I Accidentally Resurrected My Dead Husband - Chapter 51

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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 51
“Why did you follow me out?”
“What else was I supposed to do? Wait—what are you doing right now?”
“Explanation later. I’m going to pull this out, so look the other way.”
Udith, lacking the courage to watch a blade drawn from an arm, squeezed her eyes shut. With that, Ern finished the work and withdrew the short sword from his forearm.
A small creature emerged, skewered on the blood-dripping tip of the blade, still thrashing even as it hung there. Ern stared at the writhing insect for a moment, then his expression darkened sharply, and he thrust the short sword into the ground.
“There’s—there’s so much blood.”
At the sound of the blade striking earth, Udith opened her eyes and fumbled in her pocket for a handkerchief.
“We need to find a physician. Now.”
Though Ern was the one whose arm had been pierced, Udith looked the more wounded of the two.
“Who in the world stabs their own arm with a blade?”
The creature had burrowed into her skin—of course it was revolting, of course it crawled under her flesh. But did that justify ramming a sword through his own forearm? Udith wrapped the handkerchief around his arm while biting her lip. The moment she tied the cloth over the wound, it bloomed red.
“This isn’t an ordinary insect.”
Ern gestured with his chin toward the short sword he’d left planted in the ground.
“It’s a Sting Worm—a creature that burrows beneath the skin. Leave it alone and it’ll tunnel deeper, crawling through your body as it pleases.”
“Then you should have stabbed immediately. You didn’t need to cut so deep.”
A shallow slice across the back of the hand would have sufficed to extract it.
“You told me not to drive away the customers.”
“…What?”
“If I’d drawn my blade inside the shop, everyone in there would have bolted.”
Udith found herself speechless. So he’d let the worm burrow deep into his forearm for that? For the customers? And not just any man—Ern? The Ern she knew would have drawn his sword right there and left Cain begging on his knees. His reputation as the Empire’s mad hound hadn’t come from nowhere.
‘But why would he make such an inefficient choice just for that…’
Could it have been for her? For fear she’d languish if the shop lost custom? But why would Ern—
A rush of indefinable emotion surged in her chest, but the moment was too fleeting for Udith to dwell on it.
It was only an instant. Cain had bolted from the shop, and Ern launched after him like an arrow, his long legs eating up the distance in seconds. Before Cain could even resist, Ern brought his hand down on the back of his neck, dropping him unconscious.
“Ern, leave that man with Henry and let’s go to the hospital first.”
“No. We’re going to Marquis Mosley’s Manor.”
Ern sounded peculiarly irritated.
“…While bleeding like that?”
“Yes. While bleeding like that.”
* * *
“…Must you really come bleeding like this?”
About thirty minutes later, Marquis Mosley stood speechless at Ern’s unannounced arrival.
He might have accepted it if Ern had simply shown up, but the man was still dripping blood steadily from one arm.
Why come like this? His leisurely gait suggested it wasn’t urgent, and there were at least three physicians along the way here. Why not stop? Was the woman with him in danger? Yet she didn’t appear to be. Her expression was grim, less ashen with fear than with exasperation.
The Marquis read the situation precisely: Udith was exasperated with Ern’s stubbornness. Rather than stop for bleeding, he’d insisted on coming dripping blood to meet the Marquis. Fearing excessive blood loss might fell him, Udith had left the shop and the unconscious Cain in Henry’s care and followed. Yet contrary to her concerns, Ern had arrived at the Manor perfectly sound.
Only Marquis Mosley, without a drop of blood on him, had gone deathly pale—exhausted by Ern’s pigheadedness.
“This is your doing.”
“Mine? I did that?”
The Marquis genuinely spluttered in disbelief, and Udith wore an identical expression. Ern had stabbed his own arm with his own blade and now suddenly blamed the Marquis? Had he lost too much blood to think straight?
“Yes. The Followers you failed to apprehend—”
“Wait, wait.”
Marquis Mosley hastily covered Ern’s mouth.
“This isn’t the place for that conversation.”
He drew a hand across his pale face.
“Come inside. And please, do come in as well, my lady.”
The Marquis personally escorted Ern and Udith to the parlor and instructed his butler to summon the Manor’s physician.
“One more thing. Send men to the Incense Shop in the square and bring back a man named Cain. He’s unconscious, so be quiet about it before he wakes.”
“Who is he?”
“Just send the men.”
