I Accidentally Resurrected My Dead Husband - Chapter 26

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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 26
“Food?”
“Once a year, if the owner kills a person and makes an offering, they’re told the master can survive. Or you can provide the Geumsampgo with prey instead.”
The Geumsampgo hunts family members one by one. Parents, children, siblings—and finally the spouse. Once it’s consumed them all and has nothing left to eat, it devours the master last.
“I’ve heard that family members who don’t live in the same house are spared.”
“Why is that?”
“I’m not entirely sure. I only know bits and pieces. If the Village Chief were still alive, I would have asked him.”
Camilla, like her mother, knew little about the Geumsampgo. Only the Village Chief at that time—an elderly man of the Shartin Tribe—had possessed any real knowledge of it.
“Even the Chief said he’d only heard of it in legend; it was his first time seeing one. In any case, the second method is to pass the Geumsampgo to someone else.”
It sounded simple, but it was anything but.
“The Geumsampgo chooses its own master, you see. You need to find someone it would fancy—have them steal it, or accidentally pick it up.”
Camilla added that she suspected it was greed or desire that stirred the creature’s interest.
“Of course, remember that whoever picks up the insect will almost certainly die.”
Since few people knew of the creature’s existence, the likelihood of the new owner dying was considerable.
“In other words, you could even let someone you want dead find it.”
Ern’s green eyes, which had been listening in silence, flashed with a sharp gleam.
“This creature—it was at Rainhardt Mansion. How did it get there? And don’t tell me it was chance.”
“No, it wasn’t chance.”
Camilla’s voice wavered slightly, though her expression had remained composed as she showed him the pouch.
This was the true story she needed to tell him—the story she had wanted to share with Ern all along.
“Do you know how your mother really died?”
“You told me she died of illness. Did you forget?”
“No. The truth is, she was murdered. You were too young then—I hid it to spare you the shock. But now it’s time you knew.”
Twenty-five years ago, Ern’s mother Cecil had worked as a maid in Count Rainhardt’s household and became pregnant with the Count’s child.
The Count was already married at the time, with a son of his own. Cecil was cast out from the mansion, and her own mother demanded she rid herself of the child and disowned her. Neither Camilla nor Ern had ever understood why Cecil was so determined to bear him.
Eight years—too brief a span to hold many memories of one’s mother, yet even in what remained, Ern could recall no moment of her happiness. She was always tormented by poverty. Going hungry for days at a time was commonplace. At some point, she took to drink. When drunk, she cursed the Count and lashed out at Ern.
Unable to contain her rage, she would swing at him, then weep with self-loathing for striking her young son before disappearing for a time. When she returned with money, there was a brief peace—until it ran out.
But that peace grew ever shorter. Ern still hazily remembered the terror in his mother’s eyes as she had gripped his sleeping throat, then suddenly startled, slapping her own cheeks in panic.
Why had she stopped? He hadn’t resisted at all.
Ern still had found no answer to that question. He wished he’d asked her before she left, knowing he’d wonder about it for so long.
Days after that incident, Count Rainhardt’s people sent word that they would come for Ern. Cecil didn’t refuse. Neither did Ern.
He didn’t look back at his mother as she accepted a heavy purse instead of her son’s hand. Ern felt neither hatred nor resentment toward her. They had shared the kindest parting their circumstances allowed, or so he’d believed.
“After you left for the Count’s house, I came back home. I heard her crying sometimes at night, but she seemed all right.”
She’d stopped drinking and returned to work. Camilla recalled those brief, peaceful days—the three of them laughing and talking together.
“Then one day, she suddenly claimed that Count Rainhardt was trying to kill you.”
Camilla had thought her mother had gone mad. Why would the Count try to kill his own son? He wouldn’t have taken you in the first place if he meant to.
“She wouldn’t listen to reason. She went to Rainhardt Mansion and caused such a scene, demanding the Countess hand you over. The Countess must have found her utterly unbearable.”
The Countess had her people beat Cecil. Then they threw her, soaked in cold water, into a deserted alley.
“That night was particularly bitter cold. With no one to help her, she simply… passed away on that freezing street.”
