Time Healer Ceres - Chapter 142

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

Slurp, slurrrp!
“Ahh.”
Skal, watching the man drain the stew straight from the bowl, quietly raised his hand. To order more stew.
Thunk.
“…?”
But before that could happen, a fresh bowl of stew landed on the table, and Skal lifted his head. There stood Seres, the owner of the shop wherever his footsteps seemed to lead him.
“On the house.”
“Oh!”
Skal beamed at the sight of the new bowl brimming with stew, then winced slightly as the wound beneath the bandage wrapped around his neck throbbed.
“If you want more after you’re done eating, just say so. I’ll bring it right out.”
During the last S-Rank Black Forest expedition, while clearing out monsters, she’d glimpsed familiar faces. Mercenaries from the Black Guild, regulars at the shop.
Skal, the Black Guild leader, had been the quickest to dispatch monsters while protecting his subordinates. The image of him shielding his men even as he exposed his own body to their claws had left quite an impression.
‘Aerelyon created a flower garden there for them too.’
So the patients could rest, if only for a moment. Whether that was the reason or not, Seres had already heard that not a single Black Guild member had been lost. Not one.
As Seres moved away, Skal watched her intently, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth.
“My instincts are never wrong, I’m telling you.”
“What are you suddenly talking about?”
Back then, on the day they’d entered the S-Rank Black Forest. He saw her. Seres.
‘Hey! Stay with me!’
‘Ugh…!’
[Screeeeeech!]
‘…!’
It was a moment of desperate peril. While his attention was divided rescuing a fallen subordinate, a monster burst up from beneath the earth.
There was no time to block it. In the instant he’d resigned himself to losing an arm—
Whishhh!
Crack!
[Screee…ahhhhh….]
A blade black as the night sky had pierced straight through the monster’s vital point—its head.
And there was a person, catching the sword as it flew back to her like it was alive, movements practiced and fluid.
‘The stew shop owner?’
She’d vanished from sight in an instant, but Skal had seen her clearly. How could he not recognize the woman who fed him every day?
“Like I said before—her movements are anything but ordinary.”
The way Seres had moved when that kid had stumbled was far from what an ordinary person could do.
“Why do you keep saying strange things?”
“Just because.”
Skal chuckled and dove into the complimentary stew as though he were tasting it for the first time, savoring every spoonful.
“Miss Seres, you should rest.”
Jay, the maid who’d been hurrying between kitchen and dining room, watched Seres heading toward the kitchen with worry in her eyes.
She might be saying she’d recovered, but Jay wasn’t convinced. And now she was actually working in the shop!
Despite telling her to rest more, when word came that a large group was coming by today, Seres had insisted on coming along anyway. Jay bounced anxiously on her heels.
“The rush is over now, so please just sit here and stay put!”
“All right.”
Faced with Jay’s firm tone, Seres finally settled into a spot at one side of the shop.
“By the way, Jay.”
“Yes?”
Jay, busy clearing empty bowls, turned at Seres’s call.
“Has Chaien come by while I was gone?”
“Chaien, you mean?”
Jay fell quiet for a moment in thought, then shook her head.
“No. He hasn’t been here.”
“Not even once?”
“Not once.”
“Hmm.”
That was strange. Chaien used to drop by practically every other day, yet she hadn’t seen him in recent times at all.
She’d wondered if it was because she’d been bedridden, but according to Jay, he hadn’t visited the shop even a single time during her absence.
‘And I didn’t see him at the last royal council meeting either.’
What could be happening? This wasn’t like him at all—he wasn’t the type to stay silent for such a long stretch.
She stood abruptly.
“Miss Seres?”
“I’m going to step out for a bit.”
“Pardon? Where are you going?”
Don’t you dare come back without resting at home first! Seres untied the apron she’d been wearing, caught in Jay’s worried gaze.
“The Arcane Tower.”
* * *
“Seres!”
……
Upon arriving at the Arcane Tower, Seres was guided by Luka, Chaien’s aide, toward the reception room.
As she sat there sipping tea, she caught sight of Chaien rushing in through the doorway.
“You……”
Seres’s eyes widened slightly at the sight of him. What’s wrong with his complexion?
“Are you ill?”
He looked thinner too. Seres frowned, examining Chaien’s condition carefully.
“No, nothing’s wrong.”
“Really?”
“Yes!”
“It’s simply that he hasn’t been eating well, I’m afraid.”
“…What?”
Seres’s brow furrowed again at Luka’s supplementary explanation, delivered with a weary sigh from beside them.
“Why aren’t you eating?”
“No, I am. I do eat.”
I just have no appetite, so I haven’t been eating much.
“Is something troubling you?”
Seres tilted her head, watching as Chaien forced a bright smile only to heave a deep sigh without realizing it.
“The thing is… Alex is ill.”
“The Crown Prince?”
“Yes.”
As Chaien uttered the Crown Prince’s name, his expression darkened more than ever before.
“He refuses to see healers, even though I’ve offered to call them.”
“Why?”
“I’m not entirely sure……”
Another long sigh escaped Chaien’s lips.
“Perhaps he’s weary of it? He’s been examined by healers countless times since childhood, and none of it ever made a real difference.”
Though he seemed much improved recently, his condition has suddenly deteriorated these past few days. I’m now considering whether to send him away for recuperation again.
“Hmm.”
Seres recalled the first time he’d come to her shop. She remembered how he’d coughed so violently she’d feared he might collapse, and asked Chaien, “Would it be all right if I took a look?”

