I Accidentally Resurrected My Dead Husband - Chapter 56

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Episode 56
Not me? The moment Udith grasped the creature’s muttering, it twisted its head to face her. Between damp strands of hair, a lipless mouth gaped open in a grotesque snarl.
Helpless, helpless, helpless, helpless, helpless, helpless, helpless, helpless, helpless, helpless, helpless, helpless—
Murmuring that there was no choice, the Nine-foot Tall Figure thrust its oddly withered arm beneath Udith’s armpit and dragged her away.
Udith wanted to resist, but her body refused to obey her mind. She was lifted onto a pile of burning logs wreathed in pale smoke.
‘Why won’t this nightmare end?’
Sticky vapor clung to her entire body, and for reasons she couldn’t fathom, her lower belly tingled and her cheeks flushed hot. The Nine-foot Tall Figure hopped about in circles around Udith, humming an incantation like a song.
Dance the dance of frenzy. The dance of burning heat. The dance of losing reason. The dance that cannot stop without—
“…Ahhh, ahhh—”
“Udith Herington.”
Ern shook Udith’s shoulders more forcefully as she whimpered. Her eyelids fluttered before she snapped her eyes open.
Recognizing the familiar surroundings, Udith’s tense body went slack. Ern, who had pulled her from sleep, studied her with a vacant stare and asked.
“What kind of dream were you having to make such a fuss?”
“Just a wretched one.”
Udith had no strength to answer at length. She’d slept, yet somehow felt more exhausted than after a full day’s work. She’d even broken into a sweat.
“Dinner’s ready—eat and get some rest. But why are you sweating like this? Do you have a fever?”
Ern placed his hand on her forehead. It was enormous, nearly large enough to cover half her face—weathered from gripping a sword for years.
His fingers were thick-jointed but long enough to avoid looking crude, and the blue veins that stood out across the back of his hand radiated a masculine, almost feral vitality. Udith swallowed hard without meaning to.
For all his other shortcomings, Ern’s instinct for danger was finely honed—he jerked his hand away from her forehead with impressive speed.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“How am I looking at you?”
“Lecherously.”
Ern retreated a measured step from the bed. Udith exhaled a short, wistful sigh at the strange disappointment that welled up in her.
“Seems you didn’t have a wretched dream—you had a lustful one.”
“I didn’t.”
“Stop dawdling and get up.”
A lustful dream? If only it had been something like that—at least it would make sense. This was something else entirely: her mood felt wrong, her sleep shallow, and she’d gained nothing. Udith massaged her temples as she muttered darkly.
“I’ve been having the same dream for days now, and something feels off. Call Tan for me, Ern. I’m serious—I can’t move at all.”
“Your lips seem to work just fine.”
“You could say they’re the only thing keeping me alive.”
Truly, only her lips had any vitality. Watching Udith sprawl across the bed, Ern let out a sigh that spoke volumes of his exasperation—something along the lines of *good grief*. He looked thoroughly bewildered, yet seeing how genuinely exhausted she appeared, he went to fetch Tan.
“Oh, the Elder came too?”
“I heard you’ve been having strange dreams.”
Udith had expected only Tan, so when the Elder arrived as well, she groaned and forced herself upright on the bed. Despite her possession, the Confucian sensibilities embedded in her soul refused to let her remain lying down in an elder’s presence.
“I was already embarrassed about being a burden here, consuming food without earning my keep. But now fortune smiles—I’ve found myself useful. Tell me, what was this dream about?”
Tan helped the Elder into a chair. Ern, following behind, settled himself heavily on Udith’s bed.
“It’s quite a peculiar dream.”
Udith described the dream in detail. Tan, listening quietly, nodded here and there with an air of recognition, muttering to himself.
“That would be it, Elder.”
“Indeed, that’s the one.”
From the measured tone of the two, it seemed nothing too serious. The Elder, despite her clouded eyes, regarded Udith with striking precision and spoke.
“That is a form of Sorcery.”
“Have I been cursed with Sorcery? Is it dangerous?”
“No, it’s not particularly dangerous.”
Tan took over the explanation in the Elder’s stead. Yet his face had taken on a peculiar blush as he spoke of the Sorcery, and he cleared his throat awkwardly, seeming self-conscious.
What could it be if he can’t even explain it without embarrassment? He’d said it wasn’t dangerous, but Udith was seized by an ominous premonition.
“It’s Lust-Inducing Sorcery.”
“Lust? Don’t tell me that’s the kind of ‘lust’ I’m thinking of—carnal lust?”
Tan nodded.
“Guess you really did have that kind of dream after all.”
Ern muttered from the side, vindicated in his suspicion. Udith exhaled an exasperated breath and pressed her palm to her forehead. Tan had couched it diplomatically as “lust,” but what he meant was libido—sexual desire.
In other words, dreams designed to inflame carnal appetite.
