I Accidentally Resurrected My Dead Husband - Chapter 43

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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 43
The next day, they headed to the Pharmacy.
Though Beitch was only a pharmacist, Henry had praised him lavishly for dispensing medicine better than most physicians while charging far less — yet the line of waiting customers seemed endless. Udith and Ern had to wait for quite some time before they could see Beitch.
“Where does it hurt, and what seems to be the trouble?”
“I have a headache and my stomach feels off. I’m queasy, and my digestion isn’t great either.”
Beitch, who had been writing down Udith’s symptoms on paper, lifted his head and gazed at her and Ern, whose face was half-hidden, with a knowing smile.
“I’ll need to conduct a proper examination, but based on the symptoms you’ve described, there’s a possibility of Pregnancy.”
What? What did he just say? Udith doubted her own ears. What on earth had she done?
Ern’s tongue went numb. The way the pharmacist’s eyes swept over him with kindly warmth made it clear he thought Ern was the father. For a moment, Ern even forgot to breathe.
“No, no it’s not.”
Udith, collecting herself first, waved her hands frantically. In the span of a few moments, whatever she’d imagined had sent her cheeks flaming red.
“You’re certain? There’s truly no possibility? When was the last time you…?”
“When was the last time I….”
Ern, about to repeat the question back, caught up to what Beitch was really asking a beat too late and trailed off.
“We haven’t… done anything like that.”
Udith shook her head vehemently.
“Really, what makes you think I’m that sort of person?”
Though in truth, looking a certain way had nothing to do with whether one would do such things — plenty of people did regardless of appearances — but Ern, flustered, spoke without thinking it through.
“We both have the same symptoms. We’re both patients.”
“It does sometimes happen that a husband experiences Morning Sickness alongside his wife—”
“How many times do I have to tell you no?”
When Ern set his clenched fist down heavily on the table, Beitch immediately changed the subject.
“Have you perhaps eaten something spoiled?”
“It’s not the food — it’s the Stench. We’ve been suffering from a foul odor these past few days.”
“I’ll give you both some Headache Medicine and a Digestive Aid. But these are only temporary measures. To eliminate the symptoms completely, the best solution is simply not to expose yourselves to that smell.”
Beitch scrawled something on a piece of paper and told Udith and Ern to wait while the medicine was being prepared. He disappeared behind a partition to begin compounding the remedy. Embarrassed by the pharmacist’s blunder, both Udith and Ern sat with flushed faces, quietly awaiting their prescription.
“Tan, where did you put the Dried Cnidium and Red Leaf Herb?”
Unable to find certain medicinal herbs that should have been there, Beitch opened the back door and called out.
“Tan?”
The name struck something familiar in Udith’s memory. It was a name she felt certain she shouldn’t forget, though she couldn’t place it.
Udith rose quietly and peeked behind the partition, curious only to catch a glimpse of the person called Tan. Just then, someone by that name entered through the back door, carrying the missing materials.
“The Dried Cnidium is here. The Red Leaf Herb is in the bottom drawer—”
Tan, about to hand the materials to Beitch, spotted Udith peering from behind the partition and quickly pulled his hood up over his head.
But Udith had already seen his amber eyes.
“Miss, if I could just explain—”
The moment Tan’s identity as a member of the Shartin Tribe was exposed, Beitch hurried to offer Udith an explanation, but she raised her hand to stop him.
“I knew I’d heard that name somewhere before!”
“What’s wrong all of a sudden?”
Udith suddenly pointed toward the back door, and Ern eventually stood and approached. She grabbed his arm and cried out excitedly.
“That’s the shaman! That’s the shaman who performed the Ascension Ritual for you when you were a corpse!”
The name Tan had seemed familiar, but now she realized — it was the name of the shaman who had supposedly sent Ern’s spirit to the heavens, only to bring Ern back to life instead. After Ern awoke, Henry had searched desperately for this person, but they had hidden so thoroughly that Henry had eventually given up. Yet here they were, meeting by chance.
“You’ve got some nerve showing your face here. Hand over my two hundred thousand Gold Coins!”
* * *
“Gasp, gasp.”
His breath came in ragged bursts. Tan, intimately familiar with the geography of the Back Alleys in this district, deliberately wove through the twisting passages as he fled. He hadn’t managed to put much distance between himself and the Pharmacy, but he doubted his running speed could match that man’s. What a small world it was, to run into those people at the Pharmacy of all places.
After bringing that corpse of a man back to life that day, Tan had put his shamanry work on hold. The Ascension Ritual had failed, and he’d lost those two hundred thousand Gold Coins besides — wasn’t it wisest to lie low for a while?
