Time Healer Ceres - Chapter 80

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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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“Why on earth do we have to do this?”
“As a graduation commemorative!”
The whole thing had started because of Artia, who loved planning celebrations and special occasions.
On a day not long before graduation, she had made a request: each of them had to bring something they cherished.
Without understanding why, they had arrived at the Small Forest behind the Academy building, each carrying the object she’d demanded.
“It’s the trend now. Friends bury something in a special place and dig it up again later.”
“Why would anyone do something like that?”
“Why? Because it’s romantic!”
“Let’s go, Grace.”
“Fine.”
“Wait, no! Come on, it’s fun! Don’t leave, don’t leave!”
The two had exchanged looks of disbelief and were about to turn away, but Artia’s whimpering plea left them no choice but to give in to her wishes.
“Let’s come back together in about thirty years and dig it up.”
“Thirty years? Not three? Will this even survive that long?”
“Don’t worry! You know who I am? I’ve cast every protection spell, preservation spell—every magic I know on this box.”
“You certainly know how to waste your talent on pointless things.”
“Hush. Keep talking like that and Kainel, I won’t put your item in the box.”
…….
“The longer time passes, the deeper the meaning and romance become! That’s why we absolutely must come back and dig it up together in thirty years!”
Three hundred years had passed instead of thirty.
Who could have known I would die so soon?
‘It’s not as if those two came holding hands and dug it up.’
Perhaps it was still buried there, untouched. She couldn’t be sure.
Seres walked along the Small Forest path she had traversed so long ago and arrived at a particular spot.
There stood a towering tree, grown tall without limit, stretching toward the sky.
“It’s still impressive.”
Artia had chosen this place because only under a tree that would endure and thrive for ages could their buried treasure remain intact.
‘And she spread the rumor, too.’
She had said this tree was miraculous, that it granted wishes.
After that, countless people came to write their wishes on notes and tie them to the branches, or pray with their hopes and desires.
‘It seems that’s still happening.’
Notes were scattered all over the tree.
No doubt each one held someone’s wish.
‘Do they know?’
That the rumor had been spread by Artia herself.
“Well, that’s fortunate.”
Judging by how pristine the tree still was after such a long span of time, Artia’s prediction had proven right.
If anything, there seemed to be even more notes tied to the branches than before.
At this rate, even a tree without any special power would develop one.
“Around here.”
Would it still be there?
Seres began digging with her shovel at a spot she remembered behind the tree.
Where had the shovel come from? She’d borrowed it from the Academy storehouse.
Chunk!
“They buried it awfully deep.”
‘That way no one else would find it.’
“…Yeah, you were clever about that.”
At the time too, she remembered someone complaining about how deep they were burying it.
Thud!
As she dug deeper, at some point the shovel struck something with a different feel.
“…It’s here.”
It was really there.
The box they had buried so long ago.
Despite being covered in Protection Magic, it remained completely unspoiled, lying in the earth exactly as it had been then.
…….
As Seres lifted the box from the ground, she stared at it in silence for a long moment.
Her heart felt strange.
When they had buried it, she had believed they would always be together…….
Yet here she was now, unearthing it alone.
Click.
After a long moment, Seres finally opened the box.
Three objects lay inside.
Seres withdrew the first item—the one she had placed there herself.
“Ah…….”
She must have been ten years old.
When the “camera” first appeared in the world, Artia had rushed out and bought one, and the three of them had taken their very first photograph together.
Seres stared at the small paper in her palm as though seeing through it.
Artia’s face, brimming with mischief.
Kainel’s expression—cool and detached, not much different from now.
And…….
‘Me.’
Grace, as she had been then.
A younger version of herself, standing among her friends with a faint smile captured in that moment.
You were right about that, Artia.
I’m not sure about romance…….
“……But it is a memory.”
So that’s why it became such a trend.
“This is…….”
Next, Seres picked up what Kainel had placed in the box.
