I Accidentally Resurrected My Dead Husband - Chapter 24

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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 24
The foot traffic thinned as they approached Hos Smithy. When they turned down the alley beside the rough-hewn blacksmith’s shop, the atmosphere shifted in subtle, unsettling ways.
“It’s supposed to have a red tassel on the staff,” Udith said.
“That one?”
Wedged between dilapidated plank houses stood a yellowed tent, its entrance marked by a Staff with Red Tassel planted upright like a sign.
“That looks right. Oh? There he is.”
The man who had told Udith about the contamination clinging to her stepped out from beneath the tent canopy at that exact moment.
“Him?”
“Yes. Why? Do you know him?”
Know him? Too well—that was the problem. Ern pulled Udith’s hood down over her face and pivoted sharply away.
‘What in hells is Roam doing here?’
“You’re sure about him?” Udith asked, her voice muffled beneath the fabric.
“Yes, I’m sure. He’s the one who told me about the contamination, remember? But why are we leaving? Do you know him, Ern?”
“He’s no Spirit Medium.”
“Then who is he?”
“A traitor.”
‘A traitor? What’s a traitor doing here, of all places?’
“He served in my old order. We need to get out of here—I’ll explain once we’re clear.”
If Ern had been in the same order, it would’ve been the 3rd Knight Order, the one that guarded the Imperial Consort’s Palace. In the original story, the Imperial Consort—that shadow orchestrator of so much—and the 3rd Knight Order were two halves of the same dark coin. Ern had been the exception.
The 3rd Knight Order had been founded by factions loyal to the Imperial Consort. But Ern, with his blunt and difficult temperament, had been discharged from the 1st and 2nd Orders before being reassigned to the 3rd. Because his nature was not one for smoothing over feelings, he’d never been close with the other soldiers of his unit. They, in turn, had made no particular effort to befriend him.
In the meantime, the Imperial Consort had devised a plan to kill both the Emperor and the Crown Prince, keeping only the Crown Prince’s child. She obtained the female lead—the one carrying the Crown Prince’s heir—and launched her rebellion. At the time, she’d held the female lead hostage to paralyze the Crown Prince’s ability to move. But Ern, who had been charged with watching the female lead, had released her. That failure doomed the rebellion.
The Imperial Consort had regretted never securing Ern’s allegiance beforehand. By the ending, everyone except Ern—who had saved the female lead—was purged along with the Imperial Consort and her faction.
‘So why is someone from the 3rd Knight Order still alive?’
“Damn it.”
Ern, who had been walking with his arm around Udith’s shoulders, suddenly changed direction.
“Another one’s still breathing.”
‘This is absurd. The story ended with every last one executed—a neat, locked-down happy ending. So why are there so many living criminals running around?’ Udith kept her head bowed and quickened her pace.
“This way.”
From alley to alley they moved, Ern’s arm never leaving Udith’s shoulders, until he spotted an abandoned house. Without hesitation, he drew her inside. The cramped interior offered nowhere obvious to hide. Ern wedged Udith into the corner between the door and window frame, then positioned himself in front of her, facing the wall.
……
Every nerve in Ern’s body strained toward the sounds beyond the door. The decrepit outer shutter creaked and swayed in the wind, a desolate, rhythmic groaning.
Trapped between Ern and the wall, Udith found herself in a state of confusion about where to put her hands. Below would mean his hips, around his waist would mean clinging to him, and if she raised them any higher, she’d be pressed against his chest. Resting them on his neck or shoulders felt equally awkward. In fact, that felt like the most awkward option.
She settled on placing her hands somewhere around his ribs.
“Stop groping me. Is this really the time for that?”
His low voice descended against her ear. Udith flinched and curled her hands into loose fists, trying to minimize any point of contact.
“I wasn’t groping you—there’s nowhere else to put my hands.”
“That’s a good excuse,” he murmured, still facing the door, his head tilted slightly toward her. “What do you think now that you’ve gotten a feel for it?”

