I Woke Up from Hibernation and Found a Husband - Chapter 96

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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 96
Rosina Lloyd, who had been staring up at this unexpected visitor in a daze, suddenly snapped to attention and rose to her feet.
“Rosina Lloyd of House Lloyd pays her respects to Prince Elliott.”
She offered a proper greeting while her mind raced ceaselessly through ways to escape this place.
‘If the Empress learns that Prince Elliott was here, she won’t let this pass.’
Bianca’s disdain for Elliott was common knowledge among the Convent nobility. She glanced around cautiously, rolling only her eyes. Fortunately, there seemed to be no one watching.
Elliott scratched his cheek with an expression suggesting he understood what Rosina was worried about.
“Well, you needn’t worry. Few people venture here.”
Because there was little to see, the Imperial Palace was a particularly quiet place where few wandered.
Elliott, who had been enjoying an afternoon nap among the bushes to avoid the commotion, was actually startled by this unexpected visitor.
‘Ian Lloyd?’
As she sat leaning against a tree, someone’s image overlapped with hers in his mind.
A man he had met only briefly in childhood, yet could never forget. The benefactor who had saved him from terrible agony when the Empress’s faction nearly poisoned him to death.
‘She resembles him so much that I ended up speaking to her.’
Judging by the direction from which she had come, he guessed she had come from the Empress Palace.
“I apologize for my rudeness.”
She brushed the fallen leaves from the back of her hand and flicked them away, her face flushing with embarrassment.
‘Did he see everything?’
She stole a glance to gauge his reaction. Fortunately, the rumors that Prince Elliott possessed a gentle temperament seemed to be true—his expression showed no offense at her behavior.
Elliott shrugged playfully.
“No rudeness at all. I understand—it’s rare to find a comfortable place to rest in this Imperial Palace.”
She had sought out this secluded spot with a weary expression, a place good for avoiding others’ gazes.
‘Why would Rosina Lloyd, who possesses the ability of purification, visit the Empress Palace?’
Elliott was known for such gentleness that some called him simple-minded, yet despite his mild expression, his deep gray eyes gleamed with unmistakable intelligence.
* * *
The greenhouse, now shrouded in darkness after Claire and Theodore had departed.
Kenneth, in private conversation with Sio, pressed his complicated thoughts and repeated what he had just heard from Sio.
“So you’re saying Imber blood flows through me as well?”
“Yes, those distinctive eyes are proof of it.”
Sio’s violet eyes gleamed clearly even in the darkness. At that unmistakable presence, Kenneth found himself unconsciously touching the area around his own eyes, which held the same color.
‘This is proof of Imber bloodline?’
At Kenneth’s bewildered expression, Sio smiled faintly.
Though Imber had passed through numerous incidents and divisions, and its identity had since vanished, not all survivors had perished. Those who lived had hidden their origins, and their bloodline, mingling with the Empire’s people, had been diluted until only traces remained.
Yet occasionally, children like Kenneth appeared in whom Imber’s characteristics manifested strongly through atavism.
“The method by which Umbra injects abilities into humans is a high-concentration curse-based sorcery that binds the spirits of the dead to the living. Most humans suffer soul damage during this process and develop problems with their sense of self, but you were different.”
A child rescued by Veronica when she raided the Market. Despite undergoing the horrific experiment of having an ability injected by Umbra, the child’s soul remained intact.
“Your Imber blood was strong, granting high resistance to the sorcery. The curse rebounded, and only the ability settled stably within you.”
“Then ultimately, the spirit of a dead person is mixed within me, isn’t it?”
When Kenneth’s expression showed discomfort, Sio shook her head firmly.
“In your case, it is not bondage to the ability, but inheritance.”
A restless spirit, tormented by curses and denied peace, had finally been liberated from its bonds thanks to the young soul’s power—granted at last the opportunity to journey to the Underworld.
“What one leaves behind for you, having found their rightful path, is no cause for fear.”
A rare case born from the convergence of Kenneth’s bloodline and the departed’s finite nature.
To conceal Kenneth’s existence—perhaps the sole success of ability transplantation—from Umbra, it had been inevitable to intervene in Kenneth’s memories.
