Time Healer Ceres - Chapter 29

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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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‘What’s the big deal about eating? It’s just food….’
‘What? You won’t eat? Then you have two choices—take medicine until your stomach’s full, or sit down quietly and eat. Pick one.’
“…….”
Grace had always been particular about making sure he ate his meals.
Watching him sulk over food so often, she would genuinely pull out handfuls of medicine and thrust them at him—as if she truly meant to stuff his mouth with pills if he didn’t finish his plate.
Remembering those distant days, Kainel rose from his seat.
Now that he thought of it, there was that Stew Grace used to make whenever he had no appetite….
“…This.”
Was it coincidence?
Only now did Kainel examine the food Dave had left behind closely, his expression growing peculiar.
“Perhaps it would be better if we prepared something fresh, Your Highness?”
“I don’t know.”
“Serving food from outside to His Grace—if His Majesty were to learn of it, I would surely face punishment.”
The cook remained unconvinced. After all, Dave had brought the food from outside, already prepared.
No matter how popular the dish might be, to offer such a thing to the Grand Duke!
“People speak well of it, though.”
“But…….”
Click.
The cook and aide Dave, who had been lingering outside Kainel’s office all this while, hurried forward as a maidservant stepped out through the door.
“Ah……!”
The moment both of them glimpsed the plate in her hands, astonishment flooded their faces.
A smile soon spread across Dave’s face. The plate in her hands was utterly clean, scraped bare.
“I’ll have to line up again tomorrow.”
Whether it took an hour or two, nothing could stop him now.
Creak.
“……!”
In that instant, the office door swung open and Kainel stepped out.
An overcoat hung from his hand, as though he meant to go out.
“Where is that from?”
“Yes?”
“That food. Where did you buy it?”
* * *
“Sister! A letter came from Dave!”
“A letter?”
Julia came running with a small envelope in her hand.
Somehow word had reached them, and this was indeed a letter from Dave.
Yet even though it was news she had been waiting for, Julia’s expression was not bright. It was rather downcast.
Seres knelt to meet the child’s eyes, stroking her back gently. “What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong?”
“The man he’s living with now—he hits him, I think.”
“What?”
“Look, look at this.”
Seres took the letter Julia held out and as she read through it, her brow furrowed slightly.
The handwriting was rather uneven, pressed down hard into the paper. But the content, just as Julia had said, seemed deeply troubling.
The letter was filled mostly with how Dave’s mother had been unfaithful, and the man she lived with was now violent—and there was even a line saying he thought he might die at this rate.
“Dave’s mom got hit too. That man must be really bad.”
Julia spoke faster and faster, worry for Dave overtaking her.
“Sister, shouldn’t we tell Dave’s Father? You said if we ever heard from him again, we had to tell Father right away.”
“…Yes. We should.”
Seres nodded and carefully folded the letter again.
“I’ll tell him for you.”
“I want to come too.”
“No. You stay here with Colin.”
“…….”
After seeing the look on Seres’s face, Julia, unusually, did not whine or protest. She simply pressed her lips together and said nothing.
Colin the butler watched with concern as Seres untied her apron and cast it aside. Her expression was far from pleasant.
“Young lady, are you certain you’ll be fine going alone? Perhaps I should accompany you…….”
“No. I need to look into something first.”
“Look into something? What do you mean?”
“I was going to let it slide, you know? It felt like overstepping to investigate something based on mere suspicion. But…….”
Her grip tightened on the letter she held.
“You dare try to use my sister?”
“I’m sorry?”
Use?
Unable to fathom what she meant, the butler Colin quickly stepped back, drawing Julia with him.
The way Seres’ mouth lifted at one corner suggested this was no time to draw near.
“Are you angry, sister?”
Julia’s eyes widened too.
She’d seen that expression before.
It was exactly how Seres had looked when she came to fetch her from the sanatorium.
“I’ll be back shortly.”
Sensing that something had erupted, Seres left the shop without delay, leaving the other two behind.
