I Accidentally Resurrected My Dead Husband - Chapter 70
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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 70
Though he was a bastard like Ern, Loam was cast out by his household. Yet he possessed a talent for swordsmanship, and while working as a mercenary, he encountered the Followers.
They valued his talent highly. Though Loam’s house was of little consequence, since Loam desired it, they helped him secure the position of head of the Stebil Clan. Thus it was only natural that Loam became their blade. With his innate swordsmanship, he entered the Imperial Knight Order without difficulty, built connections both high and low, and eventually rose to captain of the 3rd Knight Order.
“They promised me a dukedom if the rebellion succeeded and the Followers’ world came to be.”
He had wanted to become a duke. From a lowborn bastard to a duke. His father who had abandoned him and his half-siblings who had scorned him would be astounded beyond reason, had they lived to see it. Though of course, once he took control of the house, they had all died.
“I wish they could have been amazed, even from heaven.”
“I asked you to give your statement, not air your grievances.”
“I haven’t even begun to air them. Just telling what I’ve suffered would take two or three days.”
No matter how much the Followers had helped, Loam had not come by his position as captain of the 3rd Knight Order easily. He was about to say more when he caught sight of Ern’s contorted expression and thought better of it.
He knew that look well. When Ern’s patience had reached its limit, his face took on precisely that form.
“In any case, Marquis Cain Mosley told me this: if I cooperate well, my wife and children won’t become serfs.”
Loam’s family, having committed treason, were currently imprisoned in serf status. Cain had secured them early on, using them as leverage to capture the escaped Loam.
Even if their status were rehabilitated, they would have to live as commoners, but it was far better than being sold into bondage.
“Since I’m a dead man walking anyway, I should at least save my wife and children. So ask away. I’ll answer as fully as I can, so long as I don’t breach the geas.”
Ern still didn’t trust Loam, but he began his questions nonetheless. The interrogation might turn violent later, but an interrogation nonetheless began with questions.
“When the Red Liquor Medium looked at me, he muttered something about ‘he arrives.’ Was that truly just a simple exclamation?”
“That’s what it was. You could ask the Marquis here and he’d tell you the same.”
Loam gestured toward Marquis Mosley. Anyone who had studied the Followers even a little could not fail to understand what he meant.
“Loam’s right. They use it when they’re startled, when they’re frustrated, whenever really.”
Cain offered a brief clarification to keep the conversation flowing.
Loam chimed in agreement. Just an exclamation? It felt suspicious, but Ern pressed forward to the next question.
“What were they trying to do with my corpse?”
“An experiment. I don’t know exactly what kind.”
The Follower organization had split into those who stood at the forefront during the rebellion and those who directed from behind. The Red Liquor Medium was among the latter.
Aged and slow-moving, he had taken on the role of planning from behind the rebel lines. As signs emerged that the rebellion would fail, the Red Liquor Medium hid himself away carefully to escape the imperial forces.
“While awaiting execution in prison, the Red Liquor Medium sent someone.”
That person was a spy who had continued extracting information from the Imperial Knight Order and reporting it to the Red Liquor Medium.
Due to the geas, Loam could not name the spy directly. But he could hint that this person belonged to the Imperial Court and did menial work. While Ern was away at the harbor, Cain captured the spy using the information Loam had provided. It was one of the scribal assistants.
The scribal assistant held no particularly high rank, but he could learn whom the Emperor met with. The Emperor and Cain held meetings without bringing the scribe along, and to the Followers, that was the clue.
The Emperor and Cain would only have secret meetings over the Followers’ business. So whenever Cain held such clandestine meetings and returned, the scribe would pass the information to another Follower outside the palace. Then the Followers would contact the spy working as a menial in the Public Security Force, who would observe whom Cain brought in and leak the information again.
“Thanks to you, we caught them all.”
The spies connected to the Red Liquor Medium had been rooted out completely. Ern nodded to indicate Loam should continue.
“Before Marquis Ferni left for the Penco Kingdom, he entrusted his mistress to me. She was pregnant at the time. Just before the rebellion broke out, I hid her away.”
It had been merely a favor to a friend. Once the rebellion started, the political situation would be in chaos, public order would deteriorate, so he had arranged a place for her to disappear.
