Time Healer Ceres - Chapter 26

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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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I had to go inside the shop.
“…Excuse me.”
A faint voice reached her the moment she reached for the door.
The timid tone would have stirred pity in most, but not her.
“No rice left.”
For Seres, it was merely an inconvenience. Besides, there genuinely was no rice remaining.
When was the last time she’d had leftovers?
Today, like every other day, the Black Guild Master had burst in minutes before closing and devoured everything in sight.
And even then, he’d left with longing in his eyes—as if dissatisfied.
“Excuse me.”
Just as she turned to close the door, a man’s fingers caught hold of her sleeve.
He lifted his head slowly, meeting her gaze at last.
…….
As their eyes locked, Seres clicked her tongue.
Early twenties. A soft, youthful face.
A perfectly healthy young man reduced to begging.
“I’m looking for something.”
She had furrowed her brow, assuming he was about to demand food, when his next words made her blink.
“Have you by chance seen my Blue Stone?”
“…Blue Stone?”
What was this odd, yet somehow familiar term?
Only then did Seres examine him more carefully—and recognition dawned on her.
The man sketched on the first page of the 3 Gold book Julia had chosen today.
‘…The Magic Tower Master?’
Chapter 8. The Magic Tower Master, Cheiyan
“Cheiyan? Still no word from him?”
“No. He remains missing.”
“Tch.”
Crown Prince Aserayan clicked his tongue repeatedly.
Meanwhile, Luka—Cheiyan’s secretary, seated across from him—wore his usual expressionless mask.
“Let’s be honest. He’s not missing. He’s been shirking his duties for days now.”
Luka made no move to object. Instead, he quietly reached for the teacup in front of him.
“Luka.”
“Yes.”
“Luka.”
“…What is it?”
Recognizing what Aserayan wanted, Luka’s tone naturally eased into familiarity.
Luka Tshasl.
An old friend who had grown up alongside Cheiyan and Aserayan since childhood.
“What do you think? Where’s that bastard now?”
“Crawling around on his hands and knees somewhere, searching for a Mana Stone, I’d wager.”
Upon learning that the Mana Stone he had long coveted had gone missing, Cheiyan had locked himself in his room for days, wailing inconsolably.
‘My, my Blue Stone… Waaaaahhhhh…….’
‘Luka, here’s last month’s Magic Tower repair invoice. Please get the Master to sign off by next week.’
‘I’ll have it done today, don’t worry… Cheiyan, go cry over there, will you?’
The pitiful sobs echoed through the Magic Tower’s walls like a recurring melody, yet no one paid it any mind. They simply cast Sound-Blocking Magic on themselves and got back to work.
So it was impossible for anyone to notice the moment his wailing stopped.
When Luka finally looked up, all that remained at Cheiyan’s desk was a small note fluttering in the air: “I cannot accept parting with my Blue Stone.”
Just remembering it made Luka’s blood boil again.
He kneaded the back of his tense neck with both hands.
“At least he finished the project on the Warning Items for Black Forest before he vanished.”
Fearing complications if he abandoned the work entirely, he’d left detailed instructions for the Warning Item’s creation. Fortunately, the first distribution had gone smoothly without incident.
“What’s so special about that Mana Stone anyway?”
“You know how he gets when he fixates on something—he completely loses his mind. In terms of sheer obsession, he’s the second worst among us.”
“There’s someone worse? Who’s first?”
“You.”
…….
Aserayan couldn’t bring himself to protest against the flat, matter-of-fact response.
“Why did you throw your lot in with that idiot, anyway? You turned down my offer to be my adjutant.”
“That guy deserves better care than you do anyway. You know it as well as I do—once he gets absorbed in his research, he’s the kind of idiot who won’t drink water for over two weeks.”
Even so, he couldn’t let his friend starve to death.
“Besides, if I’d come to you instead of Cheiyan, would you have been genuinely happy about it?”
Luka knew better than anyone that Aserayan was the one who treasured Cheiyan most.
Who wouldn’t notice how, even while grumbling outwardly about becoming Cheiyan’s secretary, he’d secretly felt relieved and delighted?
The moment he heard that Cheiyan was searching for a Magical Stone this time, that man had mobilized all his subordinates within the system.
