Abandoned Empress's Survival Manual Beside the Male Lead - Chapter 6

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

Episode 6
* * *
‘I’ve been up all night.’
Sherkan didn’t come back that day.
In fact, he’d apparently returned to Pasa at once, looking furious.
The servants had mentioned it in hushed tones as they brought breakfast.
Thanks to that, I was unsettled all day long.
That night, I couldn’t sleep in that vast bed and ended up watching the sun rise instead.
I gave the matter serious thought.
‘Did I come across as too servile? Is that why he’s angry?’
Well, I was angry too!
What, does he think I’m some sort of highborn empress?
‘Fine. I understand.’
Sherkan dislikes it when I make myself small.
‘Though he does seem obsessed with noble bloodlines, so maybe he wants an attitude to match.’
And that wretched Minister—pointlessly inflating my value like that!
‘Does the Minister have some grudge against me?’
If he hated me so much, why did he make such a fuss trying to take me away?
I let my anger settle slowly.
I was furious with Sherkan, but it didn’t last long.
After all, he was the one who brought me to these Gonet lands.
He accepted the map I offered him.
I drew a long, deliberate breath.
I didn’t want to be cast out.
I despised the Minister even more.
Besides, I had nothing now—if I were expelled from Gonet, I’d starve to death.
‘Even if I returned to the Northern Kingdom, he’d just hand me over to the Minister.’
My face darkened.
‘I need to keep my head down.’
If the male protagonist hated my submissive manner, I had to change it.
Because I wanted to live.
Because I wanted to live, even if it meant pleasing the male protagonist’s moods.
I looked up at the sky and took several more deep breaths before throwing myself onto the bed and pulling the covers over my head.
* * *
A week flew past after that.
Gonet Castle was like a beast that had been sleeping deeply, and now that I’d arrived, 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 came to think it was actually for the best.
In the original story too, he was so busy before marrying Ayu that he rarely returned to Gonet Castle.
I even thought it was my fate to remain buried, half-hidden, until Ayu and Sherkan truly became entangled.
“My lady!”
“Come outside and see!”
“What?”
The servants bounced on their heels, beaming.
“Your dowry has arrived!”
“Dowry?”
I doubted my own ears for a moment.
Dowry was one of those things that should never have had anything to do with me in my whole life.
‘Could the Northern Kingdom have sent it? After learning I’ve become the Grand Duchess of Gonet?’
Surrounded by servants, I stepped outside and opened my eyes wide.
“There are over forty carriages!”
Unlike the dilapidated appearance of Gonet Castle, its size was enormous, so it could accommodate them all without trouble.
I furrowed my brow.
But wait.
Those are the emblems of the Pasa Imperial Palace.
What’s going on?
“Miss, where should we set these down?”
The coachmen and porters riding in the carriages asked.
“Have them all taken directly to the first-floor hall.”
“Quickly!”