Time Healer Ceres - Chapter 23

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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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“…No.”
“Then you’ve never fallen behind on interest payments?”
“Never, sir!”
Of course not.
I’d already verified that interest here had never been late, not even once—unlike other places.
Truth be told, I didn’t even need to investigate. A moment’s thought made it obvious.
‘The original Seeres was timid, nothing like bold.’
There’s no way a girl like that would cheat notorious thugs like Croye’s gang out of money.
She couldn’t repay the principal—not a single coin—but she would have scraped together the interest payments on time, without fail.
“So why did you lay hands on my employee?”
……
Croye swallowed hard.
If he admitted he’d tried to drive the shop into ruin so he could buy it cheap and do whatever he wanted with it, he’d get beaten again, wouldn’t he?
He had just enough sense to know that much, so Croye kept his mouth shut.
Thwack!
“You ignoring me?”
“No, sir!”
Of course, keeping quiet didn’t save him from a beating either.
“If you’ve got something to say from now on, say it to me. Don’t go bothering my decent staff, and if you’re going to cause trouble, come find me and do it here.”
……
Wasn’t that basically just “don’t do it”?
He’d already been beaten senseless—what kind of idiot would go looking for more punishment? Go back to get hit again?
“Answer me.”
“Y-yes, ma’am!”
Once Seeres had sorted out the situation, she surveyed the men still holding their hands up high.
Though she’d given the order, they were sitting on the floor, groaning and covered in wounds—they looked absolutely wretched.
“Come over here one at a time. I’ll treat your injuries.”
“Ma’am?”
Treatment? What kind of treatment all of a sudden?
At the invitation to come closer one by one, they all flinched instinctively.
What if it wasn’t treatment at all, but another beating?
Seeres paid them no mind and smiled at Croye, the ringleader.
“My treatment fee is rather expensive, though.”
So then.
“Let’s call next month’s interest payment even for it.”
……
“Answer me.”
“Y-yes, ma’am!”
Do whatever you like!
Croye and everyone else in the room nodded their heads frantically, as if it were their only chance at survival.
Chapter 7. Haven’t You Seen the Blue Stone?
“Hey, you hear about that?”
“Hear about what?”
Once again this morning, the Stew Shop was bustling, a place where feet came to rest.
Mercenaries who had been waiting to soothe their aching bellies rushed in as soon as the door opened.
“They say the Grand Duke of Persha showed up at the Imperial Conference?”
“What? Really?”
Since it was the day after the Imperial Conference, naturally the mercenaries’ attention was focused entirely in that direction.
Depending on the outcome of the conference, the territories they would defend could change, and their future course could shift entirely—so everyone was on high alert.
“Wow, that monster finally stepped out into the world?”
“Still looks like she’s in her twenties, they say.”
What captured the most attention was none other than the Grand Duke of Persha, who had broken her long silence and revealed herself to the world.
“She really doesn’t age?”
“That’s why she’s called a monster.”
“Right, the ice monst—”
Bang!
…!
A bowl of stew was set down on the mercenaries’ table with an unusually loud clatter.
The two men raised their heads, curious, only to find Seeres staring down at them with a gaze as cold as ice.
‘What? What did we just do wrong?’
‘We didn’t fight, didn’t break anything while drunk, waited quietly for the food… Oh, is it because of my face? That’s it, isn’t it.’
‘Rinse your mouth and wait, you brat.’
The two mercenaries rolled their eyes in a daze, replaying what they’d just done.
“The stew’s ready.”
“Huh?”
“It tastes awful if it gets cold.”
“Ah…….”
The two men caught the meaning at once—shut up and eat—and hurriedly went to work with their spoons.
“…….”
After watching them for a moment, Seeres returned to the kitchen and stirred the simmering stew pot with a ladle, back and forth.
‘Kai came to the Capital?’
All this time, Seeres had deliberately avoided hearing news of Kainel. Because if she heard anything about him, she’d want to go find him.
Why not go see him?
…Because they’d end up fighting.
‘That bastard will never believe me.’
No matter how many times she told him it was Grace, he’d never accept it. Because he was more pragmatic than anyone.
He’d probably draw his sword first, demanding to know what nonsense this was.