‘The world’s biggest little-brother fool.’
There was no rebuttal to that either, so Aserayan simply exhaled in long, heavy sighs.
“So? Are you making any progress? People are already starting to whisper about the Magic Tower Master not showing up to consecutive meetings. Even I’m finding it harder to keep covering for him.”
“We’re searching.”
A long sigh escaped from Luka’s lips for the first time.
“If a new vagrant shows up around Delasi 1st Street, I’ll contact you right away.”
* * *
Whoosh.
“Excuse me.”
“No food.”
“That’s not it.”
“Blue Stone… tsk, no Magical Stone either.”
“It’s not that, either……”
“Then what?”
“Could I have a bit more honey?”
“……”
There are people in this world like that—the kind whose very presence irritates you for no reason.
He looked as though he hadn’t eaten in days, so she’d made him a cup of tea, but apparently he couldn’t stomach anything bitter and kept hunting for honey instead.
Tap.
The moment she set the entire bottle of honey in front of him, Cheiyan broke into a bright smile and eagerly began spooning honey into his teacup.
‘He’s actually going to drink that?’
She liked sweet things herself.
But that was a preference for genuinely delicious sweetness—that sort of sickeningly cloying taste was absolutely out of the question for her.
Whoosh.
“Ahhh, perfect.”
…If he was happy with it, that was fine.
“Once you’ve finished, get out.”
“There’s still a little left.”
“Drink it quickly and leave. I have work to do.”
“But—”
“What now?”
“Why do you keep using informal speech with me? We just met.”
Seres’s footsteps toward the kitchen came to an abrupt halt.
“Listen here, vagrant.”
“I’m not a vagrant……”
“Who let you into this shop after closing time and gave you tea for free?”
“You did.”
“Who gave you honey that costs 3 Gold a bottle?”
“You did.”
“Who ought to keep quiet and stay small?”
“…That’d be me?”
Seres shot him a look that said he should have understood and kept his mouth shut, then simply turned away.
“But—”
“What?”
“Do you really not remember where you lost the Magical Stone…? Or the Blue Stone?”
“Yeah. You know if you ask one more time, that makes ten, right?”
The problem was that hearing he’d spent a whole week searching the ground around here, she couldn’t just send him away and had let him into the shop instead.
He kept asking the same questions over and over—whether he’d really lost the Magical Stone, whether he remembered where he’d lost it.
“How could you lose something like that?”
“Yeah. Imagine being able to lose something like that.”
Watching Cheiyan subtly shift into informal speech, Seres said nothing in return. They weren’t going to see each other often anyway.
Deeming further conversation pointless, Seres slipped back into the kitchen.
Once he finished his tea, he’d leave on his own.
Tap-tap-tap.
Bubble-bubble.
“…Hmm.”
Cheiyan’s gaze drifted from his tea toward the kitchen without his noticing.
The sound of something being chopped in rhythmic thuds, the gentle burble of liquid simmering. And slowly, the warm, toasted aroma drifting through the air.
Though the sun had long since set into the deep of night, Cheiyan smiled like a cat drowsing in warm sunlight, sipping at what remained of his tea.
* * *
“Has he eaten nothing again today?”
“Nothing.”
Del, the adjutant to Grand Duke Persha, let out a quiet sigh as the plate came back from the bedchamber with its food entirely untouched.
He had never been a man of hearty appetite, but lately he had taken to refusing food altogether.
Sleeping poorly, eating hardly anything at all. If this continued, wouldn’t he collapse?
‘Though I know well enough he’s not the type to fall so easily.’
Which only deepened the concern.
He was not a man who paid particular attention to his own body.
Unless someone looked after him, he would push himself to ruin without a second thought—Del knew this all too well.
“Is there no dish His Highness particularly enjoys?”
As the same untouched meals came back day after day, the head cook’s worry only mounted.
The Emperor Debrika had sent the Imperial Chief Chef herself when Kairenelle returned to the capital after so long, yet even that had done little good.
While she had mastered the tastes of the Imperial household well enough, Kairenelle’s palate remained beyond her reach—a puzzle that weighed heavily on her mind.

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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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