I Accidentally Resurrected My Dead Husband - Chapter 4

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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 4
“I’m grateful for your kindness, Henry.”
Judith hesitated, turning the Bouquet of Lilies over in her hands—whether to return it to Henry or keep it.
“We’re not receiving Condolence Visits at the Residence, I’m afraid. You’d do better to visit the Temporary Grave.”
It was a perfectly plausible excuse, and Judith meant it as a gentle way to send him on his way.
“I’ve already been to the Temporary Grave. I came because I was concerned for the widow, left alone as she is.”
Yet something in his manner suggested his visit was more than mere courtesy.
“Won’t you take a cup of tea with me?”
He had an ulterior motive—her sharp instinct whispered it plainly. This strange man unsettled her; every instinct screamed at her to put distance between them. She edged backward through the threshold, preparing to shut the door in his face.
“I’m sorry, Henry, but I’m afraid I have no tea to offer you. My household is in poor circumstances.”
“Then water will do. The truth is, I have something urgent to discuss with you.”
He had nothing urgent to say, of course. Henry had come to uncover the truth. His fingers brushed against the vial of Potion of Truth hidden in his jacket. But Judith proved far less pliable than he’d anticipated.
“Then say it here.”
“This isn’t a conversation for a doorstep…”
“I’m afraid I can’t invite a strange man into my home. If you have something to say, say it now—otherwise, please leave.”
Judith and Henry stood on opposite sides of the threshold, locked in quiet resistance. As she moved to close the door, he swiftly wedged his foot through the gap.
“Please, madam, it will only take a moment.”
“Leave, or I’m calling the Security Bureau.”
A laugh escaped him.
At the mention of the Security Bureau, Henry let out an involuntary laugh. Who was reporting whom to whom, exactly?
“If the Security Bureau gets involved, it’s someone else who should worry.”
He muttered it under his breath—barely audible—yet Judith stood close enough to hear. And one always hears oneself being cursed at, don’t they?
“What was that? You said the Security Bureau would be a problem for you?”
Judith stepped closer, her voice sharp with accusation.
“Why would it be a problem for you?”
Henry retreated slightly, his lips moving as though tasting something bitter. He’d gone too far to retreat now. He decided to strike directly.
“Because you’re a suspect in Erne’s murder.”
A very strong suspect at that. He added it like an interrogation, watching her face. Judith met his gaze steadily.
“I didn’t kill him.”
The absolute certainty in her manner caught Henry off guard.
Was she truly innocent, or was this an act? His fingers found the vial again. He didn’t want to resort to force on a woman… Henry found himself caught in deliberation.
“You’ve come to investigate Erne’s death, haven’t you? I suppose that makes sense—it was certainly suspicious.”
Watching his uncertain, wavering eyes, Judith sighed deeply and spoke without prompting.
“I understand why you’d suspect me. I do. But I’m truly innocent.”
If he’d come to investigate Erne’s death, he should have simply said so.
Judith laid out the whole story without reservation. There was no reason to keep it secret. She was the true victim in all this. As Henry listened, his expression grew increasingly troubled, his head tilting in confusion.
“So Erne died on the wedding day itself? And you had him buried in a coffin?”
“Yes.”
“But… Erne’s body was discovered in the forest just days ago. After the burial.”
“What?”
They stood staring at each other, their faces mirroring the same bewilderment, heads tilted in unison.
After a moment’s thought, Henry asked Judith to confirm that the man she’d married was indeed Erne. Judith might have married someone else entirely. Judith hesitated, then nodded. Continuing under Henry’s suspicion would serve no one; clarity was necessary.
In truth, Judith had wanted to investigate Erne’s death more thoroughly, but the enormous debt that had fallen upon her shoulders left her no resources to do so. If Henry would do it for her, she had no reason to refuse.
“Let’s go at once. To identify the body.”
* * *
Henry escorted Judith to the Capital’s Security Bureau Morgue.
The Morgue primarily housed victims of crime, but Henry was acquainted with the superintendent and had managed to have Erne’s coffin stored there temporarily.
The superintendent guided them to Erne’s coffin. Judith raised her handkerchief to her nose. The stench was overwhelming—no matter how well ventilated, the smell of death clung to the air in such places.
“We keep the temperature as cool as possible, but we cannot entirely prevent the body’s decomposition.”
Without refrigeration, of course not. Standing before Erne’s coffin, Judith swallowed hard, her throat dry.
“I’ll open it now.”
A corpse already beginning to decay. Fear was not something she could deny. Judith gripped the handkerchief tightly.
