Time Healer Ceres - Chapter 18

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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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Luka cut short Cheiyan’s evasions and excuses, reciting the exact time he’d reported the situation.
“…….”
“…….”
Aseraian’s gaze sharpened by degrees, while Cheiyan did everything he could to look away.
The Crown Prince reached down to caress the hilt of the sword at his waist, his tone deceptively gentle. “Didn’t you say you were making an Alert Item to announce the Dark Forest’s emergence?”
“Didn’t you say you were making an Alert Item to announce the Dark Forest’s emergence?”
Of late, Dark Forests had been appearing with alarming frequency.
Worse still, they used to manifest only in remote backwaters at the empire’s fringes—now they were sprouting regularly in densely populated areas.
Just recently, one had surfaced near the capital itself, and public anxiety had reached a fever pitch.
“I’m working on it…….”
“Apparently the thing has to be assembled while crawling on the floor? The more violent the process, the better the effect?”
At Aseraian’s exasperated sigh, Cheiyan’s voice wavered again.
“If only Paran Doli would find it, I’d feel more motivated to speed things up…….”
“Luka’s searching now, so it’ll turn up soon enough.”
“Soon? When exactly is ‘soon’? Paran Doli’s probably searching for me desperately right this moment!”
“…….”
As the circular argument threatened to restart, Aseraian gave a slight shake of his head.
“Just don’t miss the conference in a fortnight.”
“A fortnight? What conference?”
“…You didn’t hear about it?”
“First I’m hearing of it…….”
“I informed you two days ago at 12:50 that you needed to attend the Imperial Conference in a fortnight,” Luka said quietly.
Aseraian’s eyes narrowed further.
Sensing that pointed look, Cheiyan began inching toward the corner again.
“Don’t even think of skipping this one.”
“Why do you only hound me? The Frozen One up north misses them all the time!”
“Then spend three hundred years sealed behind the Tower Master’s doors, shut away from the world. Once you’ve done that, you can claim you’ve earned the right to skip a conference.”
“…….”
Watching Cheiyan pout with his lips thrust out as far as they’d go, Aseraian clicked his tongue lightly.
“I do hope he’ll make an appearance this time.”
“Will he? Don’t get your hopes up.”
“Mother seemed determined to summon him no matter what this time.”
“Fat chance it’ll work.”
At Cheiyan’s scoff about futile hope, another long sigh escaped Aseraian’s lips.
Part 6. The Imperial Conference
Knock, knock.
A land where snow swirled through every season.
The Persha Duchy, nestled at the northernmost edge of the Debrica Empire.
Once part of the Debrica Empire proper, it had long ago been granted autonomy and established itself as an independent duchy.
Knock, knock.
The Grand Ducal Residence of Persha, blanketed in pristine white snow.
Del, the Grand Duke’s aide, exhaled a silent sigh at the figure beyond the silent door—someone who gave no sign of acknowledgment.
“I’m coming in.”
Without waiting for permission, he pushed open the door and stepped through.
Whoosh.
A blast of frigid air surged in the moment the door swung wide. The reason was immediately apparent.
A man stood leaning against an open window, utterly indifferent to the howling blizzard outside. Snow fell thick and wild beyond the frame, yet he didn’t spare it a glance.
Snow-white hair streamed in the wind as he faced the bitter gale, a sight that suited him far too perfectly.
“Kainel.”
The man didn’t respond to Del’s call. Not even a twitch.
His gaze remained fixed on the world beyond the window, his form as still as a statue carved from stone.
‘Sigh.’
Del let another long breath escape him silently.
He’d always been taciturn, but…….
‘It’s gotten worse since that day.’
Since that day when a certain presence that dwelt in the deepest, most hidden recesses of the Grand Ducal Residence had crumbled to dust and vanished.
‘Why did the corpse suddenly…….’
Long ago, a woman known as the Saint—Grace Elrsia.
Her remains had been kept here, in the Grand Ducal Residence of Persha.
Three hundred years had passed since she left the world, yet as if to mock that vast expanse of time, her corpse remained here in perfect form, untouched by a single moment of decay.
The Ice Binding Power.
A force that only the head of House of Persha could wield—a power that froze all things in the world.
Kainel had used that power to preserve Grace’s body all these long years.
‘But then.’
Not long ago, that magic shattered.
Before the Grand Duke’s eyes as he visited that chamber once more, the Ice Binding Power crumbled like a lie, and the corpse swiftly disintegrated.
The body dispersing like smoke.
It happened in an instant—so fast that neither the Grand Duke nor Del himself could take any action. They could only stand and watch, helpless, as it fell to dust.
‘And from that day on.’
His separation from the world deepened even further.
For three hundred years he had kept Persha Duchy sealed away, yet even so, Kainel had not neglected to listen to what transpired within its borders and to take measures as needed.
