After I Died, My Husband Went Mad [EN]: Chapter 70

On the way to the canyon, Dihart had to hold the bluebird in his arms, trying to calm his pounding heart.

‘Don’t get your hopes up.’

He repeated it endlessly, but the wretched expectation kept resurfacing. He was betting everything on the slim chance that she was worried about him, daring to dream of a possible future.

“Was I always this weak-willed?”

Dihart frowned and ran a hand through his hair. He had only just reached the canyon entrance, but the wind was already whipping around him from all directions. Looking up, he saw dozens of wind caves carved into the towering mountains.

“Tsk.”

He stopped trying to fix his messy hair and lowered his head. The bird, which had seemed to be asleep in his hand, had opened its eyes and was looking up at him.

“……”

A meaningful gaze passed between them in a fleeting moment. Dihart felt, somehow, that the bird understood him. However, he immediately dismissed the thought when the small beak started digging into his tangled hair.

“Ugh, hold on a minute…!”

Tweet!

Dihart instinctively felt that something was wrong. The bird, filled with an inexplicable resentment, pecked at his hair and tugged with its claws, creating a commotion. Eventually, Ilay had to intervene to resolve the situation.

“…It wasn’t sent because you were worried about me?”

Dihart looked down at the bluebird with a troubled expression. Held in Ilay’s hand, the bird chirped incessantly, making its sulky mood clear. Embarrassment tinged Dihart’s golden eyes.

* * *

Claude revealed all the secrets he had been hiding. These were facts he inevitably had to disclose in order to explain that he was an illusionist.

“I’m sorry. But I knew how sick and tired you were of Hillend Hall and the people of Inverness, so I couldn’t bring myself to tell you sooner.”

Sebelia was struggling to process the flood of information.

“Wait, just a moment.”

Her head was overloaded. Sebelia covered her feverish forehead with her hand and leaned back against the chair.

“Please give me some time to process all this.”

Claude looked at her with a pitiful expression. Sebelia felt his gaze but couldn’t respond. The information she had just received was too shocking.

‘Dihart’s youngest uncle?’

At most, she had expected to learn about illusionism. The moment she had plucked up the courage to entrust the bluebird to him, he had created a red butterfly as if he had been waiting for it.

‘He must have known from the beginning that the bluebird was created with illusionism, which is why he was able to do that.’

If he were an ordinary person, he would have asked where she got the bird from, or when she had tamed it. But Claude skipped the questions and immediately summoned a red butterfly. That meant he knew the bluebird was made with illusionism and had realized early on that she knew he was an illusionist.

‘All I wanted was to know why he was hiding that fact.’

But as if to mock her thoughts, Claude revealed an even bigger secret.

‘The youngest uncle who was accused of murdering the late Duke and had his name removed from the family register.’

Sebelia buried her face in the cushion and let out a soft groan.

Unlike Weden, who had a large tapestry of the family tree decorating one side of the mansion, Inverness didn’t display such ostentatious ornaments. Instead, there was a separate family tree book covered in lambskin, and Sebelia remembered seeing it only once, right after the wedding.

‘But even then, I only saw the cover from afar.’

Sebelia naturally assumed that Rasch was Dihart’s only uncle. Claude was an existence that had been erased from Hillend Hall long ago, which was easy to do since no one ever spoke of him.

So this situation was quite shocking.

‘I never knew there was such a secret.’

But it wasn’t something she couldn’t understand. It wasn’t as if he had to hide his identity for a trivial reason; he was hiding because he was accused of killing his brother.

“I… I didn’t mean for you to tell me such a secret.”

Sebelia sighed deeply. Controlling emotions with reason was, after all, beyond her. As she hugged the cushion tightly and groaned, Claude carefully spoke.

“I’m sorry. And don’t worry. I won’t call Bella-ssi [term of endearment] my nephew’s wife, ahem, ahem. I won’t do that.”

“You’re stating the obvious.”

A muffled voice came from under the cushion. Perhaps the shock had subsided a little from Claude’s uninteresting joke; she lowered the cushion and said listlessly.

“Then the disguise you wore back then wasn’t magic, but an illusion.”

“Ah, yes. That’s right.”

“I didn’t know that was possible with illusions.”

Sebelia pulled herself together and changed the subject. She had heard enough about Claude’s terrible past and Dihart’s misfortune related to it. There was nothing more she could do for him.

She was no longer a member of the Inverness family. Digging into it any further would be unnecessary interference.

“Can you teach me about illusionism?”

Sebelia said, looking straight at Claude. Her hands on her knees were clenched tightly as if nervous, but her eyes were unwavering.

“I can’t afford to pay tuition right now. So, if you want, I can write you an IOU [I owe you].”

‘I knew it would turn out like this.’

Claude drooped his eyebrows and sighed deeply. Within the Belkram Empire, illusionists were even rarer than sorcerers. He knew it well because he had researched illusionists himself.

