I Accidentally Resurrected My Dead Husband - Chapter 14

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 14
“Your hearing’s quite flexible too, isn’t it?”
“Let me see your arm. I need to change the bandage.”
After showing annoyance just moments before, Udith’s attitude had shifted decidedly—eager now to redirect the conversation. Ern clicked his tongue.
Whether he approved or not, Udith unwound the bandage from his right arm. According to the Physician, the Poison Needle hadn’t embedded itself deeply, and they’d extracted it quickly enough that the venom hadn’t spread much. Still, the wound where the needle had struck was swollen dark red.
“It might sting. Bear with it.”
Her hands weren’t practiced at applying ointment, but they moved with surprising care. Ern had endured countless injuries before, yet this was his first time having someone at his side tending to his wounds, changing his bandages.
The Physician had come to examine his injuries often enough in the past, but that was all there was to it. Once the bleeding stopped, he’d simply discard the bandage. If a wound opened again, he’d pour some strong spirits on it and call it done. Perhaps that’s why this moment felt oddly embarrassing to him.
Of course, he was the one who’d asked her to do it—though that had been meant to needle her. He’d never expected she’d actually go through with it. She was clearly doing this to avoid higher medical costs later, which meant she’d take him to a Physician even if the wound worsened. Most people would simply turn a blind eye, let things go. But this… the way she cared made him feel something he had no business feeling.
Spending so much time around someone constantly fretting about money had scrambled his own thoughts. It made sense from a practical standpoint that she should bear the medical costs—after all, he’d been injured protecting her. Yet here he was, finding her carefulness touching. Had the Detoxification not worked properly?
“Are you certain you’ve never harbored any real grudges?”
“Why are you picking a fight with someone who’s nursing you?”
“People are dying right in front of you and you’re barely afraid. Did you work in this line of business once before, then wash your hands of it?”
Ern leaned forward until he was close enough to whisper directly to her.
“Be honest with me. Even if you turned out to be an Assassin, I wouldn’t ask for a divorce.”
“Can’t you see my hands are shaking from fear?”
“Or is that fist trembling because you want to punch me?”
Her instincts were uncanny. Udith turned away from his gaze with a small cough. Ern let out a dry laugh, noting how she didn’t bother to deny it.
“Though I suppose Miss Herington’s real terror is money, isn’t it?”
…….
“So that’s it.”
So money was what frightened her. What was this, some curse of greed hanging over her? Ern found himself staring at the space behind her back, half-wondering if something truly was clinging to her there.
“Sir Ern, when you trace the Mastermind behind every terrible thing that happens in this world, most of them lead back to money.”
Udith finished tying off the bandage with a look that said he couldn’t possibly understand, and there was the truth.
“So we’re certain the Assassins won’t come again for a while, yes?”
“That’s what I said.”
Most Assassination organizations didn’t mount a second attempt immediately after a failed strike. Not only would the target strengthen their guard, but the mere fact of nearly being assassinated would leave them rattled and paranoid for days.
“Usually they wait, let the target drop their guard again. Unless someone’s desperate enough to kill, you wouldn’t expect another attempt within hours—”
Ern stopped mid-sentence and suddenly seized Udith’s wrist as she finished knotting the bandage. A terrible premonition wrapped around her.
“Surely not.”
You said they wouldn’t come, that they absolutely wouldn’t!
At the protest in Udith’s eyes, Ern grabbed his sword and muttered a curse. Whoever it was, they were desperate enough to kill.
* * *
“What do you mean, failed? I sent six of them and they still failed!”
A wine glass flew in an arc from Cliff’s hand, shattering against the wall. An elderly butler retrieved another glass and refilled it while Cliff bounced his leg with visible anxiety.
First he’d sent four Assassins. When they failed, he’d sweetened the payment and dispatched six more. But they’d failed again? And Ern still had that burden called Udith weighing him down?
“Sir Ern is no mere knight, I assure you. Please, calm yourself, Master.”
That was precisely the problem. The fact that Ern was no ordinary knight only heightened Cliff’s desperation. If his memory returned—
Given Ern’s temperament, the moment he remembered that Cliff was the last person he’d shared a drink with, he’d come charging through that door. Yet all remained quiet, which suggested the memory hadn’t surfaced.
Or had it surfaced, and was Ern simply taking time to gather evidence? Cliff began scratching at the armrest convulsively and suddenly shrieked.
“Send eight of them. No—send ten, damn it all!”
“Why not contact ‘those people’ instead, Master? That might be wiser.”
Lost to fear and reason, Cliff tilted a bottle to his lips and flared with anger.
“Why waste breath on them? I’ll decide when or whether to involve them. You just go arrange the Assassins!”
* * *
Several days later.
“Ahhh!”
“—No, use the damn sword if you’ve got one, you idiot!”
Ern slashed open the back of an Assassin driving Henry into retreat, his voice sharp with frustration.
“Why has your skill gotten worse?”
“Even if your mouth’s crooked, your words should be straight.”
Henry shoved the fallen Assassin aside with a grumble.
“I never had great skill to begin with.”
He’d only received his knighthood through connections anyway. The contacts that secured it had withered, and then he’d been dragged to war—not because of any real talent, but by circumstance.
