Time Healer Ceres - Chapter 99

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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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She couldn’t tell who was on the other end of the Communication Stone, but it was already active.
And then came a voice.
— Hello, Seres.
It was Aria’s voice.
“Aria?”
Nailia called out, wondering what was happening, but there was no response.
It seemed the other end had blocked out their sound somehow.
“Princess Nailia, is something wrong?”
“Are you communicating with Aria?”
The students who had been watching since the strange man appeared in the classroom gathered closer.
— That’s why I warned you. It could get dangerous.
The noisy classroom gradually fell silent at the voices pouring from the Communication Stone.
And the unexpected words that followed.
Everyone was at a loss for words.
What are we listening to right now?
Is that really the Aria we know?
— Stupid Tonio.
…
Of everyone in the room, Princess Nailia had received the greatest shock.
“You’re the one who sent Tonio to the Black Forest?”
“No, that’s not it!”
Aria shook her head frantically.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but it’s all been fabricated! I could never do something like that!”
“…Fabricated?”
“What crazy person would inflict wounds like that on themselves…”
“Yeah, I know. You’re the crazy one.”
…!
Aria’s head snapped around as she cried out her innocence, tears streaming down her face.
Seres was entering the classroom slowly, her presence unmistakable.
“S-Seres!”
Aria burst into tears and rushed toward Seres, clinging to her legs and sobbing.
“Please, please stop. All right? Sob. I don’t even know what I did wrong… Please… please just tell me what you want and I’ll do it. Even if you hit me… I… I won’t run away anymore… Sob… Please…”
The sight of Aria whimpering as she touched her bleeding wounds was truly pitiful.
Seres knelt down to meet her gaze.
Swish.
“Good makeup job.”
“What?”
As Seres touched Aria’s wounds, the bruises and bleeding vanished as if they had never been.
The faces of those watching grew visibly colder.
Had that performance been a lie as well?
“H-how is this…”
The wounds she had inflicted herself had just disappeared!
Only Aria, the one who didn’t understand the situation, stood with her mouth agape.
Seres, who had watched all of this with fascination, stood and approached Princess Nailia.
“Shall I restore the Letter for you?”
Clink.
Seres withdrew a small Glass Vial and shook it.
…
That must be the restorative potion, presumably.
Princess Nailia looked down at Aria, still huddled on the floor.
Aria’s eyes flickered uncontrollably as she stared at the vial.
“I’d appreciate it.”
Princess Nailia retrieved the torn Letter from inside a book and handed it to Seres.
“N-Princess Nailia! That’s a lie! It’s all something Seres made up! You mustn’t be fooled!”
Yes, that’s right. It’s all a lie.
‘What’s in this vial is just water.’
Aria thrashed about shouting, but no one paid her any mind.
Drip.
The moment a single drop from the Glass Vial fell onto the Letter, something extraordinary happened: the charred portions that had disappeared in the fire began to reappear, line by line.
“Please, take it.”
Princess Nailia accepted the perfectly restored Letter and began reading through its contents carefully.
A Letter she had kept with such yearning for all this time…….
Yet no emotion showed on Princess Nailia’s face as she gazed at the restored Letter.
“…….”
After a moment, having finished reading, Princess Nailia folded the Letter neatly.
“Princess… Princess Nailia.”
At Aria’s desperate call, Princess Nailia glanced at her briefly, then left the Classroom without another word.
“Ah…….”
Unable to hold her back any longer, Aria collapsed heavily back onto the floor, her head drooping low.
What should she do?
How could she possibly resolve this situation?
Should she chase after her right now and say the Letter had been tampered with?
“Aria.”
“……!”
“What are you still doing here?”
“You… you!”
This was all because of that wretch! After treating her as a friend all this time!
“How dare someone like you……!”
Aria’s teeth ground together as she lunged toward Seres.
Or rather, she tried to. She wanted to grab her hair, shake her—anything to ease this burning sense of injustice.
Whoosh!
“……!”
But as she watched a hand extend toward her face in the blink of an eye, Aria could only flinch.
Just as she thought she’d take a blow, a fist stopped inches from her face.
Seres, who had been quietly observing Aria’s ashen complexion, unclenched her fist and opened her hand.
Tap-tap.
At the light touch of fingertips against her forehead, Aria’s muscles gave way entirely, and she crumpled back to the floor.
Seres bent at the waist, brought her face close to Aria’s, and whispered softly.
“Stop causing trouble. Before you regret it even more.”
“……!”
Her voice was calm, like a teacher scolding a child.
Aria’s face drained of all color.
The faintest hint of killing intent had been enough to make her quake like an aspen leaf.
‘Well, even setting that aside, your future’s looking pretty bleak anyway.’
Thinking about it, trembling was justified.
Seres glanced around the room and let out a small, cold laugh.
The students watching Aria huddle pathetically on the floor all wore the same cold, distant gaze.
Noticing the shift in atmosphere, the corners of Seres’s mouth lifted slightly.
* * *
“Brother Alexis.”
A quiet Garden she had taken to visiting recently.
The same place where Seres had seen through her disguise before.
Prince Alexis, sitting alone there, could only feel bewildered as he saw Princess Nailia approaching him.
Had it been nearly half a year since he’d last heard her voice?
Part of that was because he’d been away from the Capital, but since that day, she had refused even to meet his eyes properly.
So why was she speaking to him so suddenly today?
“This.”
Princess Nailia unfolded the Letter she’d been holding and showed it to Prince Alexis.
At first he had no idea what it was, but then he recognized the Letter.
‘How is this possible?’
He’d burned that Letter himself.
“You knew all along, didn’t you?”
That Tonio—the man she’d been seeing—had been with Aria at the same time, someone she’d thought was her friend.
“That’s why you burned this Letter.”
The Letter contained Tonio’s confession of everything—the same confession she’d heard through the Communication Stone.
The word “love” wasn’t meant for her at all, but was written to mean his love for Aria.
“Why did you do it?”
She asked the same question she’d asked before.
Why? What was his reason?
Why did you burn that letter?
“You could have just left it alone.”
Why go out of your way?
“Don’t ask. Why did you do it?”
Are you not going to answer this time either?
Princess Nailia fixed her gaze on Prince Alexis, her eyes boring into him as if to say: don’t you dare run away like you always do.
“I don’t know.”
“…You don’t know?”
“I don’t know why I did it.”
He had no proper explanation for why he’d meddled in someone else’s affairs, something that didn’t suit him at all, or for what had happened that day.
“It annoyed me. It irritated me, so I burned it.”
That was it. If he had to give a reason, that was all there was.
Irritation.
The pathetic sight of someone so foolish, deceiving themselves, keeping garbage by their side without even knowing it.
The stupidity of watching them smile in front of everyone, oblivious to it all.
…….
Princess Nailia exhaled a long sigh as she watched Prince Alexis fall silent at the end of that confession.
“Because they annoyed you?”
That didn’t make any sense.
If it was the sight of Aria deceiving him that bothered him, he should have left the letter where she could find it instead.
“Brother.”
At her call, Prince Alexis suddenly turned his head toward her.
“Do I still look seven years old to you?”
‘Oh no! Brother Alexis, Jameson won’t play with me. He says he doesn’t like me.’
When she was young, whenever something happened, she would run to him and throw a tantrum.
Why had she done that? Even then, his body was weak; he rarely left his bed.
But to her, Prince Alexis was the only one she could lean on.

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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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