Abandoned Empress's Survival Manual Beside the Male Lead - Chapter 56

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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 56
“How could you say such a thing?! That’s the evil custom of the fallen Pasa Imperial Palace!”
It was, indeed.
Quite the terrible habit.
I laughed brightly as I spoke.
“I was joking.”
……
“Why are you so shocked? Look at your face.”
“Ah…….”
The servant’s mouth froze, and he floundered about.
So where did he get off being so careless with me?
With a single word, I’d reminded him of the proper order of things, and now I leisurely waved my fan.
“But strangeness is strangeness, after all. I think I’ll need about a year to adapt.”
“Then, if that’s the case…….”
“Ten is too many. You know how difficult the Grand Duke’s House finances are, don’t you? The Council of Elders only provides the salary. As for the Grand Duke’s House—there aren’t even blankets for the attendants to cover themselves with, nor clothes, nor firewood.”
……
“And there’s the matter of soup and bread for meals. You’re saying you’ll provide all of that as well?”
The servant’s eyes narrowed at those words.
He’d detected the trap hidden in my speech.
That was right.
This was social and political maneuvering.
The salary would be fixed, but living expenses held tremendous flexibility.
If I were to indulge the attendants excessively—dressing them in nothing but gold-embroidered goose feather quilts and pearl-dusted garments, warming their rooms with expensive charcoal instead of firewood, feeding them truffles and caviar at every meal—and then present the bill, what would happen?
I would hold a blank check in my own hand.
Yet the servant couldn’t very well ask me to set a limit on the living expenses I’d be reimbursed.
He’d already laid the groundwork himself, saying that providing these attendants was a gesture of goodwill from the Council of Elders toward me.
How could he impose such a humiliating condition now?
The servant smiled with difficulty.
“Might I ask what you wish for, Grand Duchess?”
I smiled as I spoke.
“I’ll accept just one for now. I’d appreciate it if you could be generous with the salary. I won’t bill you for living expenses. Instead, send me ten years’ worth of salary for one attendant in advance.”
“Pardon?”
“I told you—the Grand Duke’s House circumstances are dire, truly dire. If we don’t have that much, the moment I take on an attendant, I’ll have to cut my own meals. Not that I eat much to begin with—just one egg per meal…….”
In that instant, a light of admiration flickered across the servant’s face.
A look of pure admiration, as if beholding the very incarnation of greed itself?
He ground his teeth as he spoke.
“Understood, Grand Duchess. I’ll do as you’ve said. I’ve heard that the Grand Duke’s House eggs sell quite well. Within a year, I suspect you’ll be living in luxury even with ten attendants.”
‘Is he mocking me?’
Hmph.
He wants to sneer at the Grand Duke’s House for merely selling eggs, does he?
We’ll see about that later.
Whatever I create with the Breeding Order, I’ll never sell a single thing to that man.
“Thanks for the kind words. And I should warn you—when I look at attendants, I don’t consider anything else. I’ll choose only those with beautiful appearances.”
The servant finally lost his composure, his mouth falling open blankly.
Such shamelessness!
Such utter unreasonableness!
That was precisely the expression on his face, but what could he do about it?
“Even if they don’t have a drop of noble blood, as long as they’re beautiful and obedient to me, I’ll select them.”
“That…….”
“You understand that much, don’t you? After all, I was born to the Imperial Family, naturally passionate about beauty, and I’m the former Imperial Concubine from a fallen dynasty.”
“……Yes. Of course……you are.”
The servant forced a smile and withdrew.
He was likely already mentally reviewing the faces of the attendants he’d selected, and if that wouldn’t do, he’d be busy recruiting more beautiful servants from among the commoners and arranging for their education.
‘Ten attendants within a year?’
Hmph.
Dream on.
By then, I’ll have paid off every last cursed debt and completely reversed our power dynamic!
* * *
A few days later.
I’d come out to inspect the mine once again when I suddenly stopped in my tracks.
‘Isn’t that the child from yesterday?’
The boy who’d been shoved roughly by the miners yesterday was now gathering stones with determined focus.
But then…….
‘Why is he acting like that?’
His small, lean shoulders were trembling constantly.
“Hello?”
When I spoke from beside him, the child spun around in alarm and bowed his head.
The stones he’d been holding scattered across the ground with a clatter.
“……Hello, Your Highness!”
“Your Highness?”
I couldn’t help but smile.
It made sense, really—Grand Duchess, princess, former imperial concubine: my status was hopelessly complicated for a child of the mines to keep straight.
The highest rank he seemed to know was princess.
My smile made the child’s face flush red. I bent down to meet him at eye level and asked gently.
“Hi there. But why are you crying?”
“I’m, I’m not crying.”
“…….”
The moment the words left his mouth, tears began rolling down his cheeks in fat droplets.
“This is…… well, it’s like a farmer’s sweat and tears, you see…….”
“…….”
That phrase was meant to describe the farmer’s hardship embodied in the harvest, not literal tears spilling down his face like now…….
That old man who was supposed to take him away……. No, wait.
“Where is your father?”
The child, who had been vigorously wiping his palm against his clothes, froze.
“He’s not my father. I told him I wasn’t going…….”
