Abandoned Empress's Survival Manual Beside the Male Lead - Chapter 1

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Episode 1
Prologue. Offered as an Imperial Concubine
“Depart.”
The carriage lurched forward.
Forty carriages in total, laden with silk, jewels, and countless precious works of art, rolled out in procession.
Outside, whispers never ceased.
“So Princess Lorelitiana is truly being offered up.”
“I heard the Pasa Emperor originally wanted the Second Princess…”
“Hush! Keep your voice down! The Second Princess is our kingdom’s greatest treasure! How could His Majesty ever give the Saint’s daughter to that aging emperor as a concubine?”
“His Majesty loved the Saint more than anyone else, after all.”
“When you see something like this, being the First Princess—legitimate daughter of the Queen—amounts to nothing. Well, she was just a back-chamber princess anyway…”
I rolled my eyes toward the empty air above.
The carriage ceiling was sealed shut. And that was hardly the extent of it—the windows and doors alike bore heavy locks firmly fastened.
On the outside.
Not to protect me, but to cage me in lest I escape.
Lest I prove unable to bear being offered as concubine to that aged, lecherous emperor and attempt flight.
Lest this novel’s precious “heroine” be dragged away to the imperial harem before the story properly begins.
“Besides, isn’t the Pasa Empire currently at war with the Coalition Army? I heard the Empire’s prospects are rather grim… If it should fall, do you think that princess might end up dying alongside the emperor?”
“She’d be fortunate to die without bearing his heir. That emperor is already seventy years old.”
“At that age, is such a thing even… possible?”
“Tsk, tsk. How pitiful.”
How pitiful indeed.
The pitiful First Princess.
The pitiful Lorelitiana.
‘Yes. It is pitiful.’
I too found this wretched minor character unbearably pitiful.
‘I was just an ordinary terminal patient in my former life.’
Why must I inhabit this pitiable Lorelitiana and suffer the original plot’s sacrifice?
* * *
Have you ever opened your eyes as the heroine’s half-sister?
I have.
It was three years ago.
How bewildering it was at first.
I was originally a terminal patient in my previous life.
It was already unjust to die after a long illness, yet now I find myself forced to navigate this brutal existence.
The life difficulty of this ‘Lorelitiana’ into whom I had transmigrated was equally absurd.
First, there was my father, the King of the Northern Kingdom.
He did not love his wife, who was also Lorelitiana’s mother, the Queen.
Because the King already possessed a genuine love elsewhere.
A beautiful mistress?
The Queen’s cousin?
Neither.
The King’s one true love was a Saint descended from the heavens.
‘But what does it matter if she’s a Saint?’
Honestly, I found it pathetic.
What changed between a King and a Saint? They’re still just two people.
Just an adulterer and an adulteress.
What of the people’s tongues? What of the nobles’ eyes?
And my mother—
My mother was pitiful too.
Betrayed by the man who lay with another woman, she suffered terrible insomnia, anorexia, depression, obsession—
She prayed to heaven every day, it’s said. That she might bear a son before the Saint. That the Saint’s child might die altogether.
At that time, both my mother and the Saint were with child.
‘That mad King.’
And also… that cruel heaven.
As if mocking my mother’s devotion, I—Lorelitiana—was born instead.
A girl, no less. A worthless princess incapable of properly manifesting the royal bloodline’s power.
Months after my birth, the Saint too bore a daughter.
That child was the heroine of this world: Ayu.
Ayu inherited the Saint’s exotic beauty and was extraordinarily lovely, and above all, she wielded the Purification Ability—the power of the royal bloodline—more powerfully than anyone else.
The king doted on Ayu tremendously and registered her as the Second Princess. Had it not been for her mother’s noble bloodline, he would surely have replaced the queen herself.
‘Honestly, if Mother hadn’t been a Saint, there’s no way she could have been pushed aside like that.’
In the meantime, Lorelitiana grew up with a disposition to match, and often tormented her half-sister Ayu in places where no one could see.
Eventually, she incurred the king’s wrath and was given to the elderly emperor of the Pasa Empire, only to be poisoned by the First Empress.
That was the entire life of the Lorelitiana I had possessed.
‘But something’s strange. I acted nothing like the original.’
In any case, that was the Lorelitiana of the source material, and I wanted to live.
