I Accidentally Resurrected My Dead Husband - Chapter 25

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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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Chapter 25
“Ern, you know how to get rid of that worm, don’t you? Help me out. Don’t you feel sorry for her?”
Henry seemed to have grown fond of Udith during their time together, troubled by the sight of her collapsed form.
“I don’t know exactly. I know someone who does.”
“Then if you tell me who that person is, I’ll take the lady there and be back. You proceed with the plan.”
Ern’s expression as he gazed at the packed luggage was blank, yet his eyes betrayed the turmoil churning beneath the surface.
Henry assumed this was because the plan to chase after Cliff and uncover the truth of his death had been disrupted, but that wasn’t it. The moment Ern saw the familiar silk pouch, he’d instinctively known this was no mere coincidence.
“Ern.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll sort it out before we go.”
He could have pretended not to see, whether it was coincidence or fate, and left without a word. But Udith stayed with him. The drink she’d offered him, flexing her pride to do so—the horse she’d bought as a parting gift—these things made him hesitate.
Though her hand trembled as she paid the horse’s price, though her face looked as if she were tearing flesh from her own body. Still, the fact that she’d done it despite clearly despising the act struck him as… noteworthy.
……Noteworthy? Could he really call it that? She’d handed over an earldom and an earl’s mansion, saved his life twice—surely a single horse was the least he deserved?
“But who is this person? The one who knows so much about that worm? Is she someone of high standing?”
Henry asked, his tone edged with concern.
“There must be a reason I didn’t suggest seeking her out from the beginning.”
“She’s not. She’s a woman living in the Capital Slums.”
He simply hadn’t wanted to see that woman again.
* * *
Scratch-scratch-scratch-scratch-scratch-scratch-scratch-scratch-scratch-scratch-scratch-scratch-scratch-scratch-
The sound of the worm gnawing echoed directly beside her eardrum, and Udith clawed frantically at her ear. The creature was surely eating through her very lifespan. If she could just destroy the worm, wouldn’t she survive? Udith hurled the silk pouch straight into the fireplace. Sparks flew and scattered.
No matter how fearsome a man-eating worm might be, how could it survive fire? Udith threw more kindling into the flames, trying to suppress her mounting dread with each log.
Yet hours later.
“Even if I hate the sight of it, you can’t just leave it lying around anywhere.”
“……What?”
Ern, who’d gone out early in the morning, returned with the yellow silk pouch in hand.
“But I burned it?”
“It was in the middle of the hallway.”
What? How did it end up in the middle of the hallway? Udith snatched the pouch from Ern’s hand and this time plunged it into a water bucket. No matter how extraordinary this worm was, it was still a living creature. Unless it was a fish, it would suffocate if submerged. But this was Udith’s miscalculation.
When Udith went to the kitchen to prepare a meal, she nearly fainted at the sight of the silk pouch dangling from a shelf.
How does it keep coming back? Fine, the worm has legs—say it crawled away to escape. But the pouch? How is there not a single scorch mark on it?
“If this were easy to get rid of, the entire Count’s family wouldn’t have been wiped out.”
“Will I die like this, Ern? Devoured by a worm?”
There were countless ways to die in this world, yet she had to face this one—consumed by a creature that resembled her own kind. Not a wolf, not a bear, but prey to something that wore an insect’s shape. Is this why I transmigrated? Udith’s appetite vanished entirely. She set down the jam-smeared bread with a dull thud.
“I found someone who knows how to handle it. Keep eating.”
“Really?”
“Yes. We’ll go together in a bit.”
As Udith exhaled with relief, doubt crept in.
“Who is it?”
“My mother’s sister.”
“Your mother’s sister? That would make her my aunt?”
Ern shook his head slightly.
“Then she’s your aunt. Wait—the word ‘aunt’ exists. Why do you say ‘my mother’s sister’?”
Ern’s eyes grew cold. She wasn’t close enough to deserve that name. She was a stranger. No—less than a stranger.
* * *
Was he fifteen, or sixteen? It was the year Ern had just received his knighthood and been assigned to the Knight Order.
He’d been ordered to investigate a house where ghosts allegedly haunted. It was a hazing ritual of sorts, senior knights playing a prank on the new recruit. Ern didn’t believe in ghosts, so he set out with a scoff.
