Time Healer Ceres

“The aroma is lovely. So this is why Alex liked your tea so much.”

The Crown Prince Aseraian took a sip of tea and nodded appreciatively. He was reminded of how Alex always drank the tea Ceres gave him whenever she visited.

“What do you know about the Saintess and Marquis Merial?”

Sitting across from him, Ceres got straight to the point. She needed to know why he had said that to her the other day.

“Did you know?”

“......?”

“Marquis Merial is my grandfather.”

“Ah... I see.”

So what? I already knew that. Is there really a noble in the empire who doesn’t?

Of course, she only found out recently herself.

Marquis Merial was the father of the late Empress, the biological mother of the Crown Prince and Cheion. Anyone with a passing interest in politics would know that.

“He always doted on Cheion and me when we were young. Cheion, especially, is very fond of our grandfather. He’s always been a warmhearted fellow.”

After setting down his teacup, he crossed his legs and sank comfortably into his chair. He looked as relaxed as if he were sitting in his own home.

“That’s why I’m going to deal with Marquis Merial.”

“...What?”

Wait, how did we get from there to this? He skipped something, didn’t he?

How did having a grandfather who had doted on them as children suddenly lead to him deciding to deal with Marquis Merial?

Click.

Ceres was still bewildered by his sudden declaration when Aseraian reached into his coat and pulled out a tiny box. He set it on the table, revealing a pair of pearl earrings inside.

“These are the earrings the Saintess wore.”

“Yuness’s?”

Ceres took a closer look at the pearl earrings. Every one of Yuness’s belongings from the temple had been confiscated by the Imperial Family for the investigation. These earrings were probably among them.

But why the earrings?

“Not just these. I had all the jewelry she wears...”

Aseraian’s smile deepened.

“...fitted with magic that can detect and record sound.”

“...Detect and record sound?”

Ceres repeated his words under her breath, then stared at him in disbelief.

Detect and record sound? That means...

“Are you saying you put eavesdropping magic on all the jewelry the Saintess wears?”

“The way you put it, I sound like a criminal.”

...Isn’t eavesdropping a crime?

“I heard people kept getting murdered at the temple.”

He lifted his teacup again and slowly savored the tea.

“When ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) something strange happens, isn’t it only natural to suspect whoever appeared around the time things started changing?”

“Is that why you put the Saintess under surveillance?”

“Exactly.”

“By sending all those things dripping with magic into the temple?”

No wonder he never got caught.

“I wouldn’t say I just sent them without much thought. I was careful. The items may not look like it, but they were fitted with a device that kept the magic from leaking out.”

When Ceres gave him an incredulous look, Aseraian put on a wounded expression, as though she were being far too harsh on him.

...He really is Cheion’s older brother.

The way he drooped his eyes like a rain-soaked puppy was exactly like Cheion. Of course, unlike Cheion, this was clearly an act.

She knew that, yet she still felt guilty somehow.

“So I heard everything.”

“Heard what?”

“Your conversation with the Saintess.”

“......”

Only then did Ceres understand why he had brought up Marquis Merial. He had been listening in while she was being kidnapped.

But that raised another question.

“The Saintess said she didn’t know him.”

When Ceres had asked the Saintess if she knew Marquis Merial, she had clearly denied it, though her expression had stiffened as if she were caught off guard.

But Aseraian was only able to hear their conversation. He couldn’t have seen that, could he?

“But you’re convinced there’s something between them, aren’t you?”

That must be why she had pushed Marquis Merial so hard at the council meeting. Aseraian smiled faintly as he recalled the Imperial Council session that day.

“Even without that, Marquis Merial’s recent behavior has been rather suspicious.”

“Suspicious?”

“My grandfather has suddenly become very capable.”

“......?”

Suddenly become capable?

Ceres couldn’t quite understand what he meant. Did the Marquis somehow gain a special ability?

“There was an accident.”

Aseraian picked up his teacup again and took a slow sip, as though he were about to tell her a long story.

“A mine collapsed. Fifty-seven people died. Everyone inside should’ve been killed, but...”

Aseraian let his voice trail off, the corners of his lips curling into a faint smile.

“Two people survived without a scratch.”

The public was told that the two had been seriously injured in the accident and had gone away to recuperate. But when Aseraian looked into it, he found that neither of them were injured at all.

“Could those two be...?”

“That’s right. One was Marquis Merial. The other was my cousin, his grandson Veilks.”

“......”

It was strange enough that only two people had survived such a deadly accident without a single injury. Stranger still, those two happened to be related by blood.

“What’s even more suspicious is that everything Marquis Merial has done since then has gone smoothly. It’s as if someone has been paving the way for him.”

Marquis Merial had even managed to interfere with the intelligence networks of the three ducal families.

No one knew that yet, but Aseraian had been quietly watching the Marquis’s family for a long time, so he had figured it out.

“There’s no way Marquis Merial could have done all that on his own.”

Even so, Aseraian always failed to find out who was behind him. Dozens of people had died trying, including highly skilled operatives who had served as the Imperial Family’s shadows for generations. They still hadn’t uncovered a single useful lead.

“But when I started following the Saintess, I came across someone rather intriguing.”

There was one name that kept coming up whenever the Saintess received orders from someone.

Veilks.

His cousin, and Marquis Merial’s grandson.

Of course, it could just be someone with the same name.

But the moment Ceres provoked Marquis Merial at the Imperial Council meeting, he became certain that this Veilks was the same person he knew.

There are times when I can’t hear anything.

Every time the Saintess went to meet someone, his eavesdropping magic would occasionally stop working, as though something powerful were blocking it.

I wonder if Veilks is the one she meets then.

It was strange. Where could they possibly be meeting that his magic devices couldn’t pick up anything at all?

“What is the Black Egg?”

It was the object the Saintess had been desperate enough to find that she had even kidnapped Ceres. Perhaps it was something Veilks was looking for too.

“Do you have it?”

Aseraian asked with a soft smile, his eyes crinkling at the corners. Ceres watched him for a moment before clicking her tongue inwardly.

He even smiles just like Cheion, but it feels completely different.

His smile was just as beautiful as Cheion’s, so why did it give her goosebumps?

Was it because the smile wasn’t genuine?

“I don’t know.”

“Hmm? You don’t know?”

“I suspected the Saintess, so I only used it as bait to see what she would do.”

Ceres deliberately kept Sooty’s story to herself. She wasn’t foolish enough to tell Aseraian everything when she still knew so little about him.

Besides, everyone seems to think Sooty is a Tamer Relic these days.

The rumor had spread after several people happened to see Sooty appear beside her from time to time. Apparently, people believed her Tamer Relic contained two entities.

It wasn’t common, but there were cases where a single Tamer Relic contained two entities with different abilities. So everyone assumed this was just another case like that. Ceres had no reason to correct them.

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