The Marquis ordered his butler to take several guards to the Incense Shop, collect Cain, and lock him in the basement. The moment the butler departed, the parlor door opened and the butler returned with the Manor’s physician.
While Ern received treatment in one corner, Marquis Mosley and Udith exchanged names.
“It’s hardly appropriate to ask in such circumstances, but how did you come to marry Ern?”
The Marquis seemed to regard Udith with an odd sort of pity.
“It wasn’t my choice.”
“Ah, so it was a political marriage, then?”
Political marriage? Perhaps. In a sense it was close enough, but she could neither confirm nor deny it, so Udith simply laughed awkwardly.
“But my lady, how did Ern’s arm come to be in that state?”
“Oh, he stabbed himself catching an insect.”
It was an explanation with considerable details omitted, but the Marquis refrained from pressing for specifics. He merely.
“Madman.”
He’d done nothing but click his tongue. Watching the physician wrap the bandage, Ern’s brow furrowed as he listened to the exchange between the Marquis and Udith.
“The way you say it makes me sound like a lunatic.”
Both Udith and the Marquis swallowed their retort—that bleeding so profusely and then coming straight to the Marquis was already proof enough of his eccentricity.
“Now then, give me an explanation.”
Once the physician finished his treatment and left, the Marquis broached the main subject.
“Do you know what a Sting Worm is?”
“A Sting Worm?”
A Sting Worm. Where had he heard that before? Now that his mind had cleared—no longer frantic from Ern’s wound—he recalled: it was a creature that had appeared in the original work. At the time, he’d been too distracted to think of it, but now the memory surfaced. He knew what a Sting Worm was.
“It’s a creature that can be trained to target a specific host.”
In the latter half of the original work, the Followers had implanted such a worm in the pregnant female lead to keep her from fleeing to the male protagonist. That was the Sting Worm.
“This time, that creature tried to make me its host.”
“You? Then this wasn’t merely a wound to be treated. The worm might have carried venom.”
Marquis Mosley reached to summon the physician again, but Ern shook his head.
“No, this worm carries no venom. I was told it isn’t particularly harmful to the body.”
Since the female lead was herself one of the Followers, Ern knew about Sting Worms from her account.
After learning that a Sting Worm had been embedded in her body, the female lead had despaired. The Followers could use the creature to isolate her however they wished.
“Usually, this worm is used in conjunction with pollen. The creature has an aversion to a particular flower—so the host, upon smelling that pollen, is driven by instinct to flee.”
The pollen had been scattered all around the small hut where they’d confined her. Ern had suggested washing away the pollen with water, but the female lead said it was useless.
“And if the host refuses to obey?”
“They can’t refuse. The Sting Worm makes the host see hallucinations to bend them to its will. Once caught in those visions, they’re driven instinctively toward wherever the pollen is absent.”
“Still, couldn’t someone use force to move the host against their will?”
“Then this would break.”
Ern tapped his own head lightly.
“They couldn’t live in their right mind anymore.”
Moreover, that pollen couldn’t be washed away with water. The substance neutralizing it had to be scattered over the area, or it had to be burned away entirely. But only a Medium among the Followers—one who handled Sting Worms—knew what that substance was.
So fire was the only option. Yet the hut where the female lead was imprisoned was made of timber, and the surrounding forest was thick with autumn leaves.
By the time the fire burned hot enough to destroy the pollen completely, it would have spread throughout the hut and the forest. In truth, there was no way for her to escape that place.
“In the end, there are only two ways to remove a Sting Worm. One is through the Medium who trained it. The other is to extract it from inside the body.”
“That sounds simpler than expected. Why not just visit a physician and have them remove it?”
“If the worm stayed still, yes. But the creature keeps moving inside the body.”
Even a skilled physician would find it difficult to capture a creature thrashing about within the flesh. Yet for Ern, whose reflexes were sharper than those of other knights, it was possible.
“But how do you know so much about Sting Worms?”
“I’m surprised you don’t. Didn’t the Empress tell you?”
The current Empress was the female lead of the original work—the very woman whose flesh Ern had torn.
“I removed the Sting Worm from her body.”
It was then that Ern had suggested extracting the worm by force.
The female lead had worried that forcing out the creature might cause it to die inside her body, endangering both the child and herself. But not wanting to be a burden to the male protagonist, she’d consented.
Whether fortunately or unfortunately, her fears proved needless. Extracting the worm put no strain on her body whatsoever. Though she’d nearly bled to death from the torn flesh.

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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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