The haunted house was a small, dilapidated cottage at the forest’s edge. It was ordinary and clean—just empty long enough that idle rumors had begun. To maintain the pretense of investigating, Ern opened drawers and cabinets, and beneath the floorboards he found a sack of gold coins.
Inside that sack, which was as large as Ern’s own torso, lay one thing: a yellow silk pouch.
Inside the pouch was a single gold nugget. Without thinking, Ern pocketed it. It was gold he’d found himself; keeping it seemed fair enough. Then he forgot about it entirely. Months later, when he received a substantial bounty, Ern coughed up blood for the first time.
He grew weaker with each passing day. Blood flowed from his ears, nosebleeds came without warning, he coughed blood, and eventually the bleeding wouldn’t stop—he lay bedridden for days at a time.
He thought he was dying. Only then did his mother come to mind. Though the mother in his memories was always drunk, railing that he’d ruined her life—still, he wanted to see her once before he died.
Ern gathered all the money he’d saved and sought out his mother. He couldn’t arrive empty-handed; it wouldn’t be welcome. And what good was money if he was dead anyway?
He thought of it as child support—repayment for the grace she’d shown in raising him for eight years despite being abandoned, pregnant with the Count’s bastard, trapped in grinding poverty and self-hatred.
Ern dragged his ailing body to the house where his mother had lived, but she wasn’t there. Instead, he found his grandmother and his aunt—Camilla. From that day forward, Ern walked the line between life and death. He couldn’t even say how long it lasted. When he finally came to his senses, Camilla, seething with anger, had all but thrown him out.
“Don’t ever come back here again.”
Without hearing any explanation, Ern was cast out. Strangely, within days, his body healed completely.
He never sought out his mother again. Then, some two years ago, just before the Empress staged her rebellion, Camilla came to find him.
It was obvious from her face that she was desperate for money. Ern gave her what she asked without much comment, and Camilla, ashamed, pressed a slip of paper with his house address into his hand.
“If you want to hear the story, come find me.”
A story? His mother’s story? His grandmother’s? He’d felt no curiosity.
Her mother’s face had grown dim in memory—what good would old stories do? She had simply counted it even: a debt paid for the life that was saved in childhood. But the moment Ern saw the Yellow Silk Pouch again at Rainhardt Mansion, she understood that the “story” Camilla had spoken of was not about her mother at all. It was a story about this strange creature.
When she’d heard of the death of Count Rainhardt’s family, she’d briefly recalled the silk pouch and the golden creature. She hadn’t known exactly what happened when someone died from such a thing, but she’d dismissed it as impossible. She’d never imagined that this creature could actually be at Count Rainhardt’s estate.
How had the very silk pouch she’d picked up as a child come to be at Count Rainhardt’s mansion? Whether she liked it or not, the time had come to hear the reason why.
* * *
Camilla’s home.
Udith had come seeking a way to survive, but she felt as though she were sitting on pins and needles. She’d suspected it from the moment Ern introduced her as her mother’s sister, but Ern and Camilla showed no intimacy whatsoever.
They hadn’t even exchanged the ordinary courtesies when stepping into Camilla’s house. Instead of a greeting, Ern had pulled out the silk pouch as if throwing it down, and Camilla had merely frowned and nodded. Her green eyes—so like Ern’s—swept across the pouch.
“I knew you’d come because of this, but I never thought I’d see it again.”
Something ominous. Camilla murmured words that might have been a prayer or an incantation.
“Do you know what this is?”
Ern offered no explanation about Udith, and Camilla didn’t ask who she was or why she’d been brought along. The only question she posed was whether Udith wanted tea. Because of this, Udith found the gathering all the more uncomfortable.
“It’s called a Gold Cicada Worm, Miss.”
“A Gold Cicada Worm?”
“A creature that brings all manner of gold and treasure to whoever it chooses as its master.”
What? Udith found herself staring at the silk pouch with new eyes.
So you were a beneficial insect?
“While the master’s eyes are blinded by the wealth that pours in, the creature devours the master from within.”
Wait—it’s a pest?
“Eventually the internal organs rupture, and the person dies. Hemorrhaging from every opening in the body.”
Udith recalled her own reflection, blood trickling steadily from her nose, and rubbed her forearms. A chill crept across her skin.
“Then what am I supposed to do?”
“There are two ways. One is to bring the creature food as an offering.”

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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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