Time Healer Ceres

“More importantly, where is she?”

Why did she go outside without a second thought? In a situation like this, what could she possibly hope to accomplish?

Cheion roughly brushed a hand through his hair. He needed to find her before things became dangerous. Surely, she hadn’t already fallen victim to a monster...

Wooooong!

“Huh?”

“What was that?”

“The trees...”

At that moment, a strange tremor rippled through the air. The black trees that had covered the sky and plunged the surroundings into darkness began to shrink away.

That could only mean one thing.

“...The boss is dead?”

There was no way all the Bakura were wiped out in such a short time. If the Black Forest was disappearing, the only possible explanation was that the boss was killed.

“Who in the world did that?”

Ignoring the shock of those watching, the darkness rapidly receded as light returned to the streets.

***

“Ceres!”

Thud thud thud!

The moment Ceres stepped into the shop, Julia came running straight at her and threw herself into her arms. She must have been worried when Ceres went outside. The child’s eyes reddened in an instant.

“My lady, are you hurt anywhere?”

“Are you alright?”

The others were just as busy asking after Ceres’s safety.

What did she go outside for? Did she slip out to secretly check on the mercenaries? Really? But why?

“Uh, I’m fine.”

Pretending not to notice their questions, Ceres soothed the child for a moment. Her violet eyes swept across the inside of the shop.

There are no signs of an attack, but what is all this?

“What is this defensive magic around the shop? Did you break the protection stone I gave you?”

“Ah, someone named Cheion came by earlier.”

“Why was that fool here?”

He didn’t come in the middle of all this just to get a meal, right?

“He earnestly asked for the protection stone you gave us, my lady, so he set up defensive magic around the shop in exchange before leaving.”

“A protection stone?”

At Butler Colin’s explanation, Ceres clicked her tongue. Of all things, that fool just had to notice it.

Why do I have a bad feeling I’m about to get dragged into something troublesome again?

“It seems the Black Forest has been neutralized.”

When the clear sky began to reveal itself, they all sighed in relief.

“It’s fortunate the boss was dealt with so quickly. Perhaps because it happened inside the capital, the response was incredibly fast.”

“I only hope the other areas didn’t suffer too much damage.”

“Indeed.”

Jay and Mark gazed anxiously out the window, worried about the nearby shops.

A Black Forest in the middle of such a busy district... did all those people manage to evacuate safely? With so many shops lining the street, there was no telling how much was destroyed.

Among the buildings visible through the window, damaged structures could be seen here and there.

“Doesn’t the government compensate people for the damage caused by the Black Forest?”

“That’s right. They cover all of it.”

Colin nodded at Jay’s question. Any damage caused by the Black Forest was fully compensated by the state.

“Really? They pay for everything?”

This is the first I’m hearing of it. Was it like that in the past too?

Ceres’s eyes widened at their conversation. Back when she had lived as the head of House Ellesia, she had only concerned herself with traversing the Black Forest.

She had never paid attention to trivial matters like compensation, so this was all unfamiliar to her.

“Then do you think they’ll pay for this too?”

“...Pardon?”

Ceres casually pointed toward one side of the shop. The broken remains of a chair were still scattered across the floor.

“Let’s ask them to compensate us for this too.”

“......”

My lady, you were the one who broke that. Not a monster.

Everyone could only force awkward smiles as they watched Ceres drag the broken chair outside the shop, determined to claim compensation no matter what.

“I’ll handle it, my lady!”

Only Colin, the ever-faithful butler of House Drow, enthusiastically agreed with her and declared it a splendid idea.

.

.

.

Chapter 11: Head of House Ellesia

“You still don’t know who killed the Bakura boss?”

“Yes. We investigated immediately, but no one witnessed it.”

At the far end of Delasi First Street lay the corpse of a gigantic rat, so large it was comparable to several buildings put together.

It was the boss monster of this Black Forest outbreak.

When a Black Forest vanished, the monsters it had spawned disappeared with it. However, any monsters that were killed remained where they fell.

By the time Crown Prince Aseraian arrived with his troops, everything had already ended.