“How many nights has this been now? Honestly, I knew this month’s divination wasn’t looking good.”
Henry managed to rise, using his sword as a walking staff.
It had already been four days since Ern asked him to watch over Udith and stay at the Reinhardt Mansion.
Four nights of Assassins pouring in without pause. Ern had fought most of them alone, yet exhaustion was setting in all the same. Even Ern looked drained as he pushed sweat-soaked hair back from his forehead.
The bandage wound around his right arm, which had been pristine just moments before, now hung in tatters. Because he wouldn’t leave it alone, the wound from the Poison Needle showed no sign of healing.
And that was only the beginning—fresh wounds were accumulating on Ern’s body with each passing day.
“They’re all dead again.”
Henry and Ern, who had been bickering, turned in unison at the ominous voice from behind. Udith had already begun examining the sprawled corpses of the assassins, her words falling softly and methodically.
Beneath hair disheveled from dodging the assassins, Udith’s eyes gleamed with a venom so sharp it looked almost sickly.
“I told you not to kill them all! How am I supposed to uncover the mastermind this way?”
“You’re right—why does your mind go to pieces the moment you grip a sword?”
As Udith and Henry shifted blame to him, Ern was thoroughly exasperated.
Here he was, the reason the two of them were still breathing. Whether Ern lost his words in bewilderment or not, Udith gnawed at her lip, thinking.
This couldn’t go on. If she kept focusing only on keeping an assassin alive to extract information about the mastermind, the whole household would be destroyed before she got anywhere.
“Who could it be?”
She paused mid-wipe of blood from the corridor floor, her lip caught between her teeth. Even if she couldn’t uncover the mastermind directly, couldn’t she at least try to piece together who it might be?
“Someone with both the wealth and the motive to send assassins without end.”
Udith rummaged through the original Udith’s memories as thoroughly as she could, but the original Udith hadn’t done anything to incur the kind of hatred that would warrant assassination.
If there was anything remotely close to a grudge, it was only her refusal of Cliff’s proposal to seize her title.
“So she sent assassins because of that?”
Cliff certainly had motive. As a lawyer, he’d have some means too. But his method nagged at her.
Four assassins sent to kill a single woman? From the very start? One assassin would’ve been more than enough to take down Udith alone.
Then could it be… an assassination attempt on Ern instead?
“But the only person who knows Ern is alive is Henry, isn’t it?”
When Ern went out, he always kept his face hidden. Henry handled any business that required meeting people and investigating.
The charlatan medium knew of Ern’s resurrection, but a charlatan scraping by on petty cons wasn’t likely to spend good money on hiring assassins.
“Who exactly are you speaking with, madam?”
“Talking to myself. Leave me be.”
Henry and Ern whispered between themselves, disrupting her concentration, but Udith fought to keep her focus. Besides Henry, who else could know that Ern was alive?
“…Leon.”
Leon knew.
When Leon came to cause trouble last time, he’d seen Ern’s face. Upon entering the mansion, Ern had carelessly pulled back his hood and yanked away the cloth covering his nose and mouth.
When the commotion erupted and Leon came running, Ern had stepped in to block him—so Leon must have gotten a clear look at Ern’s face.
But even if Leon recognized him, there was no reason to send assassins. Above all else—
“He wouldn’t have that kind of money.”
Udith folded her arms and let out a contemplative hum, and Henry leaned toward Ern with a whisper.
“She’s talking to herself an awful lot—didn’t she hit her head earlier, madam?”
“She’s never been entirely sane to begin with.”
Was he serious? Here she was, working through something crucial, and they offered nothing but hindrance. Udith fixed them with a narrow glare, and Henry flinched, ducking behind Ern’s back.
Whatever Henry and Ern muttered between themselves, Udith pressed on with her reasoning.
“Leon saw Ern. So who would he tell?”
A gambler desperate for betting money would naturally try to turn that information into cash. Who would pay for such information?
“There’s only one person who’d buy it.”
Someone connected to all three of them—Ern, Udith, and Leon.
The man who’d given Leon money and asked him to sell out his sister. The man who stood to gain the most from Ern’s death and this marriage—Cliff Ackerman.
“Just before his death, you said Ern had an appointment and left the inn? Cliff often paid for Ern’s drinks.”
So wasn’t it possible Ern had arranged to meet Cliff? Knowing him, Ern wouldn’t have been wary and would’ve readily drunk what he’d offered him.
“It is certainly suspicious, madam. But the evidence is thin. Even if Cliff were the true culprit, we cannot report him to the Security Force based on suspicion alone.”
Henry was right. Udith, growing impatient, drummed her fingers frantically against the corridor wall before snapping them, as if struck by inspiration.
“Do we really need to report to the Security Force first? Why don’t we go confront him directly?”
“Confront him?”
“Yes. We can’t sit idle forever just dealing with assassins. Even if Cliff isn’t the culprit, if we stir things up enough, something’s bound to surface.”
Whoever it was, she’d find them. She’d make them answer for the damages. She absolutely would.
“That said, madam—”
Henry, watching Udith blaze with determination, opened his mouth carefully.
“Even when fishing for information, you need leverage. Words alone won’t work.”
“Leverage, you say…”
Udith fell silent for a moment, her gaze dropping to the floor.
“I think I have something useful we could use.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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