So he’d taken a job doing odd jobs for his distant cousin, the pharmacist. Worried that the presence of a Shartin in the Pharmacy might hurt business, Tan always kept his hood pulled low, concealing his amber eyes. But of all the rotten luck — just as business was winding down for the day, when he’d removed his hood for only a moment to quickly hand over some herbs, he’d run straight into that woman!
“Did I lose them?”
Tan slowed his pace, glancing around. There was no sign of pursuit. He’d made the right call coming this way. Now he’d need to hide somewhere until nightfall, then move again.
Leaning against a wall to catch his breath, Tan felt a chill creep up the back of his neck. His head turned as stiffly as a broken wooden puppet’s.
……
Not even ten paces away, that man — the corpse of a man — stood staring at him with a cold smile.
“Already giving up?”
“Kyaaaagh!”
A few minutes later, Tan was gasping for air.
“Hagh, hah.”
Surely he hadn’t followed this far. Tan ran with all his might. The man let him flee, as though convinced he could catch Tan whenever he wished. But that was the man’s miscalculation.
Born into the Shartin Tribe and raised amid frequent violence, Tan had a talent for escape. A moment ago he’d grown careless, thinking the man unfamiliar with these streets, but this time he’d chosen a path that would be nearly impossible to follow—
“There’s actually a route through here.”
“Agh!”
“Well, aren’t you getting a good look at the sights.”
The man, who breathed without a single ragged gasp, gazed around as though he were a tourist, his face alight with curiosity. How long had he been following her?
“Ahhhhh!”
She couldn’t catch her breath anymore—now she was on the verge of retching. Her feet burned as though they’d been held to flame.
“…Ugh.”
Tan ran without knowing where she was going. She’d forgotten her original purpose entirely—to shake off the blond man. She simply ran on instinct. Now, without even looking back, she could sense him pursuing her.
The moment her pace slowed even slightly, he would draw his sword. The blade glinted in the sunlight, and terror sparkled in Tan’s eyes. So she had no choice but to run as he demanded.
“Gasp—wheeze—guh.”
Her legs grew heavier with each step. Her breathing was ragged, and she couldn’t run anymore. Like a puppet with its strings cut, Tan pitched forward and collapsed. She had no strength left to rise.
“I—I was wrong, I’m sorry.”
Tears streaming down her face, Tan dropped to her knees before the man approaching her.
“Please, spare me.”
She was on the edge of breaking down entirely.
“Tan!”
Beitch’s voice rang out. Startled, she spun around to find she had somehow arrived right in front of the Pharmacy. Beitch rushed over and wrapped his arms around her.
“I’ve heard the explanation from Miss Udith. I’ll give you Gold Coins—please, just spare Tan.”
“I don’t need the Gold Coins. I’m not going to do anything to her. What I want to know is how she…”
As Ern spoke, a searing gaze cut through him, and he lifted his head. Udith had emerged from the Pharmacy and was now staring at him with blazing intensity, her eyes widening. It was unmistakably a look that said: ‘You don’t need Gold Coins? Given our situation?’
“…I do need the Gold Coins, actually.”
* * *
“I must apologize once again for Tan’s behavior.”
Beitch, the pharmacist, looked like an Empire citizen, but he was actually of the Shartin Tribe—a distant cousin of Tan’s.
He handed Udith Gold Coins from the safe in his Pharmacy, apologizing profusely several times over. He then waited for Tan to return, and from Udith he learned of recent events and also heard about the stench that wouldn’t disappear no matter how much they cleaned.
“As an apology for what Tan has done, I’d like to help rid you of the stench. Your Grandmother should know the method to eliminate it.”
And so Ern and Udith set out toward where Tan’s Grandmother lived.
At first, Udith had been reluctant to go to the Shartin Settlement following Tan, who had defrauded her. But she’d recovered her money, and now Beitch was offering to teach her how to eliminate the stench without any additional fee as an apology—how could she refuse? Besides, with Ern at her side, she had little cause for concern about her safety.
Udith spoke to Tan, who was walking as far away from Ern as possible.
“Say, Tan. That day when you saw Ern, you said his soul was trapped in his body and couldn’t escape. Was that just something you made up?”
Tan nodded glumly. In truth, she’d never seen a corpse that seemed alive before that day.
“I was honestly terrified. But when you offered two hundred thousand Gold, I just pretended to know what I was talking about.”
“Then what about the Ascension Ritual we performed?”
“I just copied something I’d read in a book once.”
“But you said you were preparing something that day, and told us absolutely not to look. Why was that?”
Tan hesitated for a moment, then opened her mouth.
“I was afraid you’d catch me doing nothing at all.”
After confining Udith and Henry to the room, Tan had simply sat there until the moon rose. She’d spent the whole time thinking about how to make it seem convincing.
“So after the ritual, if Ern hadn’t stopped decomposing, what were you planning to do?”

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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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