* * *
“Cough… cough!”
“I don’t understand this stubborn nonsense. Why won’t you call a healer?”
“I heard the new head of the Elrsia Countess Family is quite skilled.”
Two people sat pressed close beside the Crown Prince, who was coughing continuously. They were the Princess Nailia and the Crown Prince Aseraian.
As they looked upon the Crown Prince’s flushed face, radiating heat, the expressions of both grew increasingly grave.
“As you know, this isn’t the sort of illness that healers can cure… Cough!”
When the two of them rushed to the Arcane Tower upon hearing of his serious condition, they found themselves unable to hide their frustration at his continued refusal to see a healer.
“So you’re just going to sit here and do nothing?”
“No. We have to do something.”
Long sighs escaped both their mouths. They understood all too well his plight, worn down by illness for so long.
Yet despite that, he wouldn’t permit a healer’s visit. Was he simply waiting to die?
“Mother is beside herself with worry.”
At Aseraian’s final remark, a faint smile crossed the Crown Prince’s lips.
“She must be greatly concerned.”
Though that concern surely wasn’t for his own sake.
Creak!
“Alex.”
The door swung open and Chaien entered. The three turned their gazes naturally toward him.
Then they saw a familiar figure stepping in behind Chaien.
“Seres?”
“What brings you here?”
The three of them opened their eyes wide at the unexpected visitor.
“Because you said you were in pain.”
Seres approached the bed where Alex lay, drawing closer. He certainly looked different from the last time she’d seen him.
‘His condition has deteriorated so suddenly.’
When she’d last seen him at the Academy, it had been difficult to pinpoint anything obviously wrong. It was as though that first impression had been a lie.
Yet now he appeared worse than when he’d first come to the shop.
‘Like bark.’
Cracks in his skin showed faintly along his neck and the backs of his hands. It was as if dry tree bark had adhered to his flesh. Something seemed to be draining all moisture from beneath his skin. Moreover, simply standing near him, she could feel the oppressive heat radiating from his body.
“Cough! Cou—ugh, cough!”
“Alex!”
Chaien hurried to the Crown Prince’s side as another fit of coughing seized him.
“Should I get some water?”
“Here!”
“A cloth—is anyone outside? Get a cloth, now!”
Princess Nailia and Prince Aseraian rushed to examine Alex’s condition.
None of them could hide their dismay at how the coughing refused to subside.
What should they do? How could they help? Should they call a healer right now? Should they drag him to one by force if necessary—?
Pour.
“……?”
Then came a sound that seemed utterly at odds with the urgency of the moment. All four pairs of eyes turned in unison toward its source.
Pour.
It was Seres. She was doing something off to one side.
‘…Tea?’
She was brewing tea using the hot water that had been prepared in the room beforehand.
Unlike the three others, who stared in bewilderment, Alex understood at once what she was doing.
‘That scent…….’
That tea. The one she had given him when he’d first come to visit her.
“Please.”
Meeting the gaze of all four, Seres offered the finished tea to Alex.

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