I Accidentally Resurrected My Dead Husband - Chapter 32

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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 32
“A steel fist, then?”
Steel’s steel, what’s the difference? Ern let out a soft snort, and Ken—already hot under the collar—swung a fist at him. Despite his bulk, the movement was surprisingly quick.
Ern slipped it by turning his head slightly, then drove inward. He drove his knee up into Ken’s stomach, and the moment Ken doubled over, Ern hooked his leg and sent him crashing down.
Ken hit the mat with a thud. As he struggled to rise, Ern swept a kick at his ribs, then planted a foot on his chest and held him down as he thrashed.
“Referee.”
“Ten, nine, eight…”
For ten full seconds Ken thrashed, but he couldn’t get up.
“One.”
The Referee finished the count, and Ken lay there breathing hard, his face twisted in anguish, venting his frustration uselessly on the floor.
Ken wouldn’t have known it, but for Ern this was only a natural victory. He’d expected it wouldn’t feel like much, but now that it was done, the feeling wasn’t half bad. More than that—there was a thrill to it. He’d thought winning something this inevitable would mean nothing, but it surprised him.
“Kyaaaa!”
From the spectator stands, where most of the crowd had bet on Steel Fist Ken and now cursed and groaned, Udith’s cheer rang out crystal clear. When Ern turned toward the sound, there she was among the weathered men around her, bouncing up and down and waving at him with both hands.
So she could smile like that. Ern watched Udith with something like wonder as the Referee’s voice announcing the victory cut through to his ears.
“The Lanky One wins!”
“…What? What lanky one?”
* * *
The Lanky One’s winning streak continued.
“Hehe.”
Udith’s smile had gone so wide it practically reached her temples.
Ern had won all three matches so far, and Udith’s initial bet of ten Gold had grown to thirty Gold, then to a hundred Gold.
“The Lanky One wins!”
The Referee raised his flag toward Ern. But the victor’s face was anything but pleased.
“Listen, Referee. I’m competitor number thirty-six.”
Ern held up the registration number he’d been given and lodged his protest.
“Yeah, the Lanky One.”
He wasn’t getting it. The Referee clearly hadn’t understood.
“How do I look lanky to you?”
Back in the Slum, even on days when Ern went hungry—and there were plenty of them—he’d developed faster than the other children. At the Knight Order he’d been broad-shouldered too, never lanky by any measure.
“Don’t waste your breath. Guys who look like you always get called that when they come here.”
“Guys who look like me?”
Ern muttered something that sounded purely exasperated.
“Then call me the handsome one instead.”
He swept his sweat-dampened hair back. Even in the dim lighting, his sharp, well-cut eyes and masculine brow were laid bare, and though half-shadowed, his nose was clearly high and straight.
“…What the hell. That’s annoying.”
His beaten opponent, still catching his breath on the mat, managed to mutter it. It would’ve been an obnoxious thing to say even from an ugly man, but from a handsome one it was doubly galling.
“Get off the arena, Lanky One.”
The Referee apparently agreed with him—he made no move to call Ern handsome.
“Jealousy? How ugly of you.”
Ern smiled at them coldly and walked out of the ring. Behind him came curses from the Referee and his opponent, but they landed nowhere near him.
What could he do? He’d been born handsome. Back in the waiting room, Ern stripped off his shirt, which clung unpleasantly with his own sweat and his opponent’s blood. He’d dismissed the fight as trivial, but a fight was still a fight—across his tensed muscles lay a residual, pulsing heat.
He was reaching for a damp towel to at least wash off, when the waiting room’s canvas entrance suddenly swept aside and Udith came bounding in.
“Ern!”
She threw her arms around him immediately, burying her face against his bare chest without a single thread between them and his skin.
“Hey, wait, hold on—”
The soft warmth of her pressed against him made Ern grab her shoulders to pull away, but the harder he tried, the tighter she clung. And somehow she was so strong—strong enough that he could’ve sent her into the ring instead of fighting himself.
“I knew you’d do it. Hehe.”
Each breath of hers across his skin made his already swollen chest muscles jump.
“Fine, fine, but don’t laugh right there, would you?”
And don’t smile like that while you’re at it.
“Settle down.”
Ern pushed Udith away firmly.
“It’s disgusting. That’s all sweat.”
“Disgusting? That’s from me earning money. I could wash it off for you.”
“No.”
As if that were his choice. Ern deftly snatched the wet towel from Udith’s reaching hands.
“You’re in a mood.”
The other fighters in the waiting room chuckled as they watched Udith and Ern.
“Is she your lover? Or your wife?”
“Neither.”
“Are you embarrassed, skinny one?”
“I’m not!”
Not embarrassed, not skinny—or so Ern fumed, though through his irritation he caught a glimpse of Udith grinning like an idiot, drunk on the sight of all that gold.
Though, he had to admit, she wasn’t exactly fit for polite company in that state.
