I Accidentally Resurrected My Dead Husband - Chapter 6

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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 6
“You must perform the Chondo Ritual.”
“I’ll do it. When can we perform this Chondo Ritual?”
“We could perform it anytime, but Ern’s case is… special.”
The Shaman trailed off, but both Henry and Udith understood what she meant. Udith forced away her discomfort and asked carefully.
“How much of a sincerity fee would be appropriate?”
“Two hundred thousand Gold should suffice.”
Two hundred thousand Gold—that was money you’d need to make a hundred candles to earn.
“I’ll pay it.”
Henry was generous with his money, wasn’t he? Udith studied him with fresh eyes as he answered without hesitation.
“It would be best to perform the ritual tonight.”
But the Shaman, indifferent to the substantial fee, merely nodded while gazing up at the sky.
“Both of you must cleanse yourselves and wait until midnight.”
Midnight was set as the hour for the ritual. The Shaman said she needed time to prepare and would return.
“After you’ve bathed, remain in your quarters. You must not witness my preparations under any circumstances.”
Udith bathed and waited for midnight while making candles.
‘I hope this is worth two hundred thousand Gold.’
She prayed the Shaman wasn’t a charlatan. Time passed as it always did, and midnight arrived.
The Shaman knocked to summon Henry and Udith. The windows and door of the room where Ern’s body lay were wide open, and the cloth covering his corpse had vanished. Four large circles were drawn around the bed, each with a thick candle placed within.
“Tonight, we open the gate of the flesh to guide the spirit onward.”
At the Shaman’s gesture, Henry and Udith stepped closer to the bed.
“The spirit is drawn by instinct toward life itself.”
She explained that she needed their living blood, blood that still flowed through beating veins. The thought of piercing flesh to draw blood made Udith’s hair stand on end. But if a single drop would suffice, so be it.
“Do come closer, madam.”
Her position happened to be near Ern’s lower body. Moonlight, unusually bright, fell upon his unwrapped corpse. She wanted to be respectful, but it was nearly impossible. This was entirely Ern’s fault. His body was so distinctive that even with half-closed eyes, she could see everything.
The Shaman pricked the tip of Henry’s finger with the dagger and let his blood fall onto Ern’s forehead. Ern’s eyelashes seemed to twitch—a subtle movement that made Udith tilt her head.
“What must depart shall depart, for this is not the destination. Those who cannot leave will only suffer.”
The Shaman turned toward Udith. She extended her hand. A sharp pain bloomed. Udith frowned slightly, then brought her bleeding finger close to her husband’s groin. The moment her blood dripped onto his skin—
“…?”
The stallion-like thigh muscle contracted with a violent spasm. This was no trick of perception. Dread crawled up her spine.
As Udith flinched and tried to pull back, a hand flashed out like wind and seized her wrist. Both the Shaman and Henry had their hands covering their mouths, so the owner of this hand could only be—
“…What the hell are you doing?”
Ern Rainhardt. That was all. His voice, cracked from disuse, carried pure bewilderment.
“What did you do to me?”
Eyes the shade of deep green swept across his own naked body and then to Udith. Ern’s brow began to furrow.
“Please tell me you weren’t about to do that.”
Udith froze, her wrist still captured in his grip. When Ern’s gaze met Henry’s sprawled form on the floor, his frown only deepened.
“That can’t be…”
I’m not into that, Ern muttered, then fixed Udith with a hard stare. His focused green eyes demanded an explanation.
What could she possibly say? How does it feel to be alive again? Or should she ask him to put some clothes on? Or should she introduce herself—’This is our first meeting, I’m your wife’?
“…Dear?”
But the word that tumbled out, cutting through all preamble and explanation, only deepened Ern’s shock.
* * *
You said this was a ritual to send the soul onward. So why did the corpse come back to life?
The Shaman, who might have answered, had already fled in the confusion following Ern’s resurrection, leaving Henry and Udith bewildered.
“Damn it.”
Udith bit her lip hard. The worst scenario she’d imagined was that Ern’s body would remain uncorrupted even after the ritual. But for him to actually come back? To actually come back alive?
“Why is he alive?”
What a worthless charlatan. A real charlatan usually just cons people—why revive someone? Why Ern Rainhardt of all people?
In the original story, Ern was called primarily a madman, a mad beast, or worse—crude, unprintable epithets that essentially meant he was thoroughly insane. There were several reasons he earned such a reputation, but generally they boiled down to a callous indifference to others combined with an unsettling tendency to lose himself the moment he drew a sword.