And Claude also knew how persistently someone who knew little about illusionism could cling to the only other illusionist they met.

“……Haa.”

I was told that one day I would pay for my karma. Claude recalled the words his teacher had left behind with a wry smile and faced Sebelia.

Her lake-like blue eyes were sparkling with determination, as if it wouldn’t matter even if he refused.

* * *

After walking for a long time through the narrow crevices of the rock walls, Dihart finally stood before the canyon.

Whoosh-!

“Even if it is a god whose name has been forgotten, did he once rule the world, even for a while?”

A sigh escaped his lips. A majestic canyon was hidden in the middle of the towering mountains.

The rock walls soared upwards, reaching the edge of the clouds, and the cliffs plunged downwards into an endless abyss. Cold streams of water poured down below, but chillingly, the sound of the water reaching the bottom was inaudible.

Only the thick fog that rose as if flowing backward froze at some point and turned into snowflakes, falling on his shoulders. The apothecaries [pharmacists/healers] who followed him all exclaimed in admiration at the scenery that was unimaginable in other parts of the Empire.

Ilay, who had approached Dihart, tapped the snowflakes with his hand and said.

“It’s strange that we haven’t discovered a place like this until now.”

“It’s not that strange when you think about the guys holed up in Supredi.”

Dihart said with a wry smile.

“They only discuss things that are invisible or think about how to dig better under people’s skin, but they don’t care about the environment around them.”

It was a mysterious sight and a scene that defied ordinary logic. But this was Supredi: the city of forgotten gods and a place where the mysteries of the sanctuary remained unsolved.

“But even so, it’s already a declining god. Everyone, pull yourselves together and start working quickly.”

Everyone nodded at Dihart’s words. They quickly acknowledged the divine nature of the place and moved in an orderly manner according to Dihart’s orders. While the tents were being set up, Dihart slowly looked around the canyon, searching for a place to set foot that wasn’t a cliff or a flowing stream.

“I’ll do it.”

“It’s okay, just check if the tents are being built well. And double-check if any of the supplies you brought are missing.”

“Yes.”

Thud.

Two or three stones rolled down from his feet, seemingly kicked as he shifted his weight. Dihart lowered his head to look down at the canyon with an indifferent expression.

However, he had to raise his head immediately due to an unexpected interruption.

“Peep-!”

“Ugh?!”

The bluebird, which had already escaped from his arms, was grabbing and pulling his hair. As if telling him to stay away from the canyon, it was firmly gripping the back of his head with its small claws.

“Wait, why again this time…. Keuk!”

It was the bird that Sebelia had asked for, so he couldn’t bring himself to hurt it, leaving him no choice but to lie on his back on the ground.

“……”

“Pyak.”

The bluebird seemed satisfied when Dihart gave up and lay still. The little bird circled bravely over his head a few times and then landed on his chest and chirped briefly.

“Chirp!”

Its appearance was like a general boasting of his bravery after beheading the enemy commander, so Dihart chuckled without realizing it. It was the moment when the bluebird, feeling that he was laughing at it, was about to puff up its body.

[Don’t scold it. It seems like it was trying to stop you because it was worried you would fall.]

The red butterfly, Allos, hidden inside his sleeve, spoke into his mind. Dihart frowned.

‘I didn’t even know it was there.’

Unlike the cherished bluebird, he had even forgotten about the existence of the red butterfly that Claude had forced on him. Unnoticed, Allos lightly flew up and landed next to the bluebird. For some reason, the bluebird was surprised and ran away from it.

The problem was that it ran to the top of Dihart’s head.

[You don’t have to be afraid.]

Allos, who smiled gently, flapped its wings and said.

[I didn’t have time to properly greet you earlier. I’ll greet you again. I’m Allos, Claude-ssi’s illusion beast.]

It was a neutral voice, neither female nor male. But one thing was clear: Allos’s voice was so appealing that gender didn’t matter.

“What exactly is that illusion beast?”

Dihart asked as he got up. Unlike other people, he was not swayed by appealing voices. Allos felt a little pleased at his reaction.

[Ahem.]

Allos flew into the air instead of sliding down and answered.

[Illusion beasts are the strongest will of illusionists, beings that are directly connected to their hearts. If I were to choose similar words… yes, you could call them alter egos.]

“……”

Dihart’s face contorted beyond description when he heard those words. The butterfly in front of him with its seductive voice was an alter ego of his untrustworthy uncle, Claude.

Allos, reading his revulsion, burst into laughter.

[It doesn’t mean we’re the same being. We are, after all, independent and separate beings. However, we feel close to each other to the point of being called alter egos, and we share emotions.]

“Hmm.”

[In the first place, we are born from their hearts.]

Allos said, slowly swimming over Dihart’s head. Meanwhile, the bluebird burrowed into Dihart’s collar and pecked at his collarbone with its small beak, leaving traces that were barely ticklish on his skin like a necklace.