The moment I understood my situation, how hard did I work to survive?
To the crown prince, to the king himself, even to the heroine Ayu. I labored desperately to win their favor.
Yet I still ended up being given to that decrepit emperor of the Pasa Empire.
‘Ah. There is one thing that’s different, though.’
The original Lorelitiana was cast out because she angered the king, but now, I…
“Lorelitiana. When have I ever hated you? It’s just that Ayu is still so young, isn’t she? You’ve always been so sensible. Haven’t you?”
If only he had driven me away in anger, as in the original—then at least I could have felt wronged.
The king patted my back gently and pushed me off the cliff with tenderness.
I did not cling to him. I climbed into the carriage willingly, on my own feet.
Every child wishes to be the most beloved of their parents.
Because the first being one loves in this world is one’s mother and father.
So the wound the king inflicted, even if I were not truly Lorelitiana, could not help but sting.
‘Besides, what do I know of parental love as a possessor?’
I never had that in my past life either.
‘Ayu must be so lucky. The whole world loves and protects her.’
And there’s barely a few months’ difference between us—how much younger can she really be?
I’m young too, aren’t I?
By Korean standards, we’d be considered the same age.
No matter how much I grumbled, reality refused to change so easily.
The only consolation—if it could even be called that—was this novel.
That it was a terrible tragedy for Ayu?
And that the Northern Kingdom’s royal house where I had lived would fall into catastrophic poverty and ruin?
When I first possessed this novel—’The Second Lead’s Chair’—I naturally thought I would prevent the tragedy that would befall the Northern Kingdom’s royal family.
Who would wish for the place they live to be destroyed?
Using the knowledge from my past life and the memories of my possession to the fullest, I worked tirelessly to lay the groundwork for everything.
‘But it all fell apart once I was given to the Pasa Empire as an Imperial Concubine.’
But none of that mattered now. My future was far more precarious now that I’d been sent to Pasa.
And as proof of that, right now…
“The Coalition Army has invaded!”
“Ahhh! Save us!”
“The Pasa Empire is finished! Everyone, bow to the ground!”
The Pasa Empire had fallen, and the Imperial Palace was burning.
It was exactly one month and one day since I had entered the palace as a low-ranking concubine.
‘Burn more! Burn it all to ash!’
While cursing inwardly like a demon, I crouched small and surveyed my surroundings.
‘But in the original, it said the empire wouldn’t fall until six months after Lorelitiana entered.’
Why was everything moving so fast?
It was strange, but it was good for me.
‘I thought I might starve, but I survived.’
Of course, I had no intention of fleeing the palace in the chaos of war.
I had no way to slip past so many soldiers, and besides, a fallen concubine from a ruined empire would only be captured and executed if she tried to run.
So I.
Had decided to surrender to the male lead instead!
‘This has to work.’
Hidden carefully in my possession was a “tribute” I had procured by drawing on every scrap of knowledge from the original work.
My tribute.
My entire future.
For my surrender.
* * *
“What have you brought?”
A cold voice rang out above my head.
After stumbling this far, my appearance was a disaster.
And I could not open my mouth.
Because…….
“Your Highness, Grand Duke. You see, that young Imperial Concubine produced this map.”
I lifted my head just slightly, peering through my lashes, and saw the Grand Duke’s adjutant raising half of a torn map with trembling hands.
That’s right.
Half of it.
“The Imperial Palace Map?”
“Yes, Your Highness! We verified it quickly, and it truly contains the entire geography of the Pasa Imperial Palace! Even the secret passages are all there, not a single one missing! If this is genuine, we can capture the remaining forces at once, and seize that old Emperor dog who’s been fleeing—we’d claim the greatest prize in our entire Coalition Army…….”
“Where is the other half of the map?”
The adjutant’s excited voice cut off abruptly.
Through the shadows cast by my lowered lashes, I could barely make out the adjutant pointing toward me.
“It’s in her mouth, Your Highness.”
“……In her mouth?”
For the first time, I felt that cold voice waver.
“Yes. But no matter what we do, she won’t open it. We’re afraid she might swallow it, so we can’t force it out. That’s why we had no choice but to bring her before you……. Your Highness?”
Heavy footsteps.
They stopped. Right in front of me.
