Time Healer Ceres

But the mysterious creatures only tightened their grip around his body, baring their sharp teeth.

“Graaa... Hiiik! Y-you... you...!”

Then it hit him. The faces of the creatures tearing him apart were strangely familiar. They were the children from the orphanage.

More precisely, they were the children who had either died from abuse at the orphanage or been sold away!

Crunch!

“Graaaaaaaaaah!”

Dozens of children crawled over him, biting and tearing at his body. The pain of being ripped to pieces was too much for Jerry, and he lost consciousness once again.

***

“Aaaaargh!”

Screaming at the top of his lungs, Director Jerry shot upright. Then he froze.

“This place...!”

He knew this place. He had come to in the hallway of the orphanage. He stared around in a daze.

“...A dream?”

Could that really have been a dream? His entire body still throbbed with pain. When he remembered the faces of the children who had torn into him from head to toe, he couldn’t stop trembling.

Slowly, he looked down at his hands. Had it really been a dream? Then why did his whole body still hurt...?

“.......”

Director Jerry stared at his hands, unable to think.

Am I... still dreaming?

Y-yeah. This is a dream.

He cautiously felt his hands.

“Ugh... Aaaargh!”

A terrible pain shot through him. Both his hands were rotting, with fluid dripping from them and the skin completely peeling away.

Fearing the worst, he rolled up his trouser legs, only to let out another despairing groan.

“Ugh... Ughhh.”

His lower body was just as bad. Fluid oozed from the rotting flesh. The places the children had torn apart in his dream were now decaying.

“H-how...?”

He collapsed onto the floor, his face filled with despair. Still unable to believe it, he touched his hands again.

The horrible pain returned at once.

“Aaaargh!”

His agonized cries continued for a long time.

[Remember this. Death only leads to hell for you, mister. Even if living feels like hell, taking your own life won’t save you. You’ll only find another hell waiting for you, so don’t forget that.]

The woman’s words echoed vividly in his ears once again.

***

Crunch.

[The agony of your whole body rotting away... There’s no cure for it. Even sleep offers no escape. Every time you dream, you’ll find yourself being torn apart and devoured.]

Crunch.

[That’s what I call a living hell.]

Ceres nodded as she listened to the report from the woman who had returned after finishing the job. The result was more than [N O V E L I G H T] satisfactory. After all, there could be no more fitting fate for him than to suffer the consequences of his own actions.

The God of Curses, Elliet.

That was her true identity. She cursed people and, on very rare occasions, even granted them good fortune.

A Tamer Relic.

The red fan was another relic that Grace had possessed. After Jubelios, the King of Fire Spirits, it was another being she had come to own.

I really didn’t want it, though.

What else could she say? It practically came looking for her on its own. She happened to see the fan lying on the ground, but she had no intention of picking it up.

It just attached itself to me.

But when she got home, she found it sitting right there among her belongings. She didn’t even need the Holy Spring. The moment she touched the fan, the Tamer Relic manifested on its own.

I couldn’t report it.

It wasn’t just any Tamer Relic. It had the power to curse people. Just thinking about what would happen if she reported this ability gave her a headache.

They’d suspect me whenever anything related to a curse happened.

She had no intention of dealing with that headache, so she kept it a secret despite knowing it was illegal.

Not like I ever had any use for it.

The biggest reason she never took that thing out of her subspace was...

“By the way, what have you been eating this whole time?”

[Oh, this?]

Crunch.

[So, I’m going to steal Ceres’s heart~ Tang-tang huru-huru~ Tang-tang-tang hurururu~]

“......”

[......]

...She simply couldn’t understand what went on inside that thing’s head.

“What are you doing?”

Ceres clicked her tongue as she watched Elliet dance around while holding a stick of some strange fruit.

[It’s fruit candy. Want some? It’s already an outdated dessert in that other world, but I still think it’s the tastiest.]

Crunch.

[Want to go into business with me? I’ll bring over all the know-how from that other world. It’ll be a huge hit here, too.]

“No.”

[Ugh, you’re so serious. You’re definitely a T. A T! And not just any T, either. A capital T!]

...Nonsense again.

Is it any wonder I’m exhausted?

The woman was always spouting things Ceres couldn’t understand. She had no idea what she kept picking up from those other worlds.

Elliet was a god. She might not have some grand title like the Creator God, but she was still a god even if she acted like this.

Though in this world, she’s stuck inside a fan.

She complained about it, but it seemed she could still wield quite a bit of power in other worlds. She was always bringing back strange things, too. According to her, since her true body was bound here, there were limits to what she could do there.

“Are you really going to stay like that?”

Ceres looked tiredly at Elliet’s bizarre outfit.

“What are people going to think if they see you like this? At least if you dressed properly, I could introduce you as someone I know.”

Whoosh!

[Meoow. How about this?]

The moment Ceres finished speaking, Elliet’s appearance changed. Her body shrank before her eyes, and a small cat soon sat in her place. Its snow-white fur was marked with red stripes.

[Meowww. You can have the leftover tanghulu.]

“I don’t want it. And what’s with that way of talking?”

[It’s how humans like cats to talk, meow. Cats have to talk like this if they want to be loved, meow. Don’t you know that, meow?]

“I guess I’m not human, then.”

[Meowww?]

“Forget being loved. You’re making me want to smack you.”

[...Fine, I won’t do it anymore. Happy? I’m telling you, you’re definitely a T.]

What is she even talking about?

Ceres ignored Elliet and glanced at Sooty and Airien, who were sneaking bites of the fruit candy Elliet had left behind.

[Buu!]

Sooty crunched off the sweet part and tossed the fruit to Airien.

[Ppii!]

Thwack!

[Bu!]

Ceres sighed softly as Sooty, after getting kicked by Airien, immediately started throwing a fit.

There are more animals every day.

...Maybe she really should make a separate enclosure.

***

“His body is rotting?”

“Yes. Apparently, several healers have examined him, but none of them could help. They can’t figure out what’s causing it.”

“Hmm.”

Crown Prince Aseraian slowly read through the documents as he listened to his aide’s report.

He had found the orphanage connected to the illegal auction house. But just as he was about to arrest the director, Ceres had made a request.

She had asked him to leave the director alone for now because there was something she needed to confirm with him. She also asked Aseraian to move the children to somewhere safe.

It wasn’t a difficult request, so he had agreed without hesitation. Doing her a favor and putting her in his debt wasn’t a bad deal, either.

He had kept an eye on the orphanage ever since. He was curious about what Ceres was really up to.

Then, an odd report came in. Apparently, the director had completely lost his mind, despite being perfectly normal until recently.

“He keeps spouting nonsense.”

“Nonsense?”

“He says the children are tearing him apart and eating him, or that a cat cursed him.”

“A cat?”

“His mind may have deteriorated along with his physical condition.”

She told me to leave him alone, and he managed to fall apart all by himself?

Aseraian chuckled in amusement.

“So, the Tamer Relic’s master can make a person’s body rot away too?”

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