Time Healer Ceres - Chapter 58

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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 place where Physical Enhancement Magic had been lavishly applied everywhere.
If you did the same training outside and gained 1, here you’d gain 10.
Even serious wounds healed within days, and with her own Healing Magic on top of that, she was confident she could save someone even if they tumbled down from that great height.
‘It was always like that, long ago.’
Though no one seemed to visit anymore, this place had once hosted regular training sessions for the knights of the Elrusia Count’s House.
Familiar, wistful, bitter—a rush of conflicting emotions swept through her, and Seres closed her eyes for a moment.
The vegetation had grown so thick that the path leading to the cave was no longer visible, a sign of how long it had been abandoned. Thick enough to make Seres doubt her own memory.
‘Are they insane?’
Why would they abandon such a precious place?
Had they truly given up on it entirely?
Thinking again of the knights who had once served the Elrusia Count’s House, Seres clicked her tongue repeatedly.
“You really want them to climb that Stone Mountain?”
“Yes. Once they’re comfortable with Stone Mountain, we’ll move on to Snow Mountain next.”
…….
Was she serious? Truly asking them to climb that?
“What are you waiting for? Start climbing.”
…She really meant it?
“You get exactly one hour. Whoever arrives last will double their training intensity tomorrow—remember that.”
“What?”
“Ready…….”
“Wait, wait just a moment! Sister!”
“Go!”
……!
At Seres’s signal, they all bolted forward without hesitation.
Their instincts screamed that they absolutely could not finish last!
* * *
“What’s wrong with them?”
“No idea. They’ve been like this every day lately.”
Airon, the leader of Group A, tilted his head in confusion as he watched them scattered across the classroom—all of them sprawled over desks as if by design.
It was all the more puzzling because they all belonged to Group B.
They’d been rushing off somewhere right after lessons for days now, and whenever they were in the classroom, they looked like this.
What on earth were they doing?
“Hey.”
…….
Airon called out to Antonien, who sat nearest to him.
But he got no response whatsoever from the boy.
Had he fallen into a deep sleep?
‘Still, how dare he ignore me like that?’
Clang!
Annoyed, Airon kicked the desk hard.
Only then did Antonien slowly lift his head and look at him.
“…What?”
Meeting Antonien’s gaze, Airon flinched involuntarily.
What was that vacant expression?
In those eyes, devoid of any spark, as if the soul itself had fled, Airon found himself momentarily at a loss for words.
Coming to his senses amid the stares of others, he finally spoke after a long pause.
“What have you all been up to lately?”
“…Good question. What are we doing right now?”
“You crazy bastard. What are you talking about?”
“Airon…….”
Antonien called his name in a voice tinged with something distant and strange.
“Wh-what is it?”
A sudden chill ran through Airon, and he stared at Antonien with a deep frown creasing his brow.
“You… you were a decent person, at least.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Just… that’s how it is.”
That’s when I realized—all those times you people tormented us were just childish pranks.
“…Hah.”
Antonien exhaled a long sigh and gazed toward those distant mountains that could not be seen from here.
Mountains… mountains… damn these mountains!
Rustle.
As if in agreement with his curse, those who’d been sprawled across desks began lifting their upper bodies one by one.
“……!”
Their hollow expressions were little different from Antonien’s.
“…You wouldn’t understand.”
“The body isn’t tired, but the mind is exhausted beyond bearing.”
“I wish I could just collapse from fatigue, but why won’t this cursed body give out? Why is it still functioning perfectly…!”
“Tell me about it.”
Have they all lost their minds? What are they talking about?
Despite Airon’s bewildered stare, the members of Group B maintained identical expressions of dejection, breathing out only long, heavy sighs.
“You know what’s even more maddening?”
Though exhausted, worn down, and driven nearly insane by the strain—
‘We still want to go back there.’
Antonien and the others stared at their own hands, clenching their fists tight.
They could feel it. Their physical strength, their skill—they were visibly, undeniably improving.
They didn’t understand why exactly, but following Seres’s training regimen produced real, tangible changes in their bodies.
For those who hungered for results, it had become a place they simply could not abandon.
“Snow Mountain starting today, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Shouldn’t we at least bring a scarf?”