What happened next made me start in shock.
Sherkan, that male protagonist.
He knelt down directly before me.
“……!”
I lifted my head in fright, and my gaze met his red eyes directly.
Cold eyes.
An air of detachment.
I had never felt the word “beautiful” so utterly powerless.
Truly, he seemed sculpted by the gods themselves.
‘Now I understand why the entire continental aristocracy loses its mind over Sherkan Goneth.’
Sherkan Goneth.
The Grand Duke of Gaiard Kingdom, the cornerstone of the Coalition Army marching to destroy the Pasa Empire.
Countless nobles in aristocratic circles looked down on Sherkan as a barbarian half-breed.
Yet at the same time, they desired his impossibly beautiful features.
Even Ayu herself had lost herself at the sight of him—or so the description had gone on at length in the original.
I was no different.
Had my mouth been free, I would surely have stammered and fumbled helplessly.
Fortunate or unfortunate as it was, I had crumpled half of a massive map and shoved it into my mouth.
Swallow? Impossible. I couldn’t risk damaging this precious tribute.
My parched throat felt rough. Sherkan studied me intently, then asked, “What do you want?”
“What do you want?”
I immediately pointed at my throat with my index finger. Worried that one wasn’t enough, I raised both and pointed earnestly at myself.
Sherkan’s gaze dropped to my throat.
In the silence that stretched, cold sweat beaded down my spine.
Just as I thought I might lose consciousness under his sheer presence, Sherkan spoke.
“Are you asking me to spare your life?”
I nodded frantically.
“Fine. I’ll do that.”
Before I could even process his remarkably casual agreement, Sherkan’s warm hand gripped my jaw lightly.
My eyes widened.
He forced my mouth open and extracted the map in one smooth motion.
“Sh-Sherkan Goneth…….”
Sherkan, examining the crumpled map, went still. His eyes met mine.
“You know my name?”
I wanted to speak, but my tongue had gone stiff—the words wouldn’t come properly. I felt as though someone had excised only the moisture from my body and left it stranded on desert sand.
‘I don’t know.’
“Y-yes…….”
I answered briefly and watched for his reaction. Sherkan continued to stare at me intently.
That frigid gaze genuinely frightened me.
What good is the most beautiful exterior when your eyes are so cold?
The adjutant, who had stepped up behind Sherkan, spoke. “Your Highness? What shall we do with this young concubine?”
“What shall we do with this young concubine?”
“I don’t know.”
Sherkan tossed half the map to his adjutant and spoke.
“Check the map first. Will fifteen minutes be enough to restore it?”
“More than sufficient, Your Majesty! Good heavens, the gods truly smile upon us! What extraordinary fortune!”
Sherkan’s chief aide beamed at me with unbridled enthusiasm.
‘I know him.’
Erih—the male protagonist Sherkan’s senior aide.
Among the countless supporting characters in the original work, he was one of the rare few who showed no particular infatuation with Ayu.
It was strange, given that any man in the hero’s circle was supposed to be devoted to the heroine as a matter of course.
Yet Erih certainly didn’t regard me with any special warmth either.
Rather, it was more like……
Yes—the sort of look one might give a foolish angel.
Still, his eyes held nothing but good intention, so there was nothing truly objectionable about it……
‘When am I supposed to wake up?’
As I was gauging the moment,
my body was suddenly lifted as though I were a doll.
At the same time, my feet left the ground.
Before I could blink, Sherkan had me in his arms, and I instinctively braced my hand against his chest.
His voice sounded directly above my head.
“Send word to the commander’s office—one Fallen Concubine is to be distributed from Goneth in advance.”
“As you command!”
“And……”
Whether it was my imagination or not, I sensed a faint hesitation in Sherkan’s voice.
Yet I couldn’t find the courage to lift my head and meet the gaze of those crimson eyes.
“Your Majesty, should this concubine be locked in the detention cells designated for Goneth?”
“Stop spouting nonsense.”
“I beg your pardon? Ah, then to the public dungeons—Agh!”
Erih, who had pressed the question so eagerly, cried out as Sherkan struck him, sending him sprawling across the floor.
For a moment, something inside me felt oddly satisfied.
“Prepare a carriage. Send her to the Ducal Manor at once.”

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————