The Wizard's Bakery: A magical coming-of-age story like no other - for fans of Korean translated fiction by Gu Byeong -Mo

Author:Gu Byeong -Mo [-Mo, Gu Byeong]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Headline
Published: 2025-06-05T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 5

The Attack of the Succubus

Between that night and early next morning, after the voodoo doll lady left and Baker returned to sleep, the following occurred.

Around the time when almost all of the lemon drop had melted away, I also returned to my spot and fell asleep. My spot was always on the floor. Baker said that I could have the bed, that he seldom used it anyway, but I’d insisted on the floor for weeks.

The truth was, there was no reason for me to be adamant about sleeping uncomfortably when I was being an imposition anyway. But the ornate bedframe legs, the geometric patterns carved into the headboard, and the candy floss covers weren’t what I was used to, and I did not want to rest there. Once I wrapped myself in that microfibre blanket, I would never wish to leave. It would envelop my heart as well and make me forget who I was and where I came from.

And so I was half-asleep on the floor next to the lab table where various liquids were boiling away when I heard Bluebird flapping her wings. The sound was rough and sharp, like blades cutting through air.

I rubbed my eyes open and sat up.

In the dark room lit only by luminescent liquids in flasks, I saw the figure of a girl.

Bluebird? No, Bluebird was a bird right now. Besides, she looked a little different from Bluebird. She was wearing a kerchief woven with blinding silver thread that did not seem like anything from this world. The kerchief was wrapped around her black hair as endless as the River Styx. Face as pale as snow. She was wearing a dress made from the same silvery material as her kerchief.

The girl had a beautiful face, situated in the area between life and not life, reality and not reality. She was wearing an expression full of derision and mischief rather than evil. Our eyes met.

Who?

I didn’t think a new member had been inducted into Ovenland in the middle of the night. Bluebird’s agitated flapping around the girl also tipped me off. It seemed she was trying to peck her or swat her with her wings, but not a single feather could touch the girl’s body, which was so dark as to be blinding. She had no material form, an ectoplasm in the shape of a person.

To make matters worse, she was sitting on the bed, on top of Baker. He was turned over and lying on his back, bound head to toe in chains from medieval prisons. Through the dark, I could make out the chains digging into his neck and arms, tearing at his skin and drawing pools of blood. The chain must have been in the hearth, for the room smelled of hot metal and burning flesh. Smoke rose up into the void.

Red and green arthropods hung from every link in the chain and crawled about with their bristle standing. Baker, unable to turn his head, spat in the air. The stench of blood rushed into my nose.

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