MHHC Chapter 5

Resurrection

"Have you heard the news?"

At the breathless maid's voice, Greta barely managed to lift her head from the dishwashing tub. With mourners flocking to the castle, they needed three or four times the usual amount of tableware. All the castle's maids crowded into the kitchen, cooking food and carrying plates.

One of the women washing dishes raised her face, soaked with fatigue.

"What happened now?"

"H-His, His Grace..."

"His Grace, what?"

"No, no, I mean..."

The maid panted, struggling to move her lips with difficulty. Her face had turned deathly pale as she waved both hands frantically. At her shocking stammering, someone offered her a cup of water. The maid barely managed to swallow a few sips. Even so, she couldn't calm down and fidgeted anxiously for quite a while.

"What's wrong with her? It's like she's seen a ghost or something."

"Right. That, that thing..."

"What. A ghost?"

At someone's voice, the maid nodded her head vigorously. Unable to properly part her lips, looking around frantically—she truly seemed like a madwoman. Several servants who had been watching with crossed arms exchanged glances among themselves.

'Seems like she's gone mad, right? Let's drag her out.'

Just as they were about to take a step toward the maid, the door rattled open once more.

"Look, look, I saw it! I went and s-saw it myself!"

Hot steam rushed out while cold outside air swept in. Annoyance appeared on the faces of the maids who had their heads buried in the dishwashing tubs. They were already busy enough to die, and now there wasn't just one but two people spouting nonsense.

Someone asked back with an indifferent expression. Without expectation or worry, just as if bored.

"What did you see?"

"The, the Grand Duke..."

"Our Grand Duke? Why would you mention someone who passed away?"

But what the woman mentioned was not even the 'Grand Duchess' but the actual 'Grand Duke.' The air stirred lightly with murmurs.

Amidst all that commotion, Greta alone remained calm. Without showing surprise, she stacked the clean plates she had finished washing.

'These northerners making such a fuss isn't exactly new...'

The tremendous loyalty toward Ansgar was nothing surprising anymore. These were people who firmly believed that even making trivial jokes behind someone's back about the family crest was sacrilegious.

"...didn't I tell you?"

Despite Greta's indifference, the story progressed steadily. Unlike their dramatic entrance, the voices that had been quietly exchanged between them suddenly grew loud at some point.

"What? Is that really true?"

"Damn it. Where the hell did you see something like that to come babbling such nonsense... You, don't tell me you've been hitting the mallet?"

"No, please believe me. I saw it clearly with my own two eyes."

"Right. The rumor I heard was exactly that..."

"No way... No matter what, a corpse that's been lying there for over ten days..."

"If you can't believe it that much, just go see for yourself right now."

"If only it were that easy..."

The second maid who had burst in was now pounding her chest with her fists in frustration. Unable to contain her indignation, her voice just grew louder and louder, as if splitting iron in half.

Just as Greta was awkwardly picking up plates and starting to move. The maid's voice that finally burst out struck her ears like a blow.

"The Grand Duke has come back to life!"

Who, what, did what...? The strength left Greta's hands at the same time the plates she was holding crashed to the floor. They shattered and scattered, making a tremendous noise. At the unexpected bolt from the blue, people dodged the fragments while showing their irritation.

Even as everyone was in an uproar, Greta accurately grabbed the shoulder of the woman who had shouted out of nowhere.

"What, what on earth do you mean by that..."

"What?"

The maid frowned as soon as she realized that the person grabbing her shoulder was the Grand Duchess's nursemaid. Normally, that alone would have been effective, but right now Greta's expression was anything but ordinary.

"The Grand Duke, right now, did I mishear? Coming back to life?"

"Why are you suddenly speaking informally... Ugh, how many times do I have to tell you? He really came back to life."

"......"

"If you can't believe it, go to the reception room yourself and..."

Before the woman could finish her words, Greta's face turned deathly pale as she burst through the kitchen door and ran out. Through the open door, several maids who had been pushed by Greta's plump body could be seen glaring with annoyed groans.

Suddenly abandoned mid-conversation and left alone, the woman shrugged her shoulders while looking at the other kitchen maids.

"Why is she acting like that?"

"Adelheid."

The hand gripping the edge of the coffin was still deathly pale. Adelheid barely managed to lift her frozen eyes. When people encounter something incomprehensible, they usually get scared and run away. However, she learned for the first time that when something is too distant and strange, the entire body stiffens instead.

'That thing' made a sound.

"Ah, ugh..."

Unlike the very clear voice that had called her name just moments before, it was a slurred and unclear voice. Adelheid looked at 'its' face. Stiffly frozen eyelashes, twitching cheeks, blackish lips. No matter where or how she looked, she couldn't feel any trace of life.