A small pouch, snow-white, held something within it.
That fool Kainel had never told her what he’d put in here, right to the end.
“Hmm.”
Seres lifted the pouch, then carefully set it back in the box. It didn’t feel right to open his things without him present.
Her gaze shifted at last to the final object.
Rustle.
“……?”
The moment she reached for what Artia had left, she felt a presence.
Seres spun around, and for once, she couldn’t help but show her surprise.
She immediately understood why she hadn’t sensed anyone approaching so close.
“Kai…….”
Kainel was walking toward her slowly.
“…….”
His gaze fixed on the box at her feet.
Seres offered an awkward smile and hastily covered the box.
Better late than never, wasn’t it?
“What brings you here?”
She tried to change the subject.
But Kainel offered no reply. He merely stared at the box, unblinking.
“…I found it by chance.”
“By chance?”
“Yes, by chance. During a walk.”
“You carry a shovel on your walks, then?”
“Digging is a hobby of mine.”
“…….”
Without a word, he stepped closer.
Seres’s voice—which had been rambling on about how something had jutted out of the ground, how she’d dug it up on a whim, how strange it all was—grew quieter and quieter.
He stood face to face with her now, his eyes meeting hers directly, utterly motionless.
“It’s a situation you could easily misunderstand, I’ll admit…….”
“April 3rd, year 1213.”
“…What?”
Seres, who had been offering excuses quite unlike herself, froze mid-sentence.
And with that, Kainel posed one final question.
“On that day, what were the last words Artia spoke to Grace?”
“…….”
A question so painfully familiar to Seres.
* * *
[Welcome. Congratulations on opening this room’s door for the third time.]
“The third time, you say?”
The Tower Master Chaien had entered once more what was called the other Arcane Tower, a space he hadn’t visited in some time, for he had recently discovered the answer to open the door of the twenty-second room.
But then…….
“Why is there yet another one!”
Chaien found himself tearing at his own hair as the former Arcane Tower Master, Artia, spoke words that once again plunged him into confusion — just as she had before.
Last time, he’d been dumbfounded to hear her congratulate him on entering the room “for the second time,” but now it wasn’t even the second visit — it was the third!
“Does this even make sense?”
Who is it? Just who could it be!
“Wow…….”
She didn’t take that with her either.
Chaien’s expression fell as he gazed at the Magical Item sitting neatly in the corner.
I mean, if she wasn’t going to take something like that, why enter the room at all! Why!
“Who are you? The person who opened this room’s door before me?”
[…….]
True to form, the specter only responded to predetermined questions, and no answer came to his question.
[This is the twenty-third problem. When I was eighteen, I went into an S-Rank Black Forest and came back with one thing. What was it?]
“How on earth would I know that!”
[Wrong answer.]
“Damn it!”
[What? Did you just curse at me? Get out. Now.]
“Wow, you hear that but not the other stuff? I don’t like this! I’m not leaving! I won’t go until you tell me who you are!”
Whoosh!
“Tell me who you areeeeeee!”
Chaien’s plaintive cry echoed through the Tower as the Forced Expulsion Magic drove him from the room.
* * *
‘You were right, Artia.’
「Don’t worry anyway. He’ll definitely find you.」
The last words Artia had left behind.
Back then, I’d told her she was wrong — that Kainel would never recognize me.
“Do I need to ask again? On April 3rd, 1213, what was the last thing Artia said to Grace?”
“…….”
I’d suspected it to some degree already.
That he’d figured something out.
‘That day…….’
When I saw Kainel sleeping beside me, I’d thought as much.
It was hard to imagine him sleeping peacefully with anyone but Artia and myself nearby.
‘So why did you keep pretending not to know?’
Because I knew his nature too well.
The moment I admitted I was Grace, I could already see exactly how he’d respond.
He would try to restore everything to me.
He would gather everything that Grace Ellecia once possessed and lay it at the feet of Seres Drow.
‘By whatever means necessary.’

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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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