I Woke Up from Hibernation and Found a Husband - Chapter 77

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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 77
“Jeron, please. I cannot lose you too.”
The elderly woman, who had always worn a serene smile, wept like a child. Lying at her feet was a young man with deep green hair. His entire side was drenched in crimson—a mortal wound.
“Someone! Please, help!”
The people who had been fleeing in panic turned at her cry. They were all survivors who owed their lives to Ilya’s ability. Yet upon seeing the young man’s condition, they coldly averted their gaze, convinced he could not be saved.
‘I must survive first.’
‘He’s already beyond saving. I need to escape before this place collapses.’
Ilya watched the departing figures with a face etched in despair.
“Please….”
A hoarse, fractured voice barely escaped her lips. Her trembling hand, powerless, clasped that of the fallen man.
Jeron coughed up a handful of blood and spoke with great effort.
“A-Aunt. I’m f-fine. Please. Please leave.”
Jeron Everett—Everett’s successor and Ilya’s only nephew.
As Ilya gazed upon her dying nephew, the image of her own son, cold and lifeless, overlapped with his face.
“That cannot be. If I lose you too, then I….”
Despair surged from her feet, swelling and choking her breath.
If this child dies, I would rather die with him.
As that thought consumed her, a hand landed upon her shoulder.
“Ilya.”
A calm, resolute voice. When she turned, Claire knelt before her, meeting her gaze.
“I will help you.”
Claire spoke the words Ilya needed most to hear.
* * *
Swimming against the tide of people fleeing the Royal Ball Hall, Claire made her way toward Ilya.
“Will you be alright?”
Theodore followed close behind Claire. After entrusting Melissa and Rozina with Hooper, who had stubbornly insisted on remaining, and sending him away with a request disguised as an order, Theodore had caught up with her.
He gazed at her profile with sorrowful eyes, as though he already knew what she intended to do.
“I will be fine.”
As Claire spoke, she withdrew a necklace she had kept hidden in her bosom.
“This is what Father would have done.”
The worn artifact containing Ian’s remnants—its faint ability overlaid by Claire’s power—shimmered with pale golden light.
‘Even if complete healing is impossible, perhaps a temporary measure will suffice.’
It would be a lie to say there was no regret. The faint warmth she felt, the familiar presence—if she abandoned it now, she knew she would never feel it again.
Yet still.
“I will help you.”
Claire sat across from the trembling Ilya and examined the fallen young man. A man bearing a deep wound to his abdomen, trembling pitifully. At a glance, his features bore a striking resemblance to Ilya’s.
“Claire….”
Ilya called Claire’s name one last time. Claire, her gaze still fixed upon the wound, nodded.
“I will do what I can.”
The artifact shimmered with golden light. As its radiance intensified to its peak, a sudden wave of longing washed over her.
‘Claire, my dear.’
A tender voice echoed in my mind—my father’s voice, now only a faint memory. As I carried the artifact away from the infected area, it felt as though warm hands had wrapped around the back of my hand.
‘Father.’
An impulse surged within me to withdraw my hand and keep this trace of him. Suddenly, a selfish desire bloomed.
“Jeron….”
‘But I cannot do that.’
Hearing Ilya’s trembling voice, I placed the artifact over Jeron’s wound.
Tap.
A golden ripple spread through the air as if a single dewdrop had fallen upon still water. As the undulating vitality descended like a curtain over the wound, the jagged gash gradually began to mend.
“Ahhh.”
Jeron’s expression, which had been twisted in agony with a ghastly pallor, slowly eased as color returned to his face. In that same moment, I felt the artifact in my hand grow completely cold.
‘It’s gone.’
The vivid presence that had been so clear vanished like a dream, and the artifact returned to being an ordinary antique. Yet I harbored no regret.
I lifted my hand to touch the crown of my head. Just as Ian had once seated young me upon his knee and stroked my hair, my heart felt as light as if I had received his praise.
“Claire.”
