Abandoned Empress's Survival Manual Beside the Male Lead - Chapter 44

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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 44
Still, lingering doubt seemed to grip one of the maids, who timidly raised her hand.
“But… wouldn’t it be all right if we went during the day?”
“Would it?”
……
Silence fell.
No one could have answered yes to Bridget’s question.
The maids exchanged awkward smiles.
‘At least they all look healthier than before.’
Once, they had been gaunt—skin clinging to bone—but now that they received eggs and milk allotted under the Breeding Ration with each meal, vitality had returned to their faces.
Bridget turned to me.
“Your Grace.”
Do you believe that cunning villainy and gentle devotion can coexist in the same gaze?
“The children have not spoken entirely wrongly, Your Grace. Autumn mushrooms are excellent provisions; might it not be wiser to entrust the gathering to someone else?”
“Hire someone?”
“No, Your Grace.”
Bridget continued with precise composure.
“The knights’ life debts are still recorded in the ledger at an astronomical sum. Using them should suffice quite well.”
“……Life debts?”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
The moment I saw the faint, eerie light gathering in the corners of Bridget’s eyes, I understood.
“You mean the clothes they ruined in the laundry?”
“Precisely so.”
Bridget smiled with unsettling cheer.
“Those precious garments—ruined most crudely. If one were to calculate their worth alone, those men could be sold to the Gladiator Market tomorrow, forced to stake their lives in combat daily, and it would scarcely cover the debt, Your Grace.”
……
Bridget might be speaking in earnest.
No—she certainly was.
‘You’re right. Picking mushrooms is far better than being sold as a gladiator.’
I nodded.
“Even so, if I’m to command the knights under my household, the captain of the order should be informed for propriety’s sake. I’ll speak to Gavin about it.”
“Would Your Grace waste such precious words on so trivial a matter! Allow me to go at once and impress upon him the seriousness of this!”
Bridget was a devoted fan of mine.
Not a casual one, though—a whale spending hundreds of millions on her idol.
To keep a big spender happy, one must always provide perfect material for devotion.
“Bridget.”
I regarded her for a moment, then tilted my chin slightly and smiled.
“It is the master’s duty.”
……
“My concern for you.”
……?
“Just as the nobility of one’s rank cannot exceed the nobility of one’s bearing, the bearing of a master is what elevates those in service.”
……!
Bridget clutched her chest, eyes fixed on me.
Both eyes gleamed brilliantly.
* * *
‘I was truly terrified, if I’m honest.’
Though now Bridget’s position was far superior to Gavin’s weight class.
But in the original story, Gavin ultimately makes short work of Bridget—that’s how it ends.
So caution never hurt.
I wore the Archduchess Ring every day.
And whenever I had occasion to meet Gavin, I would subtly angle my hand to display the ring.
A form of subtle conditioning and pressure on him, in my own way.
Either way, I was the bride Shercan had brought, the Archduchess, the mistress of Gonet Castle—so he cannot simply kill someone I care for.
That was the message.
‘But he has absolute obedience to Shercan’s commands, after all.’
Soon I entered the training ground where Gavin was said to be drilling.
It was the only training ground remaining in Gonet Castle, bearing the crude name “Stone Path.”
The castle proper had shuttered hundreds of rooms—it would never have funds to maintain a training ground.
“Quite a fitting name, really.”
It really is the Stone Path.
On the broad, rough stones, Gavin stood alone, swinging his sword with beads of sweat rolling down his face.
It was strange to see him training with such seriousness, after watching him do nothing but labor day after day.
Somehow, in my mind, Gavin had already become not the order’s commander but an unpaid laborer…….
“Your Grace?”
At that moment, Gavin’s gaze turned toward me.
Driving the sword down into the earth.
Wiping away sweat with a towel.
Running toward me.
All of it happened in the blink of an eye.
“Your Grace. Is something the matter?”
Gavin did not draw close to me.
Instead, he stood a little farther away than usual, regarding me carefully.
“I came to tell you something.”
I smiled as I spoke.
“Starting today, I’m having mushrooms gathered from the Back Mountain, and I’m going to send knights to do it. The handmaids are too fragile for that kind of work, as you know—it’s dangerous. And the castle has no male servants besides the knights.”
……
“If you’d rather not, just say so.”
Gavin’s eyes darkened for a moment.
He had the look of someone remembering something.
Was it the memory of the Coronation Dress incident, when the knights had ruined it badly while doing laundry? Or was it Bridget’s smile?
“I would not dare refuse Your Grace’s command.”
Then he added,
“But please, allow me to go as well.”
“Where?”
I asked, puzzled.
“You mean to gather mushrooms alongside the others? We’re not just gathering them once—we need enough to fill the kitchen, so you’d have far less time for your training, wouldn’t you?”
“It matters not. Climbing the mountain will help build my strength regardless.”
……
My immediate thought was something else entirely.
Stubbornness had its merits.
But he really was the type to bring hardship upon himself…….
* * *
“……Gavin hasn’t returned?”
“Yes, Your Grace!”
That night, I bolted upright and looked out the window.
“It’s the middle of the night. Where are the other knights?”
“They scattered to gather mushrooms, they said. But only Gavin hasn’t come back, so we thought perhaps he’d returned early, but he’s not here…….”
The handmaids spoke with worry in their voices.
“Could he have been done in by a bear?”
“A wolf might have torn off his leg.”
“What if a jackal already devoured him whole?”
‘What is happening?’
I felt unnerved.
I had been honestly looking forward to it.
The Gonet Knight Order boasted matchless strength and renown across this continent—owing, it seemed, to their lord Shercan’s extraordinary abilities.
I had wondered just how many mushrooms Gavin, commander of such knights, might bring back.
And now the word was that he’d gone missing?
Tick-tock.
At the moment the clock struck midnight, Bridget set down the cloth she’d been embroidering and rose to her feet.
“Your Grace. Allow me to go up to the mountain and look for him.”
I stopped her at once, startled.
“Alone? Absolutely not. Go with the knights.”
“No, Your Grace. There are few knights left in the castle, are there? Please, let me take just one. We cannot leave the castle unguarded, after all.”
“That’s true…….”
Unlike before, Gonet Castle now held many treasures, so we did need to be more careful about security.
In the end, Bridget climbed the mountain with a single lantern and one knight.
And less than an hour later, she came back down, with Gavin carried on the knight’s back.
“Goodness!”
“Commander!”
The castle lurched upside down.
Gavin had lost consciousness.
His lips had taken on a ghastly blue tinge, and cold sweat glistened across his forehead.
Yet strapped to his back was a basket brimming with poisonous mushrooms.
‘Good heavens.’
“Sir Gavin, it appears you’ve consumed a Poisonous Mushroom.”
Erih, who had been waiting with an equally drowsy expression, spoke up.
“Look at his left hand.”
In Gavin’s left hand lay a mushroom with a single bite torn from it, clenched tight.

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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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