“Your Imber bloodline runs too deep. Direct contact with Tenel poses danger. You risk being swept away by the primordial spirit’s emotions, now bound as one with him.”
“Is that why you kept information about Veronica from me? Feared I’d seek vengeance and come searching?”
Sio answered with silence. The fence constructed from Arcadia’s doctrine—it was nothing more than an immense greenhouse erected under the guise of protection.
“Fine. I’ll accept that much.”
Kenneth washed his face with dry hands, then regarded Sio with a complicated expression.
“On the day of the new moon eclipse. You said you would end everything then.”
“Yes.”
“My godfather’s spirit remains connected to that man, Tenel.”
“It does.”
“Then.”
Kenneth paused, steadied his breathing, then spoke with hollow resignation.
“If you kill him that day, my godfather dies with him.”
Bluish moonlight filtered through the greenhouse glass, and bathed in that ethereal glow, Sio nodded.
Complete annihilation.
To embrace all remaining threats to this world and return to nothingness alongside Tenel—this had been his final choice, his best choice, determined long before the children ever became involved.
“Arcadia will vanish that day. It was always a false paradise, having protected nothing of true worth.”
“You always do exactly as you please.”
“Kenneth, I have only regret for you.”
“I don’t want an apology.”
Within their hollow exchange, Kenneth exhaled deeply.
‘Stubborn beyond measure.’
For the first time, Sio appeared to him as merely human—a man tormented by the anguish of grave mistakes and the weight of remorse.
‘I cannot even resent him, pitying all those long years.’
Kenneth could never fully comprehend Sio. From their first meeting in childhood, his godfather had always been something indistinct—present before his eyes yet distant and ephemeral as summer’s heat shimmer, as the moon reflected in a lake.
Perhaps the man born human yet expected to be a god was one who longed for an end more than anyone—merely a meteor shower exhausted to its limit, burning away before its final descent.
“If you desire the end so deeply, I shall witness it through to the very last.”
Kenneth thought Sio, wearing that composed expression, looked terribly lonely. And so, to witness that end was the finest duty he could fulfill as a godson.
* * *
“Claire!”
Claire and Theodore had returned to Voltier Territory. They were greeted by Isabella, her red hair swept up high in a neat bundle.
“I missed you so much!”
“Miss Isabella.”
Isabella rushed forward and threw her arms around Claire, her ponytail bouncing side to side.
“Hehe.”
It was only natural that Claire’s heart would melt at the endearing antics of the adorable raccoon girl she hadn’t seen in so long.
“I missed you too.”
The convent life, which had demanded constant vigilance, seemed to weigh upon her after all. A comfort enveloped her—as though she had returned home at last.
“It has been far too long.”
As I set down Isabella, who bounced and clung to me with affection, Ludwig approached us.
“You must have had a difficult journey home.”
“Not at all. I trust you have been well?”
“Indeed. And you two—are you unharmed?”
Ludwig spoke thus while carefully examining Claire and Theodore for any sign of injury.
‘How shocked I was to hear of the incident at the ball.’
The catastrophe that had unfolded on the final day of the Hunting Festival Ball. When word of that tragedy reached him, he had barely restrained the impulse to abandon his duties at the convent and rush to where the children were.
“Yes, we are uninjured, though there is much I must tell you.”
Seeing the resolve in Claire’s eyes as she spoke, Ludwig nodded and gave her shoulder a brief, reassuring pat.
“Very well. You have traveled far—let us rest this evening and speak of it over dinner.”
Twilight had already begun to fall. The two of them, exhausted from the long journey, nodded without protest.
“Theodore, I shall retire to my room first.”
“Very well. Wash up, and I shall see you at dinner.”
They exchanged a brief word and were about to part ways when—
“Theodore…?”
Isabella lifted her face from Claire’s waist, her expression one of utter shock, and looked up at her.
“Miss?”
Her wide eyes trembled with indignation.
“…Why.”
“Pardon?”
“Why is my older brother Theodore, but I am Miss?!”
“Ah.”
Isabella cried out in protest, her lower lip jutting forward as tears glistened at the corners of her eyes.

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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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