is limitless. A world of ethereal shadows and corporeal substance, where reality and ideas rge into one. You have crossed the threshold into Emberstone Farm, a mystical and magical realm where your deepest desires and wildest dreams await.”
Then I found myself in a wooden room. From the sound of the splashing waves, I deduced that I was on a boat. When I tried to look around, I experienced a mont of panic when I couldn’t move. My limbs felt strangely light yet I couldn’t control them.
“Mr. Bear, I think you’re getting dusty,” said a voice that I had been waiting to hear for almost three hundred years.
I tried to speak, but I couldn’t.
The next thing I knew, she ca into view. Long brown hair, violet eyes, and a pretty face... she was just as I rembered.
It was mom!
She picked up. This reminded of the ti when I was a baby. It was only when she brought to a table with a basin of water on it that I saw my reflection in the water.
A plush toy??? I’ve been reincarnated as a bear doll? Couldn’t I at least be an Azure Dragon doll? Why a bear, of all things?
What had I done to deserve this?!
… Thinking back on my life and all the territory battles I had participated in, I had to admit that I hadn’t exactly been the nicest person around.
Mom used a piece of cotton cloth and rubbed it all over to clean the dust off. “There! All clean now.”
Oh well, if I was with her, then it wasn’t too bad.
We spent the next few days on the boat. I was quite relieved to see that mother was healthy and didn’t seem to be in any danger, though she seed rather depressed and would cry into my fur every night.
As for , my emotions were rather muted. I should feel a lot more distressed at the fact that I was unable to move or talk, but I didn’t really feel anything much. Was it because I didn’t have a proper body? I tried to do mathematical calculations in my head and rember historical facts. All of my attempts succeeded, which told that my ntal functions were all intact. So it was just my physical and emotional functions that were lacking.
So maybe this wasn’t hell where bad people were punished before they were reincarnated as worms or insects, but it definitely wasn’t heaven where the good were rewarded before they were reincarnated as either higher-level beings. Perhaps I was in so sort of limbo?
The real question was how was I supposed to protect my mother like this?
***
I woke up with a start.
How long had I been hibernating?
Mom liked to put in [Guard Mode] a lot, which I loved because it gave heightened senses and a sense of purpose. Protecting her was my number one priority, and [Guard Mode] was the perfect way to do it.
When she applied to build a farm in the Westerlands, I was extrely alard. Unfortunately, I had no way to communicate with her and could only watch as she traveled to the Ancient Hill Forest to build a farmhouse… which looked exactly like the house that the ball of black smoke with glowing eyes had shown .
That night, when she fell asleep I stayed awake and saw a large black square appear in front of . A very strange scene played out on it.
[Visit ESRBC for rating information.]
The words were in so strange language, but sohow I could read them even though I didn’t understand what it was saying.
[NoCap Gas Presents]
[Noob Invaders vs. Teddy’s Farm]
A moving picture composed of thousands of tiny colored squares showed an army of monsters fighting an army of magical plants.
[A Huge Wave of Noobs is Approaching!]
Suddenly, the monsters tripled in number and overwheld the plant defenders. Then a large Teddy Bear appeared.
[Boss: Teddy Bear
Toughness: Max
Speed: Max]
That was ? Of course, I liked that I had maximum toughness and speed, yet the scene of mom’s farm being sward by these “noobs” alard greatly.
The bear doll inside the black square started casting fireballs and blasting the monsters away. When the monsters had all been disposed of, the scene turned white and a new ssage appeared.
[Your Noob Monster Horde]
A pink cat/mouse/monkey thing appeared. It walked slowly towards the farmhouse without making any obvious attacks. Instead, it just shuffled forward while being bombarded by projectiles from the plants.
[ConcernedApe
Toughness: Low
Speed: Low
Cost: Low]
Then an image of a pimply teenage human male with saliva spraying from his wide-open mouth and a strange device on his head appeared. This one also walked slowly though it seed to be bigger than the previous “noob.”
[Headset Screar
Toughness: dium
Speed: Low
Cost: Low]
Then the image changed to that of a pudgy, sweaty guy with a device in its hands. It was slamming on device's buttons with reckless abandon. This "Noob" moved the sa way as the other two, but faster.
[Button-masher
Toughness: Low
Speed: dium
Cost: dium]
I gnashed my teeth when the next one appeared, a frazzled-looking individual with a broken device in one hand and a crazed expression on its face. It threw the device which exploded, killing nine plants in one go. Thankfully, it died after throwing the “controller,” but it was clearly more dangerous than the other noobs.
[Controller Thrower
Toughness: Low
Speed: Low
Cost: High]
Next ca the image of a lazy human lying on a couch or chair, with a controller in one hand and a bag of food in the other. This one didn’t seem like much of a threat at first, but the bits of food that dropped from its hand damaged the defender plants on its left side.
[Couch Potato
Toughness: dium
Speed: Low
Cost: dium]
Puzzlingly, the next noob shown was a pair of humans. One of them was a regular Button-masher while the other was a male human with a condescending smirk and crossed arms, who peered over the shoulder of the other noob. From the words spilling from its mouth, I gathered it was dispensing unsolicited advice and criticism.
[Backseat Gar
Toughness: High
Speed: Low
Cost: High]
Oh no!
The parade of the strange “noobs” continued until my head spun from the weirdness of it all. When it was over, a few more boxes of text appeared.
[taphors be with you!]
[Noob Invaders vs. Teddy’s Farm]
[©2023 NoCap Gas, Inc. All Rights Reserved.]
Then ca a blare of trumpets and an annoyingly screechy voice said, “The battle of the Noob Invaders vs. Teddy’s Farm begins!”
To be continued
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