Time Healer Ceres - Chapter 97

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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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“Aria?”
Fake rushed toward her, noticing something wrong about the way she lay slumped over the desk.
“Fake….”
“What’s wrong? What is it?”
When he called, Aria lifted her head, and tears brimmed in her eyes.
Fake’s expression hardened at the sight.
“What happened?”
“Sniff….”
“Did someone hurt you? Who was it? Tell me!”
Aria wiped her eyes and shook her head weakly.
“It’s nothing.”
“Nothing? Don’t lie to me!”
“Fake….”
The tears that had gathered in Aria’s eyes spilled over, rolling down her cheeks.
Her pale hand gripped his tightly—such a trembling grip that it broke his heart.
“I… it’s just so hard…. Sniff….”
“Aria….”
“Because of Seres….”
“…What?”
At the mere mention of Seres’s name, Fake’s face turned cold and hard.
“Sniff… I had no one else to tell this to but you.”
He understood. Aria had always come to him when things grew unbearable.
Before this, too, she’d shed tears before him about Seres making her life miserable.
After that, she and the others had tormented Seres relentlessly to drive her from the Academy, but that stubborn girl never even withdrew.
“I really want to die….”
“Aria, don’t say things like that!”
Aria buried her face in his embrace and began to sob.
“Seres… she’s making my life so hard. Sniff….”
……
As Fake tried to soothe her, he ground his teeth at her final words.
* * *
‘What on earth is going on?’
Ben, a member of the intelligence organization Sky, could only watch what was unfolding before his eyes with bewilderment.
None other than Seres—Seres Drow herself—was being dragged away by a male classmate, his hand locked around hers.
‘How is that possible?’
It was him who had just witnessed her dispatch an A-rank Monster in a single stroke.
After seeing that, he’d sworn to himself: never cross her again, no matter what.
How was he supposed to interpret this—her collapsing under such an obviously sloppy attack and being dragged away like this?
‘What’s the game here?’
Ben could only watch quietly. He’d been given prior instruction.
‘Don’t interfere, no matter what happens.’
‘Am I out of my mind? Getting involved in someone else’s business with nothing to do?’
‘Yeah. I know you’ve been chasing after me all day with nothing better to do.’
‘Damn….’
He’d said so confidently that he wouldn’t interfere, but did he really have to stay out of it?
Could she actually be unconscious and being dragged away?
“Ugh, this is irritating.”
Ben ran his hand through his hair roughly and let out a heavy sigh.
“I’m not some errand boy.”
With another long sigh, he recalled the request Seres had made and quickly vanished from sight.
Chapter 27. The Mask Comes Off
“Why are you doing this?”
“You don’t know why you’re asking?”
Seres sat in a chair, her hands and feet bound tightly with rope.
Fake ground his teeth as he stared down at her.
“Your mere existence is a nuisance.”
“You talking about yourself?”
“Damn it!”
Thwack!
Fake kicked the chair Seres was bound to with all his strength, and still fuming, he breathed out sharp, rapid gasps of anger.
“Do you have any idea how ridiculous you’ve made me look?”
“You were already ridiculous to begin with, weren’t you?”
Despite her hands and feet being bound, Seres remained utterly composed, which made Fake seize her collar roughly, yanking her toward him.
“Do you know where this place is?”
Of course I know. It’s the spot I’ve been eyeing lately as a perfect place for an afternoon nap.
An Abandoned Building standing far removed from the Academy’s main structure.
A place where no student ever sets foot.
It used to house Club Activities, or so it seemed, but now it functioned as little more than a storage space for unwanted equipment.
‘Well, there are rumors among students about ghosts appearing here, after all.’
Which only made the place all the more forsaken.
“Let’s see if you still say such things after being locked up here for over a week.”
With that parting sneer, Fake strode away and left the building.
Slam!
Watching the thick wooden door shut hard, Seres let out a hollow laugh.
“Softer than I expected.”
So he’s just leaving me like this? Without even gagging me?
No matter how deserted this place is, what if I just scream my head off?
“And all he did was kick the chair and leave?”
I was expecting at least a decent beating.
‘That way…….’
If I were roughed up and left in a mess…….
‘He’d probably like that better.’
Creak—thud.
Moments later, the Basement door opened again, and a single figure stepped quietly inside.
“Hello, Seres.”
A bright smile spread across the newcomer’s face—entirely at odds with the situation.
It was Aria.
“I told you so. I warned you it could get dangerous.”
With a slight pout, she tilted her head and gently smoothed Seres’s disheveled hair.
Her face was full of concern.
“Did you tell him to do this?”
“What an awful thing to say? I only said I was suffering so much because of you.”
…….
“And then that idiot went and did this all on his own?”
She let out a soft, twittering laugh.
“He was the same way with Sense before.”
Sense Bairol.
A talented swordsman with a good reputation, from a solid family of minor nobility—popular among his peers.
But at some point, he began showing interest in Seres.
In Seres, not in her.
“How could that be? That he’d like you and not me?”
So she had confessed first. To Sense.
After that, kind-hearted Seres simply began avoiding Sense on her own.
But she—she had turned that considerate Seres into an obstacle standing between herself and Sense.
She had carefully spread rumors among the other students, ruining Seres’s reputation.
She had even told Fake, with a sorrowful expression, how much Seres was hurting her.
“So when I cried and said how hard things were, he went and started bullying you all on his own, didn’t he?”
She had never asked him to do such things.
It was all Fake’s own doing.
“So it’s wrong to blame me for this.”
“Is all this because of a letter?”
At the mention of the Letter, Aria’s smile vanished for the first time.
Her brow furrowed slightly, and she exhaled a short breath.
“That stupid Tonio.”
The man Princess Nailia had loved for so long.
The man who had eventually become the princess’s lover—Tonio.
“I dated him for about a year.”
It must have been roughly half a year after Tonio received Princess Nailia’s confession and officially began their relationship.
“I was honestly shocked at how easily he gave in to me.”
The image flickered back into Aria’s mind, and the corners of her mouth lifted again in a slow, deliberate smile.
“Isn’t it amusing? That the illustrious princess, that magnificent princess who loved him so dearly, ultimately chose me in the end.”
It delighted her.
She felt far more extraordinary than the princess herself.
How many times had she stifled her laughter, watching Princess Nailia shower her affection on him, completely unaware that he and Tonio were already together.
“But that idiot decided he was going to reveal the truth.”
He’d declared he could no longer deceive Princess Nailia, his dear friend of so many years and his lover—he insisted on laying bare everything.
“That simply won’t do.”
She’d invested so much effort to secure her hold over Princess Nailia!
“I’m supposed to let go of that thread because of some fool?”
Impossible.
It had been nothing but a brief bit of sport, after all—surely she couldn’t allow all her careful work to crumble over something so trivial.
“So?”
“I sent him to the Black Forest.”
…….
“Since he was betraying a dear friend, I asked him to take some time to consider it. I told him if he distinguished himself in the Black Forest, if he made some contribution there, I’d respect his wishes. And wouldn’t you know it—he actually went and signed up for the subjugation.”
Aria’s giggles died. Her brow furrowed sharply.
“He should have just quietly died out there. But he left a letter—a letter confessing everything to Princess Nailia.”
He’d shown her the letter before departing for the Black Forest. He’d said that once he returned, he would deliver it to the princess, revealing all the truth.
He’d asked her to wait just a little longer, promised her that once he came back from the Black Forest, it would all be over.

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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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