I Accidentally Resurrected My Dead Husband - Chapter 83

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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 83
“This leaves a foul taste. Wait, what exactly went into this?”
“Why? Do you know something about it?”
“I feel like I’ve seen this before somewhere.”
Iluer possessed an exceptional memory.
At the mention of cosmetics made from human corpses, he recalled an old tale his grandmother used to tell him in childhood—a frightening one at that.
“My grandmother told me a story when I was young. In ancient times, in the desert, even human remains were not discarded but used as medicine.”
“Ah, I remember too. My grandmother’s grandfather had heard that story and told it to us.”
Beichi nodded vigorously in agreement. Iluer reached back into the depths of memory.
“Long, long ago, before the Empire itself came into being, there lived a madman in the desert.”
The madman believed that in a place where resources were scarce as the desert, one could not simply cast aside the dead. So he secretly collected corpses and researched ways to put them to various uses. The people of his tribe, learning of this, banished him to the heart of the desert.
Yet his research records survived, and they were spoken of often—all because rumors spread that medicines made according to his writings were remarkably effective.
“Applied to wounds, it was said new flesh would grow. Applied to breaks, bones would knit together.”
But what a preposterous tale this was. Before the Shartin people crossed into the Empire, his research records were passed down in secret; afterward, they vanished entirely.
“But brother, isn’t this just folklore?”
“Yes, but that very folklore is being recreated before us now, isn’t it? We must keep our minds open to the possibility.”
Now was the time to grasp at even the thinnest thread of a clue.
“Beichi, couldn’t we find a clue to the antidote in this tale? Try to remember how the story ends.”
“How the story ends?”
When Beichi shook his head, saying he couldn’t quite recall, Iluer finished the account.
“Before the madman was banished to the desert, it’s said he wrote something on the final page of his records: When flesh rots away from the essence of the dead, cover it with vital energy of the living.”
“Vital energy of the living?”
Bewildered by the vague phrasing, Beichi’s face grew even more confused.
“Vital energy of the living…”
Udith, listening from nearby, began to ponder as well.
“If it’s vital energy, could it be the blood of a living person?”
“Possibly…”
For a long while, Beichi’s room filled only with murmurs of contemplation and thoughtful sighs.
“The madman lived in the desert. What could vital energy mean to someone of the desert?”
Iluer spoke half to himself, murmuring aloud.
“If it’s vital energy in the desert, wouldn’t that be water, brother?”
“Then it wouldn’t be ordinary water—it would be water from an oasis. Since it’s the desert, after all.”
Ern, who had been listening from the side, joined in the reasoning.
“What if it doesn’t mean water at all, but something in the desert that symbolizes life itself?”
Udith clenched and unclenched her fists repeatedly. Something that symbolizes life force? Her mind itched with the edge of a memory about to surface. What would appear to people of the desert as a symbol of vitality?
Something that persists with stubborn determination, that retains its verdant hue even amid dry air and sandstorms, that continues to grow even in barren land without a drop of water.
“…The cactus!”
Udith spoke the words in a low voice, her eyes fixed on Beichi.
“It’s the cactus, isn’t it, Beichi?”
* * *
Cacti obtainable in the Empire were limited, but Beichi and Udith procured every variety they could find.
While Beichi threw himself into research immediately, Udith and Ern entered the room where Henry stayed.
“Sir Henry.”
He, who had always been cheerful, lay twisted on the bed without the slightest movement.
“Henry.”
Ern stood beside his bed, looking down at his friend—nearly his only friend—who had fallen into an abyss of despair.
“We found the people who deceived you.”
“…”
At those words, Henry’s shoulders tensed slightly.
“We found the Cosmetic Manufacturing Method too. The pharmacist is making an antidote from it.”
This time, Henry even turned his head slightly. His face had grown graver than before Udith and Ern had departed northward.
“An antidote… it’ll be ready soon.”
An attempt at comfort. Words of encouragement that he had never tried before now kept circling inside his lips.
Ern pushed them out as best he could. He couldn’t bring himself to utter the awkward phrase to hang in there, but still.
“Sir Henry, you mustn’t give up. Beichi says you’re not even eating properly.”
Desperate with despair, Henry had refused meals. He ate only the medicine Beichi gave him, into which nutrients and the like were now being mixed.
“Your physical condition matters for recovery, so you can’t do that. You need to eat something, do you understand?”
Udith gently stroked Henry’s forearm. With his hands cracked and hardened where serum and blood had dried, Henry lightly tapped the tips of Udith’s fingers.
Understanding this as assent, Udith rose. Their day was not yet finished. She had word sent through Tal to Smith about the progress of the investigation, and then departed with Ern to meet Marquis Mosley.