“You did? Why?”
“Just…… just…….”
The child’s pupils darted back and forth. Then he covered his gaunt face with both small hands and mumbled.
“Someone pushed me from behind and broke my leg. That’s why.”
“Broke it?”
Only then did I notice he wasn’t standing quite straight.
But I couldn’t tell which leg was injured.
There were no splints or bandages on him anywhere.
When I glanced at his slightly trembling leg, the child’s face flushed in panic as he spoke.
“It’s just my knee aching because of the rain. Don’t worry, Your Highness.”
“……How old are you?”
“Five.”
“…….”
Though I was the mistress of the Grand Duke’s House—one on the verge of ruin—providing a splint was nothing.
“I’ll have a doctor brought for you. A broken leg heals quickly.”
Especially in children, bones knit faster.
“That’s all right.”
The child’s lips pressed together tightly.
“……He said I’m useless because my leg’s broken, and not to call him father anymore. Father already brought another boy……. So you don’t need to spend money on me.”
“…….”
“I’m just a worthless child who fell and broke my leg…….”
“…….”
The dam finally broke, and tears cascaded down the boy’s cheeks like a waterfall.
Still crying, he suddenly began scrubbing frantically at his clothes with his hands.
Black cloth and black hands took a long while of rubbing before they looked even slightly cleaner.
Extending what was likely now the cleanest part of his body, the child spoke with earnest seriousness.
“Thank you for your concern, Your Highness. One day I’ll become a hero. That way I can save you and we’ll live happily ever after.”
Only then could I grasp what future this scrawny boy was envisioning.
His vigorous hand-scrubbing seemed meant to show me the most proper courtesy befitting a ‘lady,’ as knights customarily do.
Each word he spoke carried the halting, uncertain inflection of a knight serving a lady.
Since the young miner had surely never actually seen a knight, he must have cobbled together scraps of knowledge he’d picked up from somewhere and patched them with imagination to present to me.
I took the child’s hand and spoke.
“Here, have this.”
“This……?”
Erichi took a candy from the pouch he’d brought and placed it in the child’s mouth.
I’d been rolling it around in my pocket, wondering when to take it out.
The child’s mouth snapped shut, then both eyes flew wide open.
“……!”
Dazed by the sweetness, the child belatedly stumbled backward.
“Oh, Your Highness! Ash got on your dress……!”
The limping child tumbled over at once, then threw themselves flat on the ground.
“I’m sorry! I’ll pay you back for it!”
“Pay me back?”
I saw myself reflected in this child.
When you really think about it, haven’t I been endlessly turning over in my mind the desire to repay Sherkan’s kindness?
‘I should take them with me.’
Having made the decision quickly, I brushed the ash off my hands as I spoke.
“This is a very expensive dress, you know.”
The child looked flustered.
“Then… then could I pay it back over eighty months?”
“Well, then I’ll have to keep you by my side for eighty months and put you to work.”
“What?”
A child with no adult to rely on grows up too fast of their own accord.
This child was of that sort.
“You’re offering me work?”
“So, what do you say? Will you come along?”
“But… but……”
The child hesitated, uncertain.
“Even though my leg is broken?”
I furrowed my brow.
“Don’t talk like that. Princesses don’t like such ugly words.”
“Even though my leg is… even though I’m injured?”
“Yes.”
I let out a hollow laugh.
Shortly after.
The child had gathered a bundle no bigger than their palm.
At first they followed behind me, but soon they’d somehow summoned some hidden strength and overtaken me in a flash.
I felt anxious inside.
With a broken leg, should they really be walking like that?
Just as I was about to open my mouth to suggest I carry them.
The child stopped before a muddy puddle.
They then drew out a wrinkled cloth scrap from their clothes and laid it flat across the puddle.
“Step on it and go across, Your Highness.”
The palm-sized cloth didn’t cover even a tenth of the puddle.
But the child wore the most satisfied expression in the world.
‘…Step on that?’
I hesitated for a moment.
The child’s eyes shone brilliantly.
In the end, I lightly stepped on it and crossed the puddle.
Then the child picked up the cloth with a happy expression, wrung out the water, and tucked it back into their clothes.
I watched the child cross the puddle and asked.
“Should I carry you?”
“I’m going to be a knight. I have to protect Your Highness, so I can’t be carried.”
“…Do you know you’ve fallen over five times already?”
“I can’t impose on a delicate princess just because a splendid future knight is a little hurt, oh— ouch!”
The moment they said that and fell again, I scooped them up into my arms.
They felt lighter than a dress worn at banquets.
It was staggering. I could feel every bone…….
“N-next time I’ll carry you, Your Highness!”
“Carry me?”
“Once I grow a little bigger……”
Laughter burst out of me.
But then a sudden thought sobered my expression.
“Let me check something—can I roll up your clothes for a moment?”
“Why? I don’t have fleas or anything like that……”
“It’s not because of that. May I take a look?”
The child nodded hesitantly, a trace of anxiety crossing his face.
The moment I lifted his thin shirt, I froze.
‘Could this be… the one from the original story?’
No—if that were true, then what I was about to take with me wasn’t just some orphan, but…

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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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