* * *
Knock, knock.
“Who is it?”
Unlike before, the door opened immediately at the sound of knocking, and Dave’s Father appeared.
“Oh? You’re…….”
Recognizing Seres, he cast a puzzled look as if wondering what brought her here.
“A letter came. From Dave.”
“What? From Dave?”
“May I come in for a moment?”
“Of course! Please, come in!”
The man hastily opened the door wider, ushering Seres inside.
“Has Dave really gotten in touch?”
“How about some tea first? My throat’s a bit dry.”
“Ah… yes, just a moment.”
The man hurried to the kitchen to prepare something to drink.
Only then did Seres hand him the letter she’d brought.
As he quickly scanned it, tears began to well in his eyes.
“Dave, my Dave…….”
“The boy seems to be in real danger, doesn’t he?”
“Ugh… sniff!”
“Don’t you think we should file a report first? We need to find him.”
“Yes, we must.”
“Unfortunately, there’s no address in the letter. It would’ve been so much better if he’d included one, given how dangerous things seem.”
“We’ll file a Missing Person Report! We’ll find him, I’m sure of it!”
The man wiped his tears away urgently, speaking with firm resolve.
“You know, I heard that if you file a Missing Person Report and no sign of life is confirmed after a certain time passes, they process it as a Death Processing. For missing persons in the Black Forest zone, it’s one year. Everywhere else, it’s five years.”
“…What?”
“You didn’t know?”
At Seres’ offhand remark, the man’s eyes widened as if hearing this for the first time.
“Go ahead and report it to the guards right away. You should hurry.”
“Yes, yes.”
“I’ll just finish this tea and leave. You can go ahead—I’m hardly about to steal anything, am I?”
The man hesitated briefly before deciding the report took priority. He nodded vigorously and rushed out, eager to show the letter to the guards.
Clink.
A moment later, Seres set down the teacup with a harsh sound and spoke in a low, measured voice.
“I don’t steal.”
I only glimpse the past.
Seres glanced around the house, then pressed her hand to the floor.
At first, there was no particular response—only dust settling at varying depths.
“…….”
But as time passed, everything changed. Faint, indecipherable stains began appearing scattered across the surface.
Seres didn’t stop there. She continued to turn back time.
The hazy traces grew darker, deeper in color.
And at a certain point in the past, the interior of the house was—
“Ha…….”
A hollow laugh escaped Seres.
She’d suspected as much.
Blood everywhere.
There was no other way to describe it.
Seres stood speechless as she surveyed the crimson stains seeping through the floor and walls, spread across every surface without discrimination.
“So it really was the smell of blood-cleaning solvent.”
There was a chemical used to scrub bloodstains from clothes after treating a patient’s wounds.
When she’d first arrived at this house, that scent had saturated every room.
The smell was cloying enough that someone unfamiliar with it would have dismissed it without a second thought.
Of course, he could have had a nosebleed, or accidentally cut himself and used the solvent to clean away the traces.
‘But the insurance?’
Why had he suddenly checked the policies under the names of his missing wife and son?
Why had he asked how long after filing a Missing Person Report a person could be declared dead?
‘Would a normal person do these things?’
Reasonable doubt had taken root and wouldn’t let go.
Yet without authority, she hesitated to act on suspicion alone.
‘And I don’t even have solid proof.’
So she’d decided to wait and watch.
“How dare you try to use Julia?”
When Seres saw the Letter from Dave, she went cold.
He’d tried to mimic a child’s handwriting, pressing down on the pen awkwardly in a way that looked forced.
“For someone who doesn’t even know his own son’s penmanship, he put some thought into this.”
She’d seen Dave’s writing once before, when he’d sent a Letter along with a small Hair Pin as a gift to Julia.
The child’s handwriting had been unusually mature and elegant for his age—she remembered it clearly.
But today’s Letter from Dave bore no resemblance to that script.
The letters slanted slightly to one side, and it looked as though he’d written it with his left hand.

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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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