* * *
Marquis Mosley was not at his manor—he was pulling emergency duty at the Security Bureau.
“Please, I beg you, Marquis, our granddaughter, our granddaughter will die at this rate.”
“Yes, madam. I shall do my utmost.”
An elderly noblewoman staggered out on Cain’s arm, her voice hoarse from weeping, nearly collapsing from exhaustion. Once he’d settled her into the carriage waiting outside the Security Bureau, Cain stood alone and gazed up at the sky with hollow, vacant eyes.
“I’m going to work myself to death.”
“…Ern?”
Fatigue dripped from Cain’s weary voice.
“This happens a dozen times a day. Between fielding complaints, I have no time to actually investigate anything.”
He rinsed his face with cupped hands and nodded tersely to Udith. He was too drained even to observe the usual courtesies.
“We found them.”
“What?”
Cain’s bloodshot eyes widened.
“But they had help. Someone sold them the Cosmetic Manufacturing Method.”
“Where are they? I’ll send soldiers to round them all up this instant and throw them in prison. They’ll rot there for a very long time.”
He looked far more enraged than he had when capturing the Followers—though that must be my imagination, surely.
Udith moved to calm the Marquis, who looked ready to mobilize at once.
“Please compose yourself, Marquis. We haven’t yet identified who sold the method. We did locate the rendezvous point, but they weren’t passing money between them in the ordinary way.”
“They buried it in the ground and left a broken branch as a marker.”
Cain’s brow furrowed as he listened.
“That’s exactly how the Followers operate—the same method Ceres uses to contact the Red Liquor Medium.”
“Ah, I knew I’d seen that somewhere.”
Now Udith and Ern remembered, their minds having been wholly absorbed with the method itself.
“But these con artists didn’t strike me as Followers. I can’t be certain, but the feeling was different.”
“I had the same impression.”
Though Ern didn’t know all the Followers by sight, the ones he’d encountered before had a wholly different air about them than these swindlers.
“The one who provided the method might well be a Follower.”
Cain looked toward Udith and continued.
“Ceres himself is not a Follower, yet he performs their tasks, does he not? These people may be no different. From Loam’s testimony, it seems the Main Organization is in financial straits—they may be doing this to raise funds.”
His reasoning had merit.
“For now, I’ll send soldiers discreetly.”
Though Ern had gotten a head start, there was no danger of losing these men. The swindlers planned to hide in the forest while they manufactured the cosmetics, then travel through the northern lands conducting their schemes. They would certainly not move from their hideout until the work was finished.
“We should wait for their rendezvous, then catch them all at once—including whoever supplied the method.”
Cain stated his resolve to crush them in a single blow.
“Surely I’m not so incompetent that I can’t apprehend a few small-time crooks? Don’t worry. You two should get some proper rest.”
* * *
Udith and Ern returned to the Rainhardt Mansion straightaway. The moment they arrived, Udith made for the bath.
Thoroughly, meticulously, reaching into every corner. As soon as she’d emerged from the tent, she’d wiped her face and hands clean with Ern’s handkerchief and brushed the dirt away. She’d even bathed at an inn during the journey north.
Yet the thought of crawling out across that filthy earthen floor, blood dripping—it made her skin crawl so unbearably that one bath simply wasn’t enough. Udith washed and scrubbed, washed and scrubbed again. She rinsed her face three times and washed her hair twice.
What mad fools had put her through this? Even now, when she closed her eyes, the corpse draped in that straw mat returned to haunt her.
“May I humbly offer my respects to the deceased.”
Udith turned toward the north and prayed, struggling to erase the image from her mind. After more than an hour of scrubbing, her skin red and swollen, she emerged from the bathing room and found Ern in the corridor in his bathing robe.
“I thought you’d drowned, Miss Herington. Why did you bathe for so long?”
Ern had been waiting for Udith to finish so he could bathe in turn, but after waiting and waiting, he’d finally given up and used another bathing room.
“I felt filthy. You didn’t see inside that tent, Ern.”
“Are you bragging about having gone in there?”
“No one’s bragging. I’m just saying it’s true.”
“You don’t seem remorseful at all.”
Ern and Udith began quarreling again.
“Um….”
Tahn, seeking Udith with something to tell her, was cut off mid-sentence by Ern.
“Unless it’s urgent, it can wait. Right now, I believe Miss Herington deserves a proper scolding.”
“I think I’ve been scolded enough, don’t you?”
With that, the two of them walked into Ern’s room together. Watching them go, Tahn murmured softly.
“Well, it looks like separate bedrooms might finally be unnecessary…….”
Though they don’t seem to have any intention of doing that.

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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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