Time Healer Ceres - Chapter 134

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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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Seres nodded absently, her expression growing steadily more peculiar. Noroa? Could it be the same Noroa she knew?
“If you’re the head of the house…”
“Right. I’m the master of that family. How about it? Pretty impressive, yeah?”
……
There was something almost ridiculous about the way he grinned and struck a proud pose with his arms crossed. What sort of duke carried himself like this?
“Should we finish up all the cake here before we go? That one looks delicious too, doesn’t it? What about you, Seres—do you like chocolate cake? This old fellow here is absolutely mad about it. I really hope you like it too.”
Was he always this frivolous? Shouldn’t a duke have a bit more gravity to him?
“Oh, that reminds me.”
As he placed a fresh order for chocolate cake, he clapped his hands together sharply.
“There are some others I wanted to introduce you to.”
“Who might they be?”
The laughing duke clicked his tongue briefly.
“I asked them to come along, but those two can’t seem to face you.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“They feel terrible about it.”
Watching the confusion cross Seres’s face, the duke chose his next words carefully.
“Would you mind meeting them anyway?”
* * *
“It’s been a while.”
The Emperor of Devrika, tending to the flowers in his greenhouse garden one by one, let out a small laugh as he noticed someone had approached his side.
……
Schweiss, making no particular greeting in response to the emperor’s warm demeanor, wore his displeasure openly on his face.
“You haven’t changed.”
“Neither have you, Your Majesty.”
Only as the Emperor of Devrika shook his head did Schweiss finally speak for the first time.
“You said yourself you had no time to visit, and yet you keep sending people. What exactly do you want?”
From his first day in the Capital, messages had come from the emperor—requests to see his face.
Schweiss had refused at once, claiming he was too busy.
But the messages kept coming, day after day. It seemed the emperor would send people endlessly until he appeared at the palace, leaving Schweiss no choice but to make this visit.
“You’re a hard man to get an audience with.”
“Then state your business.”
The Emperor of Devrika glanced away under the weight of Schweiss’s fierce gaze—the look of a man with no patience for pleasantries.
“Must there always be business between us? You came to the Capital after so long—I simply wanted to see your face.”
“I told you, I’m busy.”
So there was no real business after all. Displaying his displeasure once more, Schweiss clicked his tongue and turned to leave.
“Why did you visit the girl in her cell? What is she to you?”
He could have ignored what came next.
“Seres—do you happen to know that child?”
He stopped.
If only that name hadn’t come up.
“She’s a child I’ve taken quite an interest in, you see.”
Schweiss turned back around and approached the emperor with long strides. Then he spoke slowly, each word measured.
“Take no interest in her.”
The Emperor of Devrika’s eyes widened slightly at the low, clipped tone of his voice—each syllable deliberate.
He was issuing a genuine warning. Do not show the slightest interest in that child, Seres.
“She is my daughter.”
“Wh—your daugh—wait, wait just a moment! What are you talking about? You have a child?”
How could the man who’d never married—who’d left the previous duke gnashing his teeth in frustration—suddenly have a daughter?
After his first love had failed, it was common knowledge that he’d shunned women so thoroughly that every young noblewoman in the empire trembled at his name.
“I’ve learned that hiding is not the only way to protect someone.”
“Hiding? Do you really mean to say she’s your daughter? You’ve been concealing her all this time?”
“I asked you to lose interest in the matter.”
“How can I simply drop it!”
……
Schweiss said nothing more. As though he’d never been upset at all, he returned to his characteristic blank expression, clamped his mouth shut, and turned away.
“Come on, explain this to me!”
Despite the emperor’s urgent voice, Schweiss merely bowed his head slightly in acknowledgment and left the spot quickly, never once looking back.
* * *
Mm… mmm……
“Ersi! Temple Priestess!”
“Are you awake?”
Hearing the cries of two young priests, Ersi opened her eyes slowly. The familiar surroundings came into focus—her own chamber.
“The Black Forest is…”
A hoarse whisper emerged from her throat, rough with the silence of days gone by.
“It’s been purified!”
“Ah…”
Ersi exhaled a long breath of relief. Before losing consciousness, she had glimpsed the scorching sun and the transformed desert reversing themselves, the land returning to its true form.
‘It must have been Master.’
Her master had surely done something. Ersi too, guarding the Temple grounds at Seres’ command, had grown weary under the endless tide of demons.
But she carried one unwavering belief—that her master, that beloved figure, would somehow find a way to resolve this crisis.
Even as wounds accumulated across her body and her sword arm could barely obey her will, Ersi clung to that faith without wavering.
And when she severed the last demon’s throat and collapsed to her knees, she felt the air itself shift.
As the scorching sandstorm finally stilled, she released her blade and surrendered to darkness. When she awoke, she was in her own room.
“Has anyone else been gravely injured?”
“A few of the holy knights sustained wounds, but nothing life-threatening, Priestess.”
“You suffered the worst injuries of all!”
One of the young priests bowed his head, eyes glistening with tears.
“Thank you so much!”
The young priest who had stumbled while fleeing the sudden surge of demons—the moment he thought death had come for him, Ersi had stepped between him and the monsters. He would never forget that image.
Nor would the others. The Temple staff had watched in awe as Ersi charged fearlessly into the throng of demons, her blade moving with purpose they had never witnessed before.
They all knew she was a good person. She looked after the young priests who first entered the Temple, and never dismissed anyone’s requests with indifference.
Yet she had always seemed a touch clumsy, prone to mistakes, carrying a certain vulnerability that made her appear less formidable than the other priests.
But then—
[Shrieeeek!]
Slash!
The way she bisected the massive centipede in a single stroke left everyone’s mouths hanging open.
Was this truly the same Ersi they had known all along?
That Ersi?
The one who always wore that gentle smile?
They all found themselves reassessing the Temple Priestess entirely.
“How long was I unconscious?”
“Eleven days, now.”
“…That long.”
“Your body was freezing cold!”
“Everyone thought you wouldn’t… *sob*.”
Bandages wrapped around various parts of her body. Ersi inspected her condition briefly, then rose slowly from the bed.
“Why are you getting up? You need more rest!”
“Yes, your body hasn’t fully healed yet!”
The two young priests rushed to stop her, but Ersi shook her head gently.
Her body no longer needed concern. While unconscious, her wounds had healed slowly, like any ordinary person’s, but now that she was awake…
Rustle.
“Priestess Ersi! You shouldn’t unwrap those bandages yet…!”
“Hm?”
The priests froze as she began unwinding the bandages from her arm.
“The wounds…”
Just last evening when they’d changed the dressings, the wounds had been far from healed. Now only the faintest traces remained.
‘If there’d been no one watching, I wouldn’t have needed these injuries in the first place.’
Wounds appeared and multiplied, exhaustion mounted relentlessly…
She had to fight while bearing these constraints. Had she used all her true abilities, those watching would have perceived her as a monster whose wounds closed as soon as they formed.
“There’s somewhere I need to go.”
“In that condition? You can’t possibly move around yet.”
“It’s fine.”
Ersi found her outer robe and threw it on, moving toward the door. Then she turned back to the two priests, who were shifting uncertainly from foot to foot, and asked one final question.
“Do you know where the Drow Baron is?”

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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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