Time Healer Ceres - Chapter 93

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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!”
Why did he have to leave things in this state every single time?
It all started when Grand Duke Persha brought in a young noblewoman who had lost consciousness.
Chef Teddy was well aware that this woman had recently been preparing meals for Grand Duke Persha in his stead.
‘This woman is cooking instead of me?’
‘Yes. I hope you’ll understand.’
‘So then…!’
When his aide Deniel asked for his understanding, Teddy’s pride was wounded and his mood soured at first.
But he soon relented and cleared out the kitchen without complaint.
If his own efforts wouldn’t work, what difference would another cook make? Especially when the new arrival wasn’t even a professional chef?
And yet….
‘You cleared everything out, then.’
‘Yes. It seems the food pleased his palate. How fortunate.’
When he saw a plate return completely empty for the first time, Chef Teddy’s expression remained blank for a long while.
When that young lady had moved about the kitchen cooking, it had only made him want to laugh bitterly.
After that, the Grand Duke’s meals had all fallen to her care. And each time an empty plate came back, he felt something hollow inside.
How could such simple, unremarkable food overshadow his own cooking?
Word had come from the Imperial Palace telling him to return, but he found he couldn’t leave as things stood. He had to discover what that food was—the food that had captured Grand Duke Persha’s palate.
Then, several days ago, that young noblewoman had returned to his arms unconscious.
The problem was!
“What did you make today?”
“Salad, stew, and bread.”
“Just… just those three things, and yet….”
The kitchen had ended up like this?
Groan.
It was because Grand Duke Persha insisted on coming to the kitchen every day to cook the meals himself.
“Did you come in at dawn again?”
“Yes.”
When everyone had first seen him standing in the kitchen, their shock had been absolute!
‘G-Grand Duke? What are you doing in the kitchen right now?’
‘I’m going to make soup. For the patient.’
‘That’s something I could—’
‘I’ll do it.’
Watching him hold a carrot and stare at it for over thirty minutes, trying to figure out how to cut it, had been agonizing.
‘Why does he look at that bell pepper like it’s his sworn enemy!’
When he’d sliced it, his knife work had been so vicious—as if executing an enemy—that everyone nearby trembled.
‘Though I have to admit, his blade technique is excellent.’
The trouble was that making a single dish meant every tool and ingredient in the kitchen ended up strewn about and in complete disarray.
“Sigh.”
Chef Teddy could only let out a long, weary sigh as he gazed at the kitchen, now rendered unusable for the day.
* * *
“Are you feeling better now?”
“Yes.”
“That’s a relief.”
The moment Seres arrived at the Academy, she was summoned to the Staff Room and had to face her homeroom teacher Deniel.
She’d already missed four days, and now she was being called in practically as soon as she returned. It was understandable, given the circumstances.
‘Besides, I never intended to take four days off in the first place.’
This was all that wretched Kai’s fault!
Why did he have to insist on keeping her there and forcing her to rest when she’d said she was fine? What kind of twisted hobby was that?
“But how do you know Grand Duke Persha?”
“Pardon?”
“The one who came to submit your Medical Leave request turned out to be Grand Duke Persha’s aide.”
“Oh….”
She’d only heard that someone had submitted a Medical Leave request; she hadn’t gotten the details of who had done it. So it must have been Aide Deniel himself.
“A Debt Relationship.”
“Pardon?”
“A debt collector.”
“…A debt collector?”
“I should take my leave now.”
Though the thick glasses made Deniel’s expression difficult to read, Seres caught the unmistakable widening of his eyes and offered a light bow before slipping quietly from the Staff Room.
Click.
……
Moments later, as Seres entered the Classroom, she noticed a figure on her way to her seat.
A girl her age, sitting by the window at the far end of the room.
‘I had no idea. The princess was in our class.’
Nailia de Debrika.
It was only today that Seres discovered they shared the same class.
‘Well, I’ve never paid attention to anyone else anyway.’
If she hadn’t seen the girl at the Imperial Palace party last time, she still wouldn’t know.
Though they hadn’t exchanged proper greetings then, something about her had stuck in Seres’s mind—
‘Because of that stare.’
The way those eyes had fixed on her, so laden with displeasure.
She’d wondered if she’d done something terribly wrong.
But when she came to class today and found them in the same room, it all made sense.
Now it was clear.
For whatever reason, all the students in the class despised her.
“Nailia!”
Just then the classroom door swung open and someone rushed in.
A voice bright with delight, hurrying straight toward the princess.
It was a girl with wavy golden hair and eyes of such vivid green they seemed almost lovely.
“Aria.”
A faint smile flickered across the princess’s face—until then blank, her gaze fixed on the window—before fading again.
The girl called Aria broke into a radiant smile of her own.
“How are you feeling?”
“Much better now! Thanks to your concern.”
She bowed her head slightly in apology, her bashful smile impossibly endearing.
“Oh! Aria!”
“You’re back! Welcome, Aria!”
Moments later, the other students flocked around her, eager with their greetings.
“Hey, everyone! How have you all been?”
Surrounded in an instant, Aria answered each greeting in turn, her laughter lighting up the room.
Hmm.
Seres watched from her seat for a moment, then laid her head down on the desk as she always did.
Evidently this student had been absent from the Academy for some time as well.
‘Why would I care?’
She might as well get some sleep.
“Seres!”
……?
But moments later, a voice forced her to reconsider.
Aria was approaching her with a brilliant smile—this student named Aria.
She came running with far more brightness than when she’d greeted the princess, clutching Seres’s hand firmly.
“I’m back! You were worried, weren’t you? Look—I’m all better now!”
She rolled up her right sleeve, beaming.
The skin visible inside showed recent burns. Now only faint scars remained.
“Aria, what are you doing?”
“Come here!”
“What if you get hurt again? Don’t get so close.”
Several students rushed over, drew Aria away from Seres, and gathered around her protectively.
The look in their eyes as they regarded Seres was fiercer than usual.
“Why are you all like that? Seres didn’t do it on purpose.”
Aria shook her head gently, trying to placate them.
At that, the murmurs from the surrounding students grew sharper with resentment.
“That’s exactly why you keep getting used.”
“‘Not on purpose’—what’s that supposed to mean!”
“Please, everyone, stop.”
Aria wrung her hands, her expression troubled by their anger.
Seres simply watched the whole situation with a look of sheer disbelief.
‘What are you all doing?’
* * *
Aria Shayellas.
The Shayellas Baronial House was no different from the Seres family—a noble house in name alone.
‘A friend, then…….’
Aria—the one girl at the Academy who had become Seres’s sole friend when everyone else had turned away from her.
“Seres! Let’s go eat lunch together.”
She was obviously sociable, her face lit by a constant, gentle smile.
“…….”
Seres’s gaze drifted toward Aria’s right arm.
She’d heard the original owner of this body had injured it somehow.
It happened during a Cooking lesson, they said. Aria had collided with Seres, who was holding a pot of boiling water, and the scalding contents had spilled across her, leaving her badly burned.
‘You did that on purpose!’
‘What do you mean, obviously? Sense, the senior you used to like, started showing interest in Aria instead!’
‘Exactly! Didn’t something like this happen before?’
But to the other students, it had not looked like an accident.
They had all been convinced that Seres had deliberately poured the boiling water on Aria.
‘If she really had that kind of temperament, wouldn’t that be a relief?’
If she were the sort who’d spill boiling water on someone just because she disliked them, pretending it was an accident, she wouldn’t have chosen death by her own hand in the first place.
And she wouldn’t have let that aunt of hers drag her around like some broken thing.

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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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