Time Healer Ceres - Chapter 1

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Prologue
“Please, Grace…….”
“Ah… sob…….”
The room was elegant without being ornate.
Around the woman in her late twenties lying on the pristine white bed, quite a number of people had gathered.
Every face bore the weight of sorrow. Those with reddened eyes wept silently, their shoulders trembling.
“Grace, please come to your senses! Please! Open your eyes for me! Sob……!”
“…apprentice.”
“Yes, yes! Master!”
“My ears hurt.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“My ears hurt, I said. Stop shouting, you fool…….”
And she’d had her senses about her all this time. Her eyes had been open the entire time!
Her complexion was pallid, devoid of all color, her frame reduced to bone and sinew.
Yet the voice that emerged from her lips was remarkably clear.
“Ah…….”
Watching the bewildered expression on her disciple’s face, Grace clicked her tongue softly.
Who would believe that face, which looked barely into his late teens, actually belonged to someone in his late twenties?
Perhaps that was why—despite being far older than her—she still felt anxious about leaving anything in his care.
“Enoch.”
“Yes, Master.”
At Grace’s gentle call, tears welled up in Enoch’s eyes once more.
The realization that there was so little time left to hear his name spoken from those lips struck him afresh.
But he couldn’t let his master see him like this at the very end.
He hurriedly removed his round glasses and wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand.
Grace regarded him in silence, then clicked her tongue once more.
At this rate he’d start running with a runny nose.
As she raised her hand lightly, Enoch drew close at once.
“What of Kainel?”
“Ah, well… Kainel has likely already received word by now.”
The moment his name left Enoch’s lips, the young man’s complexion turned visibly ashen.
“But Master, is it really all right to tell him so late? Surely he should have been informed sooner…….”
“That bastard would only have been exhausted by knowing earlier.”
This was for the best.
The moment he learned of her condition, even she—who had known Kainel for so long—couldn’t predict what reckless thing he might attempt.
‘As long as he doesn’t start ranting about capturing a dragon and feeding her its blood.’
The very thought was exhausting.
“Still, he’ll be deeply upset…….”
“Enoch.”
“Yes, Master.”
At her gesture for him to come closer, he leaned his ear near her face.
Did she have something secret to tell him?
“When Kainel arrives…….”
“Yes.”
“Run.”
“…I beg your pardon?”
“You know how that bastard is, don’t you?”
“…….”
Kainel’s temperament…….
Enoch swallowed hard against his will.
“Take the children and flee at once.”
“Ah, understood!”
Grace exhaled slowly, regarding her disciple with concern.
He was docile as a lamb before her, yet those two were nothing but wolfish and vicious to others.
Kainel especially—he was a man who would devour everyone outright for the single failing of not serving his master properly.
“Of course, no matter how foul his nature, he wouldn’t actually kill you——”
“…….”
“…Just run.”
“Enoch!”
Everyone knew Kainel’s temperament as well as she did.
Right. Running away was the answer. Wasn’t it?
Crash!
“Gasp!”
“What—what is this?”
In that moment, the door burst open with a violent sound.
Footsteps.
A single figure crossed the threshold.
Snow-white hair without a speck of dust, eyes like molten silver.
Everyone in the room froze as if turned to stone by the entrance of this man—beautiful and terrible as a sculpture of ice.
They dared not even breathe deeply, lest that razor-edged cold cut them where they stood.
Footsteps.
From the moment he entered, the man’s gaze never left Grace, and he moved toward her at once.
“Kainel?”
Enoch, you bastard…
Kainel said he’d only just received word of my situation. So what the hell is he doing here?
“How did you get here so fast…?”
Ah.
Grace fell silent, understanding dawning on her. Despite the exhaustion draining through her bones, a helpless laugh escaped—equal parts exasperated and relieved.
The distance between this place and the Persha Grand Duchy was never short.
For him to arrive mere moments after hearing the news meant only one thing…
‘He must have caught multiple mages on the way.’
Piecing together what likely happened, Grace shook her head inwardly.
“Welcome.”
She greeted him warmly, forcing brightness into her smile, her whole face luminous.