“A scarf? I spent all day submerged in that river and didn’t catch so much as a sniffle. If we brought something like that and then got sick, she’d say our mental state was broken—and instead of going to Snow Mountain once, we’d end up going twice. You know how she is.”
“Fair point.”
“Antonien… what exactly is your sister?”
“…I don’t know either.”
Another long sigh escaped the children’s lips.
Watching Group B, Airon’s brow twisted sharply.
Look at them—they’re completely ignoring me right now, aren’t they?
“Hey!”
Swift movement.
“……!”
Thirteen vacant gazes snapped toward him simultaneously.
At their stare, Airon flinched involuntarily.
“Airon, do you know how to clean?”
“What?”
“Learn well. You’ll be doing it soon enough.”
Leaving a bewildered Airon behind, Group B lay back down to catch whatever sleep they could.
The bare minimum of rest before they pushed themselves again.
* * *
“I’m losing my mind.”
Chaien, the Arcane Tower’s Master, sat perched on the windowsill, running his hands through his hair in frustration.
He’d been puzzling over it for days, but found no answers.
“There really is no one, right, Luka?”
“No one at all, sir. If the 21st Door had been opened, word would have spread by now. Whoever opened it wouldn’t have left behind whatever incantations or Magical Artifacts they found inside.”
“Exactly what I’m saying.”
Chaien brushed aside the hair that had fallen irritatingly across his face.
The matter defied logic by any reasonable standard, leaving him with nothing but frustration.
Days ago, he’d managed to open the next door of the small white tower created by Artia, the previous Arcane Tower Master.
He’d found the answer to the 21st puzzle in Artia’s Autobiography First Edition, which he’d discovered at an antiquarian bookshop.
So with a racing heart, he’d opened the door to the 21st Room—only to find……
[Welcome. Congratulations on entering this room for the second time.]
‘…Second time?’
Joy gave way to shock, and Chaien could only stand stunned at Artia’s words.
He was certain he’d been the first visitor to the 20th Room. Yet someone had opened the 21st Room before him?
“And the Magical Artifact was still there, untouched.”
Normally, wouldn’t whoever opens a room claim the rewards inside?
But in the 21st Room, the precious Magical Artifact remained exactly where it was.
“Could it be a malfunction?”
“You think someone as brilliant as Artia would have left such an error in her magical creation?”
Chaien shook his head firmly.
Artia? The Artia herself?
The woman known as the greatest mage of all time made such a sloppy mistake?
“Someone must have entered the 21st Room before me. Keep investigating. Check everyone who’s been coming and going recently.”
“Understood.”
No matter how hard he thought about it, he couldn’t find an answer.
Why would she leave the Magical Artifact untouched?
Any mage would find that temptation impossible to resist.
“Maybe they weren’t a mage at all.”
……!
At that moment, an unfamiliar voice cut into their conversation.
Chaien and Luka, spinning around quickly, caught sight of a figure leaning against the doorframe.
“You are……!”
“…The Frozen One?”
Kainel Persha.
His sudden appearance made both their eyes widen in an instant.
“What? How did you get in here?”
For anyone without permission to enter the Arcane Tower, they would have to break through multiple layers of Defensive Magic.
Just as when the Fire Spirit King had tried to forcibly assault the Arcane Tower and caused tremendous chaos before, the tower was not a place that simply ignored outside intrusions.
The Arcane Tower Master’s office was even more so.
‘What magic could he possibly have used?’
Chaien found that far more curious than his arrival itself.
“A secret passage.”
“A secret passage? What do you mean by that?”
Such a thing existed in the Arcane Tower? There was a passage the Tower Master didn’t know about?
Chaien was so taken aback that he didn’t even notice he was speaking to Kainel without honorifics.
“Want to know?”
“Yes!”
Kainel took a step closer toward Chaien, who nodded eagerly.
In place of Chaien, who showed not a shred of caution, his secretary Luka sighed and quickly moved to block his path.
“What brings you here?”
Wasn’t this all far too strange?
The secret passage aside, the very fact that Grand Duke Persha had come to this place without warning or contact made no sense.
“I came to ask something.”
“What is it?”
“Not you. Him.”
“If I cannot answer, then he cannot either.”
“Where does that confidence come from?”

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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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