“……Solid?”
Solid? To be honest, the feel of it wasn’t unpleasant.
“Still honest, even now.”
‘At least he’s trading jabs instead of cracking jokes at a moment like this.’ She wanted to snap something back, but voices drawing near from just outside made her clamp her mouth shut.
“……yes, sir.”
“……look.”
The voices drew closer, becoming clear enough that she could parse individual words.
“I thought I saw someone going in around here.”
Creak— the outer shutter swung open. The fear that sound might escape made Udith bite her lip so hard she nearly drew blood.
“Anyone in there?”
“Doesn’t look like it. But you’re sure you saw something? That they were definitely soldiers?”
“The way they moved said it all. One of them was wielding a blade—trained from the ground up in Swordsmanship.”
‘Were they looking for Ern?’
“Maybe they weren’t looking for us,” one of the outside voices suggested hesitantly.
“Can’t take that chance. Check around here more carefully.”
The footsteps gradually receded. Udith didn’t release the breath she’d been holding until the sounds had faded completely.
“Supposedly they were all dead, but how many of them are still walking around?”
‘What exactly are the Imperial Palace knights doing? Could they have died and been revived like I was?’ The doubt creasing Ern’s brow was set aside—there wasn’t time for it now. First, they had to get out. He seized Udith’s hand.
“We need to move. Now.”
* * *
“We lost them. My apologies, Roam.”
“That’s not it. He was never the sort they could have caught in the first place.”
Ern wasn’t the type to be snared by mere circumstance. Even having died once, his instinct for reading a situation and the way he melted into a crowd remained unchanged.
“You knew him, then?”
“Quite well.”
Roam, who had once served as vice-commander of the 3rd Knight Order, found himself reminiscing about Ern. Whenever there was work to be done, the man would vanish into thin air and shirk his duties. Ask him to teach the younger knights swordsmanship, and he’d somehow reduce them to pulp.
His skill was frustratingly exceptional—so much so that Roam couldn’t beat him into shape, and couldn’t palm him off on the 1st or 2nd Knight Order either. If the man wanted to slack off, he should have stuck with it. Why did he have to grow diligent right before the operation and ruin everything?
“Hmm.”
How was it that he couldn’t recall a single good memory? Roam’s mouth, which had been smiling faintly, hardened into a thin line. Just then the tent flap opened, and an old man dressed as a Spirit Medium entered with a troubled expression.
“Commander Roam, orders have come down to cease operations.”
“Cease? We haven’t even begun.”
Dissatisfaction crept into Roam’s voice. The Spirit Medium’s face was equally bitter.
“Indeed, my thoughts exactly.”
* * *
“They were definitely Followers.”
The Followers—a tribe composed solely of the Shar’tin people and also a kind of religious sect. They worshipped a distant ancestor-god called Duharita, and their objective was the overthrow of the Empire.
Their goal was to tear down the Empire that had long oppressed and despised the Shar’tin, and establish a nation for the Shar’tin alone. In the original work, the Followers were the true puppet masters, and the Imperial Consort was one of their number.
“What are the Followers?”
“Criminals connected to the Imperial Consort.”
Ern’s answer to Henry’s question was hardly an explanation at all. Udith, who knew the source material, simply nodded in silence.
The reason the Followers remained obscure despite being the true power behind the scenes lay with the original work’s female protagonist. She too had come from their ranks, entering the Imperial Palace to seduce the Crown Prince in service of their cause. As the narrative progressed, she inevitably fell in love with him and spared no sacrifice for his sake.
Yet now, even with the female lead as the Current Empress and mother of the next heir, being Shar’tin was viewed poorly enough. What would happen if it became known that she had been part of the Followers, the very nucleus of the rebellion? The current Emperor had treated all Follower-related information as state secret to protect his Empress. The original work had ended with talk of rooting out the evil, but rooting it out—how could the Emperor not know that the traitors were openly operating within the Capital? In any case, since Udith had to feign ignorance about the Followers, she clicked her tongue silently to herself.
Roam, meanwhile, seemed to wrestle with the implications.
“Will you investigate this yourself?”
“Me? What investigation can a dead man conduct?”
Ern was adept at leveraging his status as a corpse when it suited him.
“Send an anonymous letter to Marquis Mosly. He’ll handle it from there.”
If they had been resurrected like him, Marquis Mosly would investigate the reason. With Imperial backing, he’d uncover the cause far more quickly than Ern could on his own.
“You speak as if I’m the only one who should do this.”
“Then you do it, Henry—unless you’d prefer I investigate while dead?”
Ern had cheerfully dumped the troublesome task entirely onto Henry’s shoulders.
“But why did the traitor approach the lady?”
“I seem to recall they gathered Initiates the same way before. Something about a curse clinging to her, misfortune weighing on her—that sort of thing.”
Roam was a knight, not a Spirit Medium. It was far more likely he’d stumbled upon the truth by accident than that he’d actually perceived the contamination clinging to Udith. Henry’s head bobbed in agreement, then his eyes widened suddenly as he turned to regard Udith.
“Then what about your lady wife? That Spirit Medium was her only means of survival!”
“Oh, right.”
‘Oh, right?’ A woman was about to be devoured by insects, and his response was ‘oh, right’? Udith’s jaw clenched as she spoke.
“How touching that you’re finally concerned about me. I think I might cry from gratitude.”
Udith made a show of whimpering, but Ern and Henry’s expressions twisted into something grotesque.
“Ah, my lady? You appear to be actually crying—”
“Hm?”
Udith quickly wiped at her eyes. Crimson tears stained the back of her hand.
“Are you… all right?”
“Perhaps you should see a physician—”
Udith let out a startled hiccup and stared blankly at her hand.
“…Hic.”
Then her consciousness slipped away entirely.

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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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