Time Healer Ceres

Chapter 1. Who Are You?

‘Where am I?’

When Grace came to again, there was nothing but darkness in the space where she stood.

It felt like she had woken up from an incredibly long sleep, but when she opened her eyes, there wasn’t even a trace of light to be found. She just stared blankly into the darkness… After looking around for a moment, wondering what kind of situation this was, she soon stopped thinking about it and plopped down onto the floor.

Everything just felt like too much of a hassle.

‘I definitely died.’

At least, that had to be the case considering she couldn’t feel any pain in her body at all.

Having someone else’s life placed entirely in your hands was more exhausting than people might think.

“Damn that Black Forest.”

The Black Forest.

A forest of monsters that had begun appearing in the world at some point.

In an instant, black trees would spring up in thick clusters from an ordinary, empty space, cutting off the surrounding area.

The size of each forest varied.

What mattered was that the people who happened to be there could not leave the Black Forest’s territory.

The black trees would only disappear once every monster within the Black Forest had been dealt with, and only then could the people inside leave as well.

However, just as if welcoming new prey, entry from outside was always possible. So mercenaries and soldiers would often enter the forest to rescue those trapped inside.

Since such incidents happened so frequently, there was always an overflow of patients.

The more serious the injury, the more likely they were to seek out Grace herself rather than an ordinary healer, so she had been forced to spend her days constantly busy.

“Even if you made me do it again, I don’t think I could.”

The faces of the countless people she had treated over the years flashed rapidly through her mind.

Pride? Satisfaction?

No, rather than that…

Exhaustion.

Yeah. She was tired.

A terrible, overwhelming exhaustion washed over her, so intense that merely thinking about it made her feel like she was going to throw up.

‘I didn’t even live that long.’

She had lived only a short life, yet despite that, all she felt was relief that it was finally over.

“How does that even make sense?”

Didn’t that mean there had definitely been something wrong with the way she had lived her life?

[…please.]

“Hm?”

Grace, who had been lost in thought for quite some time, suddenly raised her head at the sound of a faint voice.

Then, as though it had been waiting for her, light began pouring down from a single point in the distance.

‘Is it telling me to go over there?’

As if drawn toward something, Grace slowly got to her feet and headed toward it.

[Please…]

Even as she did, the unfamiliar voice continued faintly.

The closer Grace got, the clearer the voice became.

[Please… Please help me.]

The quiet yet distinct voice piercing her ears made Grace stop dead in her tracks.

“What now?”

Because it was a phrase she was so sick of hearing.

‘Please save me… Please…’

‘Help me! Please, help me!’

‘Please, my child… Sniff, please…’

Hadn’t she spent her entire life hearing those words until she was sick to death of them?

“Haa…”

But why?

Wasn’t she dead? Why did she have to hear things like that even after dying?

“It’s a hallucination. This is just a hallucination…”

[Please, help me…]

Letting out a long sigh, Grace eventually started walking again.

Either way, the only thing visible in this darkness was that light.

Whatever it was, she felt like she had to go there.

[Please… help me.]

Before long, she saw a girl who looked to be in her mid-to-late teens.

She was sitting on the floor, sobbing, looking utterly pitiful.

But Grace felt absolutely nothing in particular.

‘I’ve seen this more times than I can count.’

She had spent her entire life watching people cling to her while crying and begging.

Perhaps her emotions had simply been worn completely thin, leaving her incapable of becoming emotionally immersed in someone else’s pain anymore.

[Please…]

“What’s wrong? Are you hurt somewhere?”

[Please help me.]

“So what do you want me to help you with? You don’t seem to have anything wrong with you.”

[Please… Please help me.]

…Let’s just go.

After giving the woman, who kept repeating the same words, a brief glance, Grace was about to turn around.

Well, she had to be able to communicate with someone before she could actually do anything for them.

Swoosh.

[Please… Please, help me.]

“……”

But the next moment, Grace saw the woman stretching out a snow-white hand toward her and had no choice but to stop once again.

The woman’s desperate gaze seemed to beg her to take that hand, and in the end, Grace let out a deep sigh.

It wasn’t exactly difficult to hold someone’s hand.

Grace stepped closer to the woman and firmly grasped her hand, pulling her to her feet. She had been bothered by the sight of the woman sitting on the floor this whole time.

Whoosh!

“……!”

But at that moment, brilliant light burst from the woman and swallowed up the surroundings in the blink of an eye.

“What is this…?!”

[Thank you… Really… thank you.]

No, explain what’s happening!

She needed to figure out what was going on, but her eyelids kept falling shut.

With the woman’s faint voice as the last thing she heard, Grace once again lost consciousness.

[And… I’m sorry. I really am…]

—

‘…What is this now?’

Was death normally like this? Why was a dead person collapsing again and making such a fuss?

‘Haa.’

Well, how was she supposed to know? She would have had to die before to find out. This was her first time dying, after all.

She remembered taking the woman’s hand and being engulfed by brilliant light, but she had absolutely no memory of what happened afterward.

‘Anyway, how long am I supposed to stay like this?’

More than anything, what irritated her was the situation she was currently in.

‘At least let me open my eyes.’

Her entire body felt as heavy as a ton of bricks. She couldn’t move at all, as though something incredibly heavy were pressing down on her.

Perhaps this was what it meant to have died…

‘Then what happens after this?’

At this point, shouldn’t some grim reaper or demon or something have come to take her away?

How long was she supposed to stay like this?

‘This is nothing like I imagined.’

Normally, wasn’t her soul supposed to leave her body, let her take a look at her own dead self, watch the people around her grieve for a while, and then be whisked away somewhere?

What on earth was this stifling, gloomy situation?

“…ress…”

Then it happened.

“Se-re…”

What was that sound now?

A faint voice began reaching Grace’s ears as she lay completely unable to move, submerged in pitch-black darkness.

Had someone finally come to take her away?

Big sister?

As though the voice were a spell breaking a curse, the heavy pressure weighing down on her vanished in an instant.

Grace felt puzzled as she slowly lifted her eyelids, which were finally beginning to regain their strength.

Just as she blinked several times, feeling her blurry vision rapidly come into focus—

“Are you awake?”

The same voice from before pierced sharply into her ears.

She turned her head toward the source of the sound and saw a boy who looked to be around eleven or twelve years old standing there.

When their eyes met, the boy let out a short sigh of relief.

‘What is going on?’

Could that be the grim reaper or demon who had come to take her away?

Even Grace, who had sold her conscience off to the farthest reaches of the world long ago, wasn’t shameless enough to expect heaven after dying.

Seriously, who was this kid?

“Who are you?”

“…What?”

“I said, who are you?”

“Have you gone crazy?”

Seeing the boy scrunch up his face as much as he could, Grace let out a hollow laugh.

It had been a while since someone had so openly called her crazy.

“It’s true that I’ve done quite a lot of crazy things, but does asking a little kid I’ve never seen before who he is really count as one of them?”

“You’re asking your little brother who he is. What exactly am I supposed to say to that?”

…Little brother?

“Who? You?”

Had her parents, who had died when she was young, somehow made a child like that?

As the boy’s expression grew increasingly distorted, Grace’s brow furrowed as well.

What the hell are you?

Click.

Just as the two of them were staring blankly at each other, the door suddenly swung wide open, and several people came rushing inside.