After all, it was a body that had been lying in a coffin until just moments ago. The bluish veins that protruded beneath the pale skin still stuck out prominently. Forehead, nape, wrists, backs of hands... Everywhere her gaze touched was the same. It was truly difficult to believe this was a living, breathing being.

"...Ugh, heugh."

The wide golden eyes, that persistent gaze, settled on Adelheid. She couldn't tell well whether it was Valentin or herself who was trembling and shaking. The hands she had placed on her knees shook mercilessly. She gripped her skirt tightly, crumpling it.

At the same time, Valentin completely emerged from the coffin and stood entirely on his own strength.

"Aaaaahhh!"

"Mo-Morig have mercy...!"

In an instant, the overwhelming moment that silenced people quickly dissipated. All sorts of commotion broke out. The priests each called upon their god, the maids screamed, and several impiously burst through the doors and fled.

Adelheid read her own face in the expressions of the knights who had been standing guard by the coffin.

Shock, confusion, fear, instinctive rejection and revulsion...

"Adel..."

He called her name. As if only that was the truth of the world, without paying even a bit of attention to anything else... Even amidst all this commotion, his gaze that was entirely fixed on her overflowed.

Soon, cold hands gripped her wrist. It wasn't the warmth of a human. Adelheid's jaw trembled.

"Heugh..."

As she whimpered, he pulled Adelheid into his embrace. Arms, round shoulders, slender waist... As if cherishing and coveting something very precious, he gradually drew her into his arms.

His very cool body temperature gradually warmed with hers.

"Adel."

Even with such passionately burning eyes, only his face remained expressionless. As if he couldn't see Adelheid's face soaked with fear, as if there was nothing he could do even if she cried.

'Or maybe... because of rigor mortis, he still can't make any expression...'

At the thought that suddenly occurred to her, a chilling fear brushed the back of her neck. Like a well-honed blade aimed at her, leaving only a fleeting graze before vanishing. He rubbed his forehead against the nape of her neck.

"Adel."

Ridiculously, the voice calling her name sounded pitiful. She couldn't believe this was reality at all. Was she going crazy? Or had she been dreaming all this time?

The feverish breath that burst from between Valentin's lips spread across Adelheid's nape. It was a body that until just moments before couldn't even breathe, let alone speak.

What clung to her entire body felt not like her husband, but like a hard, cold corpse. It was a horrifying moment of unsettling eeriness.

Adelheid watched the healer examining her husband with an anxious face. The healer who happened to be staying in Ansgar looked very tired, having been dragged from sleep.

"How is he?"

At Adelheid's impatient question, the healer slowly straightened his bent back. He turned to her and said.

"Surprisingly, all bodily functions are operating normally. Breathing, pupil response, blood circulation, even the speed of his heartbeat—everything. His heart was stopped for over a fortnight, you say?"

Adelheid barely managed to nod. The healer gave a short exclamation of admiration.

"Morig must have helped him. This is truly the first case of its kind I've ever seen. I'd like to write a paper about it right away. If this were Falkenhaim..."

Greed rippled in the healer's eyes. It was the look of someone who had found an extremely desirable test subject. He clicked his tongue as if truly regretful.

It was an irreverent attitude, but understandable for someone from western Falkenhaim.

Falkenhaim was a place where the continent's finest academies and universities, which produced the best scholars and investigators, were clustered together. Scholars from Falkenhaim could be said to devote their entire lives to researching fresh and unusual phenomena.

"However..."

The healer trailed off and examined the Grand Duke from various angles with a solemn face.

Now Valentin was gripping Adelheid's wrist tightly while looking at the healer with wary eyes. If the Grand Duke had been a beast, it would have been such an intensely possessive look that he would have already bared his teeth.

The healer, who couldn't manage to continue speaking for quite a while, finally opened his mouth.

"It seems he's lost his memory from the shock of being 'frozen' and then awakening. Very cleanly, too."

"...His memory?"

"For example, that's right. Even someone who has lost their memory should retain survival instincts when they see fire—that it's hot, that it hurts when touched—but I don't sense any of that in the Grand Duke."

"......"

"Moreover, it seems like all the divine power in his body has dried up... Was he originally of this constitution?"

Adelheid made a troubled face. She didn't know much about her husband. While humans not born with divine power were rare, they weren't completely nonexistent. Adelheid herself was also someone who hadn't received the blessing of divine power.

She shook her head.

"I'm not sure."

The healer seemed lost in thought with a contemplative expression, then finally opened his mouth.