She’d grumbled before that his arrival would be troublesome, yet seeing her friend’s face now—however briefly—felt far from unwelcome.
Honestly, if she closed her eyes without seeing him first, the lingering regret might have crushed her.
“…”
The man who had been watching her in silence for a long moment gradually twisted his expression.
He exhaled deeply and dragged a hand across his face, rough with frustration.
“Explain.”
The command emerged soft as his voice was pleasant to hear.
‘It won’t work, as always.’
She’d known for some time that he was the type to slip a dagger between her ribs even as she smiled.
Grace released a quiet breath and forced the smile to hold.
“There’s a sickness even I cannot cure.”
“Wait. I’ll find a way. Somehow.”
As he moved to leave at once, Grace quickly seized his hand.
The skeletal grip—weak as paper—only deepened the furrow between Kainel’s brows.
“I didn’t tell you beforehand because I knew you’d react like this. Who in this world could possibly cure an illness that I cannot? Have you forgotten who I am?”
She was the woman who had conquered rare disease after rare disease, saving countless lives, earning the title of Saint.
Who dared claim they could cure what she could not?
It was arrogance without equal—yet it was also the simple truth.
“So that’s why you kept refusing my visits all this time.”
Grace’s eyes slid away, caught in the act of all those excuses she’d made to turn him away.
“My own body is failing me. I didn’t want to burden you with worry on top of that.”
“…Selfish to the very end.”
As Grace let out a small laugh, she noticed Kainel’s already cold expression hardening further, and she gestured lightly for him to come closer.
Swift.
In the instant the distance closed, Grace seized him by the collar.
“Kainel.”
“Speak.”
Accustomed to Grace’s sudden gestures, Kainel’s response was perfectly measured.
“Don’t touch the children.”
“…”
“When I’m gone, don’t take your anger out on them. I’m asking you not to.”
Grace paused, her words faltering as if the effort cost her dearly, then drew in a breath.
How strange—even facing death, she still worried about such things.
“Don’t hit them. Don’t kill them. Just let them be.”
There’s truth to the old saying, then. Friends shape who you become.
She delivers the rebuke in a deliberately petulant tone, but Kainel’s lips remain sealed shut, showing no sign of opening.
Grace’s eyes sharpened.
So he really had been thinking of spiriting her away. I’m losing my mind, truly.
“Answer me.”
“…Very well.”
Only then does Grace release him, pushing him away with a light touch.
Yet even as her hand falls away, Kainel makes no move. He simply remains there, watching her intently from that close distance.
At his gaze, a faint smile blooms again at the corners of Grace’s mouth.
“What a shame.”
……
“I really wanted to see you cry, you know. Such a perfect chance presented itself, and yet I won’t get to see it… Ah…….”
“Why.”
“…Surely you won’t refuse to weep for me, even after I’m gone?”
Grace reaches up and playfully pats his face, where the furrow between his brows has only deepened.
But even this small gesture soon proves too much; her hand drops away quickly, as though the weight of it exceeds her strength.
Kainel catches her hand urgently.
“…I’m tired.”
“Grace.”
“I want to rest now.”
“Not by your choice.”
“Damn… you’re devastatingly selfish too, aren’t you?”
Grace’s eyes glint with mischief before she bursts into quiet laughter.
The sight of her friend’s stubbornly compressed lips stirs a memory of them as children.
“Don’t quarrel with Alti.”
Perhaps for that reason, the old scoldings she used to deliver without thought come pouring out now.
“Eat your meals properly. Don’t cause trouble.”
……
“Don’t get hurt…….”
With those words, Grace’s eyes close slowly.
As Kainel watches her, his own gaze grows heavier, sinking deeper into shadow.
Unwilling to lose the warmth that is slipping gradually away from her, he cannot bring himself to release the hand that now rests in his alone.
* * *
Grace Elrusia.
The young family head who had restored House Elrusia to its former pinnacle.
Some called her a Saint, necessary to the world itself; others branded her an irredeemably wicked demon.
And on October 18th, 1213.
Grace Elrusia, she who had accomplished so much, closed her eyes.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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