Abandoned Empress's Survival Manual Beside the Male Lead - Chapter 20

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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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Episode 6
* * *
‘I’ve been up all night.’
Sherkan didn’t return that day.
In fact, he’d gone straight back to Pasa in what sounded like anger.
It was something the servants told me as they carefully brought breakfast.
Because of that, I’d been unsettled all day.
That night I couldn’t sleep in that enormous bed, and I watched the sun rise instead.
I thought about it seriously.
‘Did I act too servile? Is that why he was angry?’
I was furious too!
Did he really think I was supposed to be some noble empress or something?
‘Fine. I understand.’
Sherkan hates it when I lower myself like that.
‘Well, he’s so obsessed with noble bloodlines—maybe he wants an attitude to match.’
And that wretched Dae Shin Jeon, inflating my value for no good reason!
‘Does Dae Shin Jeon have some grudge against me?’
If he hated me that much, why did he make such a fuss trying to take me away?
I let my emotions settle slowly.
I was angry at Sherkan, but it didn’t last long.
After all, he was the one who brought me to this Gnoet estate.
He accepted the Map I offered.
I breathed in slowly again.
I didn’t want to be cast out.
I hated Dae Shin Jeon even more.
Besides, I had nothing now—if I were thrown out of Gnoet, I’d starve to death.
‘Even if I went back to the Northern Kingdom, he’d just hand me over to Dae Shin Jeon.’
My expression darkened.
‘I need to keep my head down.’
If the male lead hated my submissiveness, I had to change it.
Because I wanted to survive.
Because I wanted to live, even if it meant catering to the male lead’s moods.
After taking several deep breaths while staring at the sky, I threw myself onto the bed and pulled the blanket all the way over my head.
* * *
A week flew by like an arrow after that.
Gnoet Castle was like a beast that had been sleeping very deeply, and now that I was here, it seemed to be slowly waking from its winter slumber.
Everything was quiet and cozy and leisurely.
At first I was angry that Sherkan had left so abruptly, but later I thought it was actually better.
Even in the original story, he was too busy to return to Gnoet Castle often before marrying Ayu.
I began to think it was my fate to remain half-hidden like this until Ayu and Sherkan became properly entangled.
“My lady!”
“Please come outside and see!”
“What?”
The servants bounced excitedly, beaming.
“Your Dowry has arrived!”
“Dowry?”
For a moment I doubted my own ears.
A dowry was one of those things I was never supposed to have in my entire life.
‘Could it be from the Northern Kingdom? Did they hear the news that I became Grand Duchess of Gnoet?’
Surrounded by servants, I went outside and my eyes widened.
“There are over forty carriages!”
Unlike the dilapidated Gnoet Castle, it was enormous in size, so it had no trouble accommodating all of them.
I narrowed my brow.
But wait.
Those are the insignias of the Pasa Imperial Palace, aren’t they?
What’s going on?
“Where should we set these down, my lady?”
The coachmen and servants riding the carriages asked.
“Take everything directly to the first floor hall.”
“Quickly!”
I lifted my head abruptly, having been frowning as I pondered the origins of that carriage.
Perhaps it was my imagination, but there was something oddly frantic in the maids’ voices just now.
The maids had even rolled up their sleeves and clung to the carriage, hastily moving cargo inside the castle.
The two knights who had remained in the castle joined in as well.
It was as though they feared someone might snatch it all away…….
‘Snatch it away?’
A light switched on in my head as though someone had flipped a switch.
That was it. There were people who would snatch it away.
Sherkan’s family — his relations by marriage, not blood.
The Previous Grand Duchess had seated her relatives in the Elder Council, and through them, she had drawn vast sums of money from its coffers.
Even after her death, their positions had not wavered.
‘The fact that this grand fortress has become so grimy in just half a year is their doing, too.’
They had stripped away everything — the glass fixtures, marble ornaments, even the gold-painted bricks.
I glanced at the maids hurrying with the cargo, then moved on.
Rather than help them move the baggage, I searched for a bundle that might contain ‘equipment.’
Then my fingers came to a stop.
‘This……?’
I recognized it. These were far too familiar objects.
They were treasures the Northern Kingdom had sent with me when I was given as an Imperial concubine to the Emperor of Pasa.
Fearing the aging Emperor of Pasa might take offense that the King had not sent the saint’s daughter herself, the King had accepted quite a substantial financial loss.
Since arriving at Pasa, I had never touched them again.
They had all been consigned to Pasa’s treasury.
‘How did these end up here……?’
As I slipped on the White Gloves with Jewels and placed the Pearl Tiara upon my head, I could not still my wavering gaze.
Then.
Dozens of carriages drew to a halt before the castle gate, and people poured out like a flood.
The maids’ faces went pale, and the knights’ expressions grew grave.
“Oh, it’s real!”
“Word came that carriages were streaming into House of Gnoet, and the plunder truly has arrived!”
“Ah, don’t push! Form a line!”
‘They must be relatives of the Previous Grand Duchess.’
From their dress, they were no aristocrats. With their merchant-like appearance, they seemed to be people from a trading company run by those relatives.
“Wait, wait just a moment!”
The knights stepped forward to block the surging crowd.
“This is not plunder! It is not goods to pay off debts, so do not lay hands on it!”
“Lies! Who doesn’t know that the Grand Duke went to war with Pasa!”
“That’s right! And if it’s not plunder, how did forty carriages of such precious treasures arrive?”
“The Grand Duke sends plunder every time he wins in battle! It’s all to pay off debts to House of Gnoet!”
“Of course! These must be that plunder!”
“Look at my certificate! I am owed debt forgiveness, so I shall take these at once!”
The men were like a swarm of ants.
Rushing frantically toward candy dropped on the ground.
The man who had managed to push to the front suddenly muttered in confusion before me.
“And who might the lady be…….”
“A lady? A lady, you say?”
“Hm?”
All at once, the clamoring crowd fell silent—as though someone had pressed a mute button.
The men’s gazes fixed upon me, and they slowly came to their senses.
“Look there—see the gloves that woman is wearing? They look to be the same material as what’s sticking out of the box?”
One man cried out with a sharp eye.
“Then is that woman part of the plunder too?”
“That’s it! She looks like a well-bred lady—the Grand Duke must have brought back a captive noblewoman from a Pasan ducal or marquisial house!”
“Is he finally taking a concubine? Kehehe!”
“A concubine? If she’s a war captive, then of course she’s plunder, and if so, we have disposal rights! We should obviously sell her and split the proceeds.”
“I’ll buy her!”
“Hold on!”
Both my ears rang as though trapped in a hell of noise.
The men’s voices were deafening, and it seemed they were on the verge of coming to blows.
There was a hierarchy even among them; soon the candidates were narrowed down to a few.
“Then I shall purchase her at thirty thousand Ribe.”
“I can put up thirty-one thousand Ribe!”
“Our trading house can offer thirty-one thousand one hundred Ribe!”
I didn’t even feel like laughing.
‘Such a pittance.’
This exalted male protagonist spent one hundred thousand Ribe to buy me, or so he claimed?
‘I learned a thing or two in that hellish palace, at least.’
Snap.
I pulled the glove off with my teeth and hurled it at the face of the man who kept shouting the highest bid.
Smack!
The crowd fell silent as if doused with cold water.
It was just as if someone had pressed a pause button.
I stepped forward with a scornful smile playing at my lips, tilting my chin as I spoke.
“How vulgar.”

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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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