‘I only need to see the face.’
The coffin lid creaked open.
Thump.
The sound of the lid being set down made her heart sink. The body was draped in white cloth.
“Please, take a look.”
The superintendent excused himself, asking them to call when they were finished. Henry and Judith stood side by side before the coffin.
“Shall I uncover it?”
……
“Henry?”
Yet the man who’d eagerly called out to examine the body moments before now wore a pallor that would suit him well laid out in a coffin.
“Eh?”
And why are you suddenly lisping like that, Henry? Surely you’re not trying to be charming at a moment like this.
Judith lifted her gaze to look at him. His hands, clasped tightly together, trembled visibly, and his lips couldn’t stay still—biting, licking, never at peace. He was terrified, clearly.
“Shall I open it?”
“Ah, no. I cannot, cannot possibly ask a lady to—”
Whether it was pride or merely courtesy, Judith sighed softly as she watched Henry bend at the waist with a tremble. At this rate, she’d be lucky to confirm even a single strand of Erne’s hair by tomorrow.
“I’ll do it myself.”
“……I’m sorry. I’m a coward.”
Henry flushed with embarrassment even as he quickly retreated. Judith drew a short breath and reached toward the white cloth covering the corpse.
How far had decomposition progressed? Tender areas like the lips decayed quickly, or so she’d heard. Her fingers, pale with tension, trembled faintly. She grasped the edge of the white cloth and slowly drew it back.
Hair like shattered sunlight came into view, and then transparent green eyes that gazed unfocused at her, eyes that looked exactly like those of a dead person—no, he was a dead person!
“Uh—uhhh—”
They said that when people were startled enough, they couldn’t even scream. Judith lost her grip on the cloth and fell back onto her backside, then scrabbled away with her legs while pointing frantically at the coffin with her fingers.
“H-he’s, he’s al—”
Her fingertips quivered. But his eyes are open, they’re open! Our eyes met, Henry, they met!
Judith grabbed at Henry’s pant leg. But he had already frozen in place long ago.
“What, what is—”
Judith’s body felt bound, unable to move. Every hair on her skin stood on end. Her heart pounded so violently that her breath came in sharp, choking gasps.
Both of them remained fixed in place, unable to tear their eyes from the coffin, until the weight of silence was broken when Henry, his legs giving way beneath him, crumpled to the ground with a brief, choked sound.
“……He’s not breathing.”
Judith wrung the words from her throat. The white cloth still covering more than half of Erne’s face remained utterly still.
“He must have died with his eyes open.”
“I distinctly closed them for him.”
Henry forced the memory out. Could his eyes have reopened as rigor mortis set in? Judith tried to steady her racing heart and think as scientifically and rationally as possible.
“Let me finish checking.”
Just confirm it quickly and leave. That would be best. Judith mustered whatever courage she could find and approached the coffin once more. Her heart thundered anxiously in her throat.
‘But how can a corpse dead for days have eyes in such perfect condition?’
The thought puzzled her, but Judith didn’t dwell on it. She could think properly once she’d left this place. She kept her eyes barely open to avoid meeting the corpse’s gaze, clenched her teeth, and drew the white cloth further back.
The cloth slipped down past his prominent nose and beneath his masculine jaw.
“…….”
In the dim interior, he seemed to exist alone within a pool of light, his beauty commanding the silence and holding her gaze captive. Judith lost herself in the sight of his face—just as the old Judith had, for a moment in the wedding hall, found relief from her terror when she first saw her husband’s countenance.
Beautiful and grotesque. That sculptured face with its vacant, unfocused eyes and visage unchanged from the wedding day.
“Henry, this is the man I married. But why… hasn’t he decayed?”
‘Why hasn’t he decayed?’
They’d buried him that very day. How long had it been since then? She drew the cloth down further.
Then a broad chest marked with short and long scars came into view, along with thick forearms honed by years of training and distinct abdominal muscles. Though he bore no movement whatsoever, his body looked as though it could spring to life at any moment, and Judith found herself even forgetting to breathe.
No matter how advanced the corpse preservation techniques, this made no sense. She couldn’t accept that the man lying before her was truly dead. Judith brought her finger beneath Erne’s nose, checked for a pulse at his wrist, and placed her palm flat against his chest to feel for a heartbeat. Her dark eyes trembled in the face of something unbelievable.
Henry, meanwhile, was bewildered.
‘What is this.’
He couldn’t even tell what was more unnerving anymore—Erne’s corpse looking exactly as it had when they’d found him in the forest, or Judith carelessly confirming the details of Erne’s body with her hands?

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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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