When Camilla found Cecil, she was already cold.
“I still see her sometimes, even now.”
Cecil, battered and broken, curled in upon herself, dying alone and without comfort.
“I resented the Countess for it. There was no need to kill her.”
And yet the Countess had her reasons. Why else would she have brought back a bastard child she’d cast out, unless she had use for him? The empire’s borders were unsettled. War was in the air, and whispers spoke of conflict within the decade.
When that time came, the Rainhardt family would need someone to lead their soldiers. The Countess chose to harbor you rather than send her own son, Cedric, to war.
Indeed, she was scrupulous in her care. She dressed you in the same clothes as your brothers, fed you the same food, hired tutors for you. And all the while, she built a debt within you.
That you owed her, since she had taken you in. That you must do something for those who had accepted you as family, despite your different mother.
Meanwhile, she told you that Cecil had sold you for living expenses and was using that money to keep a new man. So when Cecil suddenly appeared, threatening to disrupt her plans, the Countess was deeply displeased.
“After your mother died, our own mother never slept soundly again. Then you appeared—barely alive, half-dead.”
And carrying that grotesque creature.
“The day you arrived, while I was nursing you, I fell asleep. When I woke, Mother was gone. Along with the gold coins you’d brought and that insect.”
Camilla searched for her mother everywhere but found nothing. Her newly discovered nephew was dying, and her mother had vanished. Just before Camilla collapsed from exhaustion and despair, someone who worked at the Gambling House brought her broken, battered mother back.
“When I asked where she’d been, she said she’d passed the creature to your half-brother.”
She had taken work at the Gambling House, unpaid, sweeping floors and waiting for Cedric—Ern’s half-brother and the Count’s eldest son—to arrive.
Once he’d lost all his money, she showed him the pouch of gold coins. A shabby old woman with money was all the temptation Cedric needed.
“He took the coins and the insect with it.”
He could have simply taken the money. But Cedric mounted his horse and trampled the old woman as she fled. The fate of an elderly woman struck down by hooves and left untreated was inevitable.
“Was that when she died?”
“Yes.”
At this story he could never have imagined, Ern let out a hollow laugh. Both his mother and his grandmother had been killed by the hands of the Rainhardt family.
But by handing the insect over to the Rainhardt family, the entire Rainhardt Family perished as well. So was this revenge a success?
“Wait a moment.”
Camilla rose and rummaged through an old cabinet and drawers.
“It should be around here somewhere. Ah, here it is.”
She produced a yellowed document.
“Everything the Village Chief knew about the insect at the time was written down here. I kept it just in case, and look — it’s being put to use like this.”
Camilla hesitated before speaking.
“I’ve put the money you lent me to good use. I’ll repay it someday, I promise.”
“Call it payment for the story.”
Ern crumpled the document into his pocket and stood. There were no pleasantries about staying well, as there had been when he arrived. Only Judith bowed slightly before hurrying after him.
The secrets of the cursed mansion had been unveiled. A means to remove the Geumsampgo had been found.
Now Ern could focus on what truly mattered — uncovering why he had become an undead. With that thought, he hoisted Judith onto the horse.
Judith glanced back at Camilla once before grasping Ern’s waist.
* * *
Upon the horse, heading toward the mansion.
“This feels uncomfortable.”
Ern’s brow furrowed at Judith’s whisper from behind him. He’d anticipated this moment would come once they overheard that unnecessary story together, but it was hardly a pleasant situation.
“I hate pity. Don’t bother.”
“I don’t care for hollow pity either, but this is similar to that. If you’re going to pity someone, you ought to do it with money.”
“So you’re planning to thrust money into my hands out of pity?”
Judith offered no reply. Right, he understood perfectly well. She didn’t want to spend money on pity. He despised being pitied, yet this peculiar sense of being shortchanged — what was that about?
“I could offer free comfort, if you’d like.”
“Not necessary.”
“You’ve become quite mercenary, haven’t you.”
Ern bristled. Where had he seen this exact treatment of himself before?
“It’s not that I’m unaffected. I’m simply not sad.”

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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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