Fair enough. Maybe a slight boost to XP or something? Because I'm around level 9-10 by the time I reach Cerelia. Or rather, I was... I started up the game to grind some more today, and my save was somehow completely gone. If I can't find it, I'll start from the beginning again :(
What?!
Aw fuck, I'm sorry... I don't expect it but did you fiddle with the save files by chance? Or did you maybe try loading a different version of the game and save in there?
The save files are located in "C:\Users\XXX\AppData\Local\BE_Witches" where XXX is your username, what do you see if you access that folder? Surely they didn't fully disappear, maybe it got misnamed through some bug or something and the game can't find it for that reason...?
I had difficulty beating Cerelia first time through, but after learning and practising the fight system (including a lot of stuff which probably isn’t explained by that point in the game), I could beat her easily at level 11 or so, IIRC. I also didn’t have any problems at that level with the Tunnels fights, despite what the walkthough says.