But now?
He took no action at all, like a man who had lost all meaning in everything.
‘Ah.’
A man who had lived alone for three hundred years.
How could someone as ordinary as I possibly understand and accept his every action?
For having existed through such vast stretches of time, the epithets people used for him were many.
Guardian of the North.
A monster without blood or tears.
One who forgot the passage of time.
‘The Tower Master, if I recall, once called him a frozen human.’
Grand Duke Kainel, who bore countless rumors and much talk.
Yet from the time he was young, Del had served him at his father’s side, and what Del saw was a being riddled with holes throughout—a creature deeply, profoundly lacking in something.
The way he sought out the chamber where Grace slept several times a day, as if trying to fill that void, now appeared only more hollow.
“Kainel.”
Del called to him once more, then continued at once.
“Word has come from the Imperial Court.”
……
Only then did his gaze, which had been fixed on the window, slowly turn away.
His cold silver eyes appeared emptier than usual today.
Del barely suppressed a sigh that was about to escape and carefully handed over the documents he had brought.
“It is a request for your attendance at an upcoming conference. The content concerns how the emergence rate of the Dark Forest has recently increased even near the capital region, and how substantial changes to security are necessary.”
If one were to name the place on the continent where the Dark Forest appears most frequently, it would be here—Persha Duchy.
The Imperial Court’s recognition of the Duchy’s independence from the Empire owed much to this as well, since it was impossible for the capital to bear full responsibility and support for the entire North.
“His Imperial Majesty has sent this.”
What Del carefully set down was a Golden Seal, upon which a lion symbolizing the Debrica Imperial Court was delicately carved.
The Golden Seal—also called the Emperor’s Seal.
Though small enough to fit in the palm of one’s hand, the meaning it carried was immense.
Whoever received this seal was absolutely bound to obey the Emperor’s command, whatever it might be.
Refusal, for any reason whatsoever, was understood as a declaration of becoming an enemy of the Imperial Court.
However, even the Emperor could not use this seal arbitrarily.
The Golden Seal could be used only once during an Emperor’s reign.
And now the current Emperor had used that single seal to summon the Grand Duke.
It was unprecedented, even accounting for the Grand Duke’s seclusion these past three hundred years.
No previous emperor had ever made such a forceful demand of him.
‘Which means the situation is far graver than it appears.’
The increasing frequency of Dark Forest appearances was something Del had already learned of through external informants.
“What shall we do?”
Had this been a normal attendance request like any other, he would have refused.
But with the Golden Seal accompanying the official document, the matter was different. Ignoring the seal would give them grounds to escalate this into war itself.
‘Of course, even if it came to that, he would not care in the slightest.’
Knowing all too well that his master was one who would pay no mind to such threats, Del’s sigh grew deeper still.
“When?”
“…Pardon?”
In that moment, a quiet voice reached his ears.
Del’s eyes flickered with uncertainty—had he just heard something unexpected?
Had he just been asked when the Imperial Conference was to be held?
“I shall attend.”
……!
At his brief words that followed, Del stood frozen with her mouth hanging open.
For three hundred years, he had chosen isolation from the world—and now, at last, he had decided to step beyond that refuge.
* * *
“The Magic Tower,” Seres murmured.
His eyes, fixed on the Magical Stone resting atop the table, were clouded with uncertainty.
“Selling it there would certainly fetch a good price.”
If he took the Magical Stone to that place, as the woman he’d met at the magic shop had suggested, he would receive its true worth.
“She said they’d buy it for whatever I asked?”
There’d be no need to wander from shop to shop, and it would be a clean transaction.
And yet he couldn’t bring himself to walk that path.
A prickling sensation at the back of his neck, an indefinable unease—it kept snagging at his resolve.
‘If I hand it over to Artia without knowing what I’m doing…’
Kainel’s words when he’d given him the Magical Stone kept gnawing at him.
Of course, if someone challenged him on what difference there was between selling it to a magic shop or to the Magic Tower, he wouldn’t have a ready answer.
“But the Magic Tower is… different somehow, isn’t it?”
The place where Artia had once been Tower Master—a place he no longer inhabited—now felt wrong for Seres to deliver this Magical Stone that Artia had so desperately coveted.
‘It’s not right to either of them—Kai or Alti.’
Not that Seres was the type to concern himself with courtesy… but even so, this didn’t sit well.
In the end, Seres slipped the Magical Stone back into his pocket dimension.
Money was tight, but it seemed wiser to do more investigating before he sold it.
Knock, knock.
The sound came just as the door swung open and a figure stepped inside.
It was an elderly man in his early sixties, his bearing calm and unhurried.
“Seres.”
It was Colin, the butler who had left with Agnes.
Not long ago, Seres and Antoniun had sought him out themselves and brought him back.
‘I’d thought he would refuse.’

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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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