As Theodore’s hand rose to my shoulder, I looked up at him. For some reason, Theodore’s expression seemed far more sorrowful than my own.
‘I’m alright.’
I gestured to myself as I spoke.
“Please don’t worry. The greatest thing my father left behind still remains here.”
The clearest mark that Ian and Veronica left upon this world.
“Yes.”
At the sight of her expression, utterly free of regret, Theodore nodded as if entranced.
“Thank you. Truly, truly thank you.”
Ilya, confirming that Jeron’s breathing had returned to normal, bent at the waist until she nearly touched the floor. Startled, I tried to stop her, but Ilya grasped my hand first.
“I receive help once again. It should be I who repays a debt of gratitude.”
‘Once again?’
At her unexpected words, confusion flickered across my mind.
“We should discuss the rest outside.”
Theodore, surveying the surroundings, spoke. The ballroom walls bore countless cracks from the explosions and monster attacks, and the rupturing sounds that had been echoing since earlier were ominous.
“Let us move first.”
“Understood.”
Just as Claire and Ilya agreed and turned to leave.
Crack.
With a bone-chilling sound like shattering ice, the ceiling of the ballroom began to collapse.
“No!”
Theodore hastily used his ability to push the falling ceiling upward. However, given the vast scope, he could not prevent some of the ceiling fragments, lighting fixtures, and debris from raining down like hail.
“We must escape in this chaos.”
The four of us moved at once. As Ilya struggled to help Jeron to his feet, I stopped her and simply hoisted Jeron onto my shoulder.
“Pardon me.”
“…Yes.”
Jeron, dangling helplessly, answered without resistance. Survival took precedence over dignity now.
Not long after the four of them escaped the Royal Ball Hall, the building collapsed entirely. Yet none of them looked back at the thunderous crash behind them—the outside was already a disaster zone.
“I wondered why reinforcements hadn’t arrived.”
Claire set Jeron down on the ground and clicked her tongue.
Throughout the Palace Garden, where inhuman shrieks echoed, lay the corpses of creatures that had once been human. She could see Aaron, who had joined the Imperial Knights in their desperate defense, directing the situation.
“Still, this place appears to be reaching its end as well.”
Ilya steadied Jeron as she surveyed their surroundings. Those she had helped earlier averted their gazes with visible discomfort.
“Claire!”
Kenneth, spotting the escaped group, rushed toward them. His ashen face searched Claire’s condition as he spoke.
“Are you hurt? I’m sorry. I was dealing with the explosives when the creatures pinned me down. I eliminated as many as I could, but it seems I couldn’t prevent the collapse.”
At his self-reproachful words, Claire slowly shook her head.
“I’m fine, so don’t worry. Thanks to you, there were no more explosions from the midpoint onward, which made it easier to resolve everything.”
If the blasts hadn’t ceased, there would have been no opportunity to rescue Jeron and Ilya and escape as they did. She found herself curious about how Kenneth had discovered and disposed of such powerful explosives, but before she could voice the thought, urgent footsteps sounded from behind her.
“Young Master Theodore! Miss Claire!”
It was Hooper, Melissa, and Rozina.
‘Everyone made it out safely.’
She was about to exhale in relief.
Though a first meeting, there was something familiar about it—an aura unmistakable to any beastkin.
‘Feral instinct!’
All beastkin, regardless of size, possessed the primal power of instinct—’feral instinct.’ Yet in a world where restraint and concealment were the norm, cases where feral instinct was released so completely were almost always one thing.
“A rampage….”
The worst-case scenario Veronica had always feared—because Claire’s feral instinct was unusually potent. A beastkin driven to extremity, consumed by instinct, losing all reason and burning everything to ash in catastrophe.
‘Who is it? Where?’
Claire’s gaze swept urgently across their surroundings, landing on Aaron.
A man of enormous stature. At first glance humanoid in form, but with abnormally large tusks protruding prominently from his silhouette.
“Wait!”
As Claire unconsciously reached toward him, Aaron’s blade, wreathed in electricity, slashed across the man’s chest.

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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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