He was a soldier who, if someone interfered with his sword work—ally or not—would simply remove them from his line of sight. The manner of this “removal” was decidedly ungentlemanly, which was the real problem. Had he been weak-willed and merely crude, the Knight Order would have expelled him outright. But Ern was one of the Empire’s finest swordsmen. He was a hero who had led impossible wars to victory.
With such notoriety and renown both attached to his name, Ern was posted to the Imperial Consort’s Palace, the true power behind the throne in the original story.
There, he was tasked with guarding the Imperial Consort’s niece—the female lead. In name it was protection; in truth it was surveillance.
The heroine had originally infiltrated the imperial court under the Imperial Consort’s orders to curse the Crown Prince, but she fell in love with him instead. She wanted to help him, but Ern became the problem. There was nothing the heroine could do without his watchful gaze catching her.
In the end, she even warned of the Imperial Consort’s plot to plunge the Empire into chaos, but Ern didn’t even pretend to listen. The Crown Prince tried to manipulate him into cooperation, but Ern craved neither advancement nor wealth. His most astute advisor offered a penetrating observation on this matter.
“He’s simply insane.”
Insanity is usually attributed to mental disorder or obsessive fixation on some specific goal. One might be mad with greed, mad for power, or mad for love. But Ern showed no signs of mental illness and held no particular obsession. Meanwhile, the heroine was discovered to be pregnant by the Imperial Consort and was imprisoned.
By then, the heroine had given up on convincing Ern. She simply needed someone to confide in, so she poured everything out to the unresponsive Ern. If she gave birth, she said, she would die, and her child would become a tool in the Imperial Consort’s hands.
Something shifted in Ern’s mind at that moment. For the first and only time, he helped the heroine—though in a characteristically grotesque manner, tearing open her own flesh to aid her escape.
On this matter, his advisor made one final observation.
“A madman with conviction.”
That’s what she meant. Ern was the type of madman who only moved when he had a reason he could accept—
“That’s the real problem.”
She couldn’t figure out which part of him would make him act.
“With a personality like that, he’d demand a divorce right away.”
In truth, any normal person would’ve demanded one in this situation. Who would want to maintain a marriage forged while they lay at death’s door, with not a shred of their own will considered?
It was genuinely the worst possible scenario. If she’d known it would come to this, she never would’ve considered borrowing new money with her Title of Nobility as collateral. What would she do if Ern demanded a divorce?
The Count’s title belonged to Ern now, no question about it. The marriage had been so short she couldn’t claim the Estate in a property settlement. That meant she’d be cast out with nothing—and the real problem was that when she’d drafted the new contract with Smith, she’d signed it under the name “Udith Rainhardt.”
In other words, if she was divorced like this, she’d lose the title and the Estate while shouldering the full two hundred million Gold in debt herself.
“Should I beg him to keep the Marriage Bond at least until the Estate sells for what it’s worth?”
If she sold the Estate for four hundred million—no, even two hundred million Gold—she could get over the worst hurdle. It wouldn’t be a gain, but at least she wouldn’t be dragged off by loan sharks.
“Is he the type who’s weak to women’s tears?”
In the original work, the only time Ern had granted someone’s request was when the female lead had tearfully pleaded. Maybe Ern had a soft spot too. Yes, even the man called the Empire’s mad dog would have some capacity for pity.
“Then it’s time for a sympathy-inducing strategy.”
* * *
Ern was a man twisted so far beyond bent that he’d become warped.
When had he become so twisted? When his mother—abandoned after bearing the Count’s illegitimate child—had tried to strangle him? Or was it when he heard that his mother, who’d ultimately handed him over to the Count in exchange for child support, had died young without ever spending that money?
Perhaps it was when the father who’d found him after eight years turned out to have selected him as a sacrificial lamb to send to war in his stead? Or maybe it was when the men who’d scorned him for being an illegitimate child leading the Knight Order had ignored his orders and fallen to the last soldier.
Or was it when the Countess—the only one who’d ever been warm to him—had sent assassins after his return from war, fearing he might covet the Count’s seat as heir?
Ah, that seemed most likely. The assassins came so frequently that Ern couldn’t sleep properly. Everyone knows a person goes mad without sleep. Perhaps that’s when he finally broke.

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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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