He was puzzled by how quickly it was resolved, but he soon thought it wasn’t impossible. Delasi First Street was known for always being crowded with mercenaries.

“Your Highness, look at that.”

“...What is it?”

A wooden stick?

Embedded perfectly in the center of the boss’s skull was an ordinary wooden stick one could find anywhere. There were no other signs of attack at all.

In other words, the boss had been killed in a single strike to its weak point. And not with a sword, but with that wooden stick. If someone possessed such skill, then at the very least, a mercenary guildmaster should’ve been present.

“But there was no one?”

Among the mercenaries inside the Black Forest at the time, not one possessed that level of ability. They were just average members.

Who could have done it?

“Your Highness.”

“Hm?”

At his adjutant’s quiet call, the Crown Prince raised his head. His gaze landed on a familiar figure.

Could someone’s mere presence send such a chill through the air?

So the rumor that touching him would freeze your whole body wasn’t an exaggeration.

Grand Duke Kainel Persia. The man calmly examined the Bakura boss’s corpse with an unreadable expression.

“......”

Kainel kept his gaze fixed on the wooden stick lodged in the exact center of the boss’s head.

“Your Excellency?”

When he remained motionless for quite some time, his aide Del cautiously called out to him.

Did he notice something unusual?

“Why?”

“Pardon?”

Del was bewildered. He saw confusion in Kainel’s eyes. It was the first time he ever witnessed such an expression from him.

Just what did he see?

“...You don’t know who it was?”

A long moment had passed before Kainel finally spoke again.

At his question, Aseraian’s adjutant visibly flinched. Kainel’s gaze was fixed directly on him.

“Yes. No one saw the person who killed the boss.”

The adjutant answered as calmly as he could, pretending he wasn’t tense at all.

Why was the Grand Duke so interested in the one who had slain the Black Forest’s boss?

Him, of all people?

As the ruler of the Persia Grand Duchy, where Black Forests appeared frequently, he had definitely seen bosses of this level dealt with countless times. There was nothing especially remarkable about it.

“......”

As though he had no further questions, Kainel turned away. Del hurried after him.

Wondering if they had overlooked something, Aseraian and his adjutant carefully examined the Bakura boss’s corpse once more.

“Is there something strange about it?”

“Well... as for anything unusual...”

Yet in the end, the only thing that stood out was the crude wooden stick lodged squarely in the center of its head.

“They didn’t take the mana stone.”

At those words, Aseraian’s gaze shifted to where the monster’s heart should be.

The area was perfectly intact without so much as a scratch. Normally, once a monster died, its mana stone would be harvested. It was usually located near the heart.

For that reason, the chests of dead monsters were almost always torn open.

“What should we do?”

Usually, whoever killed the monster claimed the mana stone as their reward. It was an unspoken rule. But now, no one knew who had killed the boss.

“Take it out for now.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

They could hardly leave it there. A mana stone taken from the boss of a Bakura would be worth a considerable sum.

A moment later, a knight split open the creature’s chest with his sword and pulled out a crimson mana stone. It was larger than a grown man’s fist. The eyes of everyone nearby were immediately drawn to it.

“Keep investigating what happened.”

“Yes!”

“How about Cheion?”

Having more or less wrapped things up, Aseraian asked after Cheion, who had arrived ahead of him.

To be honest, at first he had suspected Cheion might be behind all of this. With Cheion’s skill, destroying a Black Forest in such a short time would’ve been easy enough.

However, there wasn’t any trace of magic on the boss’s corpse.

“It seems he went there, as usual.”

At his adjutant’s matter-of-fact reply, a short sigh escaped Aseraian’s lips.

“The stew shop?”

***

“Oi, you!”

“...What?”

Since when were we close enough for you to call me that?

The moment Ceres re-entered the shop, Cheion came striding toward her with fury in his eyes.

She only stared at him in disbelief.

Why am I being yelled at right now? What exactly is that idiot so angry about?

“Where the hell have you been? Do you know how long I’ve been looking for you?”

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!