‘And if I show him the Mana Stone he gave me as proof, things will only get worse.’
He’d accuse her of stealing it, and he was the type who wouldn’t hesitate to half-kill his opponent before interrogating them.
“Ah, my head aches.”
Just thinking about that scenario made her head throb.
‘And I’m no better, am I?’
She had zero intention of letting him hit her, so she’d draw her sword too. Either way, neither of them would come out unscathed.
“But… a monster?”
Seeres recalled the conversation the mercenaries had been having moments ago and furrowed her brow.
It had never been a particularly kind epithet in the past, but a monster of all things.
‘…Is that what they call him because he doesn’t age?’
Seeres exhaled a long sigh.
It was she who had stopped Kainel’s time.
Kainel’s house, the Persha Grand Ducal House, which had ruled the Northern Region for generations.
The head of the Persha house was granted a single unique ability, passed down only to them.
The Freezing Power.
Though the Persha house was a sworded clan, many mistook them for a mage house because of this ability.
But its nature was different from the magic that sorcerers wielded with Mana.
‘A power inherited through blood, you might say?’
The problem was that this power took a toll on the body.
Most Persha house heads rarely lived past thirty.
‘So I used it.’
Used what?
The Power to Control Time that she possessed.
She had frozen his body’s time at that point in his twenties, just before it began to deteriorate rapidly.
She had locked his body’s time away forever so it wouldn’t decay further.
There was no other way to save him.
‘I meant to undo it later.’
When she herself had grown old and much time had passed, she’d planned to return his time then.
But that hadn’t worked out.
‘How could I have known I’d die so soon?’
And it would be ridiculous to undo his time and die telling him to stop living too because she was about to.
“But… a monster…….”
That’s what they were calling him?
‘Damn…….’
This irritated her. What did they think they knew about him to speak of him that way?
Seeres let out a short breath.
“Seeres, two stews, please.”
“Got it.”
Jay entered the kitchen with a new customer’s order.
Upon spotting the stack of dishes piled high in one corner, his face fell, and he rolled up his sleeves before diving into the washing.
“…….”
In the meantime, Seeres, who had filled two bowls of stew, watched Jay briefly, then picked up the bowls herself and headed out.
* * *
“Lina! Wake up, come on!”
“…Where am I?”
“We came to eat. Snap out of it.”
“…You want to have three-hour conversations with the Magic Tower Master every single day?”
“No, I’ll pass.”
A young man and woman sat in a corner of the restaurant.
While the man across from her looked perfectly fine, the woman’s appearance was something else entirely.
Dark eyes as if she hadn’t slept in days, an expression so hollow she looked ready to collapse at any moment.
“So this is what it means to be drained of energy?”
“Why did you even show that video to the Magic Tower Master?”
“I didn’t show it to the Magic Tower Master—I showed it to my teacher!”
The woman snapped back at the man clicking his tongue disapprovingly.
“Seriously. What is that Mana Stone anyway?”
“My thoughts exactly.”
Lina, utterly exhausted in both body and spirit, slumped forward onto the table.
An act done out of affection for her teacher had somehow become the primary source of her chronic fatigue and hair loss—enough to drive her mad.
A Mana Stone she’d found by chance at the Magic Shop not long ago.
Fascinated by its unusual properties, she’d recorded it on video. She’d been so eager to show it to her teacher, who took great interest in such things.
“I must have lost my mind. Why did I film it?”
She wanted to go back in time and beat that version of herself senseless.
The moment she showed that video to her teacher, everything had gone wrong.
Crash!
‘Eek! The, the Magic Tower Master?’
‘My Mana Stone, my Mana Stone!’
‘Yes?’
‘My Mana Stone—where is it?’
‘The, the Mana Stone, sir?’
The trouble was that her teacher had shown that video to the Magic Tower Master.
After seeing it, the Magic Tower Master, Cheyeon, had come straight to Lina and begun pestering her relentlessly about the Mana Stone.
‘Did you go back to that shop?’
‘Haven’t you seen my Blue Stone again?’
‘That woman—you really don’t know where she lives?’
‘Why? Why? I don’t know!’
…Why, why?
Why does the Magic Tower Master ask the same questions every single day, for three hours at a stretch?
Why? Why!

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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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