Time Healer Ceres - Chapter 30

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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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A brilliant smile played at the corners of Seles’s mouth.
“You mean to call my sister as a witness?”
A wife who’d run away with the wind, and a son who’d followed her.
And then a son’s friend, arriving with the excuse of delivering the departed one’s belongings.
From the man’s perspective, it was as though a convenient excuse had rolled right to his feet of its own accord.
Seles smiled viciously as she pictured Dave’s father, who would by now be rushing to the guard station with the letter Julia had received as his justification.
She could see with crystalline clarity how the situation would unfold if she’d never intervened at all.
‘Nothing would come of it.’
After all, the abandonment itself was a fiction.
It was impossible to find a child already dead and a straying husband who’d never existed.
Of course, if the guard station became involved, they could track the courier’s route.
Then confirming where the letter was sent from would be child’s play—but Dave’s father surely had already covered his tracks.
In the end, Dave and the child’s mother would receive Missing Person Status, and after five years….
“Death Declaration.”
All the blame would fall on a man who never existed.
Should the Black Forest happen to manifest in the place where the two were believed to have disappeared, that timeline would shrink to just one year.
In as little as one year, or at most five, the insurance money held in their names would find its way into the man’s hands.
“…There’s no devil quite like this.”
Seles took one last, leisurely look around the blood-drenched house, then unwound time to its original state.
At once, every trace vanished as cleanly as if it had never been.
Glug.
She poured the long-cold tea down the kitchen sink and slipped quietly out of the house.
The light in her eyes as she closed the door was colder than ever before.
‘There’s only one place for a devil to live.’
Go on, live in hell once.
Sidestory. The Mercenary King
“…Back again?”
“Hehe.”
“What hurts today?”
“My arm feels like it snapped clean off.”
“Just the other day you broke your leg, and now it’s your arm?”
“Hehe.”
Grace exhaled a short sigh as she watched the ten-year-old dangling his arm, grinning as though he felt no pain whatsoever.
“At least this time you actually got hit. You said so yourself—someone threw a punch.”
“That’s right. Good on you, Tom.”
Prod.
“Ahhhhh!”
“Definitely broken.”
Grace began her treatment as the boy shrieked at the gentle touch.
“You’re going to end up with chronic pain if you keep this up, Tom.”
Grace wound the bandage around his arm, clicking her tongue in disapproval over and over.
There was that familiar affection one develops for something bothersome—her eyes kept drifting to this rash little creature who kept pushing himself into her life uninvited.
She remembered when he’d thrust his name at her without being asked: his name was Tom, he lived around here, and his dream was to become a mercenary—and even now, the memory drew a soft laugh from her.
She wasn’t mocking his dreams.
To Grace’s eye, he was still just a child, but his physical constitution was remarkably sound.
‘The problem is, he has no sense of fear whatsoever.’
The boy’s daily ritual was simple: he’d show up battered nearly every day, having thrown himself at some mercenary band to pick a fight.
It made perfect sense that he’d look laughable to seasoned mercenaries, given he’d never received proper Swordsmanship training.
At first they wouldn’t even spar with him, but his relentless persistence eventually wore them down into obliging him.
And so Tom would end up here again, injured from yet another bout.
“Why do you insist on becoming a mercenary?”
“It’s cool.”
“…That’s it?”
“Yep!”
…….
She’d even gently extended an invitation for him to join her own house, seeing promise in the boy.
If she taught him Swordsmanship systematically, he was sure to become a fine swordsman.
‘I don’t want to.’
But he’d refused outright, insisting he was going to be a mercenary.
“Rescuing people from the Black Forest is really cool, isn’t it?”
“The knights go into the Black Forest and rescue people too.”
“They’re just not as dedicated as the mercenaries.”
“Well, that’s true enough. There—all done.”
“Thank you!”
Tom grinned as he examined his healed arm.
“You’re not planning to charge at those mercenaries again with that arm, are you?”
“…”
“…Sigh.”
Watching Tom’s eyes dart away evasively, Grace shook her head gently.
“You really do have problems with your judgment. While your arm heals, stay home quietly and read this.”
“Huh? A poetry collection?”
Tom’s eyes sparkled as he accepted the book from Grace.