“You mentioned seeing white vapor rising in your dream, yes? That is Humid Vapor.”
When humid vapor accumulates in the body, one grows vulnerable to desire without realizing it. The result is a wandering gaze toward the opposite sex, an easy surrender to even the slightest temptation.
‘No wonder Ern’s forearms looked so appetizing earlier.’
It was all because of this humid vapor.
“This Sorcery typically serves two purposes. One is to seduce someone. The other is to gain advantage in a divorce.”
The seduction made sense. Once afflicted by this technique, one’s resistance to the opposite sex crumbled, making it far easier to entice someone you desired.
“But how does it gain advantage in a divorce?”
“As I mentioned, once the humid vapor accumulates, one succumbs easily to temptation—and that holds true even for the already married. They become extraordinarily susceptible to infidelity.”
The plan had been to make one spouse unfaithful, then divorce them on those grounds—and collect generous alimony in the bargain.
“But this sorcery isn’t used much anymore. I know it because the Elder taught me, but there are far more mediums who’ve never even heard of it.”
“Why?”
“Because of how the Curse is cast. You have to carve an incantation into a wooden doll, soak it in lye, and hide it under the bed. Easy to discover.”
Tan was right—discovery seemed inevitable. Drop something on the floor and reach beneath the bed; pull out a slipper that rolled underneath; any number of ways to find it.
“Carving the incantation into the wooden doll is work in itself. The effort required doesn’t justify the results, so naturally the method fell out of favor.”
Tan added that the wooden doll itself was the true form of the Nine-foot Tall Figure who had danced in Udith’s dreams.
“So if you burn the wooden doll in fire, the dream stops appearing.”
With that, Tan moved to peer under Udith’s bed—first burn the doll, then track down whoever cast the sorcery, she reasoned aloud.
“Tan, there’s no need to look. There’s nothing like that under my bed.”
Udith stopped him before he could crouch down. She knew with certainty there was nothing there. She cleaned her own bedroom, and besides—the Nine-foot Tall Figure had told her directly: “It wasn’t you.”
The Elder nodded at Udith’s words.
“Hmm. Then it seems a Curse cast on someone else has transferred to Miss Herington. Do you happen to know how that came to pass?”
Truth was, Udith had a suspicion. If the sorcery had transferred to her, there was only one explanation.
“Well, I bought a dream a few days ago.”
“You bought a dream?”
The Elder’s clouded eyes flickered with sudden brightness.
“Tell me more.”
“There’s a customer who buys many things from me—the Marquise Ferni. Recently she said she hadn’t been sleeping well because of strange dreams. So I thought I’d help lift her spirits, and I offered to buy that dream from her for a single gold coin.”
“And then?”
“So I gave her one gold coin and bought that dream.”
At Udith’s mention of paying a gold coin for the dream, the Elder couldn’t help but sigh.
“So you purchased a dream in exchange for compensation!”
“I never imagined dreams could actually be bought and sold like this.”
Udith felt wronged. Were dreams really something that could change hands so easily?
“It appears a Curse someone cast on the Marquise transferred when she sold it, Elder.”
Tan whispered in the Elder’s ear. The Elder nodded quietly.
“So what do we do about this?”
When Udith asked, Tan answered matter-of-factly.
“We’ll go to the Marquise’s estate, find the doll, and burn it.”
At Tan’s answer, the Elder made a disapproving sound with her tongue.
“Tsk, tsk. Does this look to you like something that ends so simply? This Curse was cast specifically at the Marquise Ferni. But now it’s transferred to Miss Herington.”
“Oh! The Curse must have mutated!”
Tan clapped his knee. Curses were surprisingly sensitive; alter even a single condition, and they transformed. In other words, the mutation was a kind of side effect.
“Even if we burn the wooden doll, the Humid Vapor might not vanish. Actually, after the Marquise sold that dream, she must have slept well—which means whoever cast the Curse would have realized long ago that it wasn’t working.”
Tan muttered to himself, working through the logic.
“They probably replaced the doll, thinking the original sorcery had failed. They would have disposed of the old one long since.”
Mediums never leave evidence of failure. Especially not when that evidence is proof of a Curse cast through Sorcery.
“If Miss Herington continues to experience the dreams even after the wooden doll—the vessel of the transferred Curse—has been destroyed, then the Curse Mutation is definitely real.”
“Quite so. Now then—what shall we do?”
Though it struck Udith that the Elder seemed to be using her misfortune as a teaching moment for Tan, she held her tongue. She was guilty of buying that dream carelessly, after all.
“Ah! We can simply extract the Humid Vapor!”
After a moment of deep thought, like a diligent student, Tan arrived at yet another solution.
“And how would you extract the Humid Vapor?”
“By drilling a hole through the crown of the head and drawing it out, wouldn’t that work?”

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————