“For fear the Marquis’s wife would discover the mistress and the bastard child, I deliberately kept my correspondence with Albert infrequent, and later stopped writing entirely.”
“What touching friendship.”
Helping with adultery, of all things. Ern clicked his tongue in reproach.
“In any case, I told the person the Red Liquor Medium sent to the prison where Marquis Ferni’s lover and bastard child were hiding. I used them as hostages to move the Marquis.”
The person sent by the Red Liquor Medium gave Loam a short sword the size of a finger and left. Just before his execution, seizing the moment when surveillance was most lax, Loam cut through his binding rope, overpowered the guard, and escaped. Of the other subordinates who had been imprisoned with him, he brought along all he could. Though that amounted to only five.
“I rode in a luggage cart Marquis Ferni had prepared in advance and fled the imperial palace, hiding myself in the quarters he had arranged.”
It was after making his escape that Loam met the Red Liquor Medium again. The Red Liquor Medium ordered Loam to surveil Ern.
“He didn’t give me detailed explanations. But I stole and read the letters he sent to headquarters, and in them he wrote that you had died and been brought back to life. He also wrote that he wasn’t sure whether it was a complete success or only half a success.”
“What was the actual purpose?”
“I can’t say for certain, but it seems the experiment’s aim was to kill you and revive you. Ah, and the letter also had something else written in it. It said he thought it was a failure at the time, but if he’d known it would turn out like this, he would have brought you along.”
Now Ern understood why his corpse had been abandoned in the forest. The Followers had taken his body from Cliff, brought it to the forest, and conducted some sort of experiment on it. Believing it had failed, they left it behind.
“After that, orders came down to surveil you. So we tried to draw your wife over to our side.”
Ern recalled immediately what Loam meant. At Geumjamgo, when they had attempted to manipulate Udith by claiming something foul had attached to her.
“To be honest, I didn’t expect you to follow her. I didn’t think you were the type to particularly value your wife. You two weren’t even acquainted before, right?”
The information about Udith had come from Cliff. According to the intelligence he sent, Ern and Udith had no prior connection.
Loam, who knew better than anyone Ern’s nature of not showing affection to those around him, could never have imagined that Ern would actually go about with Udith, even if he might have followed her out of suspicion.
“Ah, it seems Ern is rather tender toward his wife.”
Cain, who had been listening to Loam’s account, voiced his agreement.
…….
Cough, cough.
When Ern fixed him with a quiet glare, Cain cleared his throat awkwardly and stepped back.
“The Red Liquor Medium’s objective was to capture you alive. And with all limbs intact too. At first, even headquarters ordered us not to rush — surveil and then capture. But then, at some point, different orders started coming down from headquarters.”line>
Orders to send tribute money.
“Since the rebellion had failed, headquarters was short on funds too. So at first I readily gathered money and sent it. But no matter how much I sent, the reply was always that it wasn’t enough.”
The Red Liquor Medium kept sending regular reports to headquarters about his investigation into Ern, but headquarters sent back no response regarding him at all.
“Eventually they told me to stop worrying about you and just keep sending money.”
The Red Liquor Medium resented it.
“The Red Liquor Medium complained that he needed you desperately to rebuild the Followers’ world, but you weren’t helping him capture you at all—you only demanded money. That’s when he started acting on his own initiative.”
He tried various schemes, like obtaining an alien infestation from somewhere and implanting it in your body. Of course, all of them failed. As Ern listened to Loam’s account, something suddenly occurred to him and he asked.
“You said you knew about Udith? Why did you let Miss Herington come and go from Marquis Ferni’s mansion without doing anything?”
* * *
Udith, who had returned to the mansion before Ern, gathered all of Grand Mother’s people into the dining room.
“It seems it’s time for us to leave this place.”
Before Udith arrived, Grand Mother spoke to those who were like family, even if no blood bound them together.
“You must not show any resentment.”
“Yes, Grand Mother, of course. We are already grateful enough for the shelter you’ve provided us all this time.”
Iluer replied. Tan sighed with reluctance.
“It was nice living in the mansion.”
“Now, Tan.”
At Grand Mother’s call, Tan pushed his protruding lips back in.
Tan understood too—that if they hid so many Shar’tin here, and it was discovered later, Udith’s scented candle business could falter. And by this point, Udith had already done enough for them.
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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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