“Do you like this book, teacher?”
“I do.”
Tom beamed and only then glanced at the title.
Where Your Steps Remain
“The title’s quite poetic too.”
Watching Tom nod with what appeared to be genuine thoughtfulness, a small smile tugged at Grace’s lips.
“Teacher! Will you sign this for me?”
“Sign it?”
“Yes! As proof that you gave it to me as a gift!”
Grace wrote her signature without comment, exactly as the boy wished.
It wasn’t difficult, after all.
Rumble.
“You haven’t eaten breakfast either?”
“Hehe.”
At the sound coming from Tom’s stomach, Grace clicked her tongue.
No doubt he’d skipped breakfast and rushed straight at the mercenary company.
“Come with me.”
“Yes!”
Grace led the boy to the kitchen, where fortunately a patient’s stew she’d prepared earlier still remained, and she served it to him at once.
“This stew really is delicious!”
“Of course it is. I made it.”
“Would you teach me the recipe? I absolutely won’t tell anyone else.”
Tom says the same thing every time he eats the stew.
At first she’d thought it was just polite conversation, but did he genuinely want to know the recipe?
“I’ll teach you if you stay quiet and behave while your arm heals.”
“Ugh…”
At Grace’s condition, Tom’s face fell.
“But even resting for a day sets back my path to becoming the Mercenary King…”
“The Mercenary King?”
“Yes! I’m going to become the Mercenary King for sure!”
“…”
“And I’ll accomplish great deeds in war and rescue lots of people from the Black Forest!”
“Sure, sure. Become the Mercenary King or whatever you like—figure that out for yourself when you’re older. So, do you want the recipe or not?”
“…All right. I’ll behave quietly while my arm heals.”
Tom accepted Grace’s terms, clearly coveting the stew recipe.
Grace quickly wrote down the recipe and tucked it between the pages of the book he was holding.
“Thank you!”
Taking the boy’s cheerful thanks as if he hadn’t just been sulking a moment before, a faint smile blossomed on Grace’s face once more.
* * *
“Hmm.”
Seles stepped into the Drow Mansion’s library for the first time and looked over the shelves with interest.
The library was quite spacious, and there were many ancient volumes.
“So he was a mercenary.”
She recalled hearing that the founder of the Drow Family had been a mercenary.
No wonder, then, that the collection was dominated by books on combat.
“Oh?”
After a moment of browsing, one book caught Seles’s eye distinctly.
“That book…….”
It was a book Seles knew well. She’d opened it whenever she had a spare moment, years ago.
“Come to think of it, it has the same name as the restaurant.”
Where Your Steps Remain
Seles let out a soft laugh upon confirming the book’s title.
Could it be that the person who first opened that establishment had loved this book too?
“Speaking of which, what ever happened to that book?”
She had a vague sense she’d given it as a gift to some little one who’d been rather fond of her, but the memory had grown hazy with all the years that had passed.
Whoosh.
Seles pulled the book from the shelf, wondering if it might be nice to read it again after all this time.
Seeing the book with all the marks of the passing years still clinging to it stirred something odd in her. It was as if only she had somehow stepped beyond all those years entirely.
Seles moved to the window where the sunlight streamed in, settled herself there, and opened the book.
“Sister.”
But at that very moment, hearing Antonian’s voice calling to her, Seles had no choice but to set the book down abruptly on the windowsill.
“What are you doing here?”
“Just looking for a book. Why?”
“Go check on Julia for me.”
Antonian let out a sigh, his brow furrowed with exasperation.
“She’s filled all her worksheets with drawings again. She won’t even listen to me.”
“Should I make her a painter instead?”
Seles clicked her tongue and rose from the windowsill.
“Give her a proper scolding.”
“Really? Should I use the strap?”
“No, wait—don’t be too hard on her. She’s still not feeling well.”
Seles let out another small laugh. Antonian was just as soft-hearted when it came to young Julia as anyone else.
Tap-tap.
With that, Seles and Antonian left the study together.
Thud.
The book that had been resting on the windowsill fell to the floor.
As it landed, the front page lay open and exposed.
A short inscription and a faded signature were inscribed there.
-To Tom, from Grace.

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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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