* * *
He’d earned in a handful of bets what would have taken him months of grueling work—scraping together the materials to make two hundred candles and selling them. He’d rolled ten thousand gold into a hundred thousand. If he wagered that same hundred thousand next time?
“Just doubling it gives us two hundred thousand gold.”
And he could do better than that. So what if he threw down everything—every last coin he had? Two million gold could vanish in an instant. It wouldn’t be impossible to settle the entire debt in one stroke.
“Ern.”
Back at the Mansion, Udith leaned against his doorframe and called to him softly.
“Is there anything you’d like to eat?”
A fighter needed proper fuel. She beamed at him with genuine warmth, and he had to acknowledge it—Ern had become useful. Today especially, there was an almost luminous quality to his face.
“Why are you being like this? Treat me normally.”
So he’d brought back a little money, and suddenly his treatment changed? Ern clicked his tongue audibly in disapproval, but Udith’s smile remained unshaken.
“Nothing you’d like to eat? Then would you like a massage?”
“Self-serving motives?”
“Self-serving? My only motive, my lord, is gold.”
She hadn’t given him any truth serum, yet that confession had the unmistakable ring of perfect sincerity. Ern found himself speechless.
“Just keep performing like you did today, tomorrow.”
“So I have to hear that wretched nickname again—’skinny one.'”
“They only call you that because they’re jealous of your looks. Let it slide—handsome men have to be patient about these things.”
Her flattery was genuinely impressive. Udith’s easy smile struck him as almost unfamiliar. Normally, whenever Ern showed even the slightest hint of vanity, she’d glare at him with open contempt. Yet now she heaped praise upon him, and he found it far from unpleasant. But wasn’t it strange that a person’s entire demeanor could shift so radically over a few coins? Ern found himself wrestling with a question he hadn’t faced in ages—one that bordered on philosophical.
He was grappling, in fact, with nothing less than the meaning of existence itself.
“That’s enough. Go.”
Ern peeled away from her—there was no actual massage happening, just her fingers kneading at his shoulders—and waved her off with both hands.
“You’re sleeping?”
“No. I need to think about what money truly means to humanity. That sort of thing.”
Ern flopped back onto his bed and gestured dismissively, but Udith made no move to leave.
“Now? You should be thinking about how to make your fights more thrilling—how to drive up the stakes even higher.”
“You’re saying I won’t fight tomorrow?”
“Then I shall take my leave at once.”
Udith placed her hands on her belly and bowed with exaggerated formality, then tiptoed backward out of sight.
She’s impossible. He couldn’t quite put his finger on why, but there was no denying it. Ern shook his head and collapsed onto the mattress. Ever since the assassin incident, he kept his door cracked open just slightly—and now he could hear Udith moving about in the hall, her footsteps soft and deliberate.
Her hair had brushed his chest earlier, and now some part of that memory lingered, an itch he couldn’t quite scratch. He found himself rubbing absently at his shirt.
Fighting was all he’d ever known, and victory had always been the natural consequence. But had his victories ever brought joy to anyone? He’d fought countless times, won every match, yet there was never anyone to share in the triumph. Until now.
He’d never even questioned that loneliness. It was simply how things were—so ordinary that he’d stopped noticing. If anything, this new feeling seemed far stranger to him. Would Udith wear that same expression of delight tomorrow, if he won again? The thought of her smiling face drifted unbidden through his mind, and he flinched.
Last time you praised me as impressive, and now you want to see me smile? Ern let out a hollow laugh, as if the air were being let out of him.
“… Living in the same house, eating the same meals—I suppose I’ve been worn down by it.”
That’s what makes adaptability so terrifying. On paper, she was his wife. Yet she’d pushed him into an illegal Fighting Arena for profit, and now the sight of her smile moved something in him.
“What if I’m not normal?”
For the first time, Ern began to doubt his own sanity.
* * *
“That’s enough, enough, Ern, I mean—we’re done. We’ve done it, Ern.”
Udith clutched the Gold Coin Pouch to her chest, her eyes shining with elation. They’d been coming to the Fighting Arena for five days now.
Ern had yet to lose a single match, and Udith’s betting record was flawless. One of the other fighters passing by Ern called out, “Keep winning like that, skinny one!” Ern’s face went rigid.
“I keep winning every time, and they still call me skinny? Can’t they acknowledge a handsome fighter? There are plenty of other descriptors—strong one, undefeated one, something. Anything.”
“That’s childish.”
“Skinny is better?”
“Better than being called wimpy, at least.”
Whether Ern glared at her or not, Udith’s eyes were already alight with thoughts of the next match. She didn’t seem to care one bit about his grievance.
“Just win this match too, Ern.”
She made a fist and punched the air once, then strode briskly toward the betting window. ‘She’s going to end up like her brother at this rate,’ Ern thought, clicking his tongue as he entered the waiting room. And then a voice cut through the noise, catching him off-guard.
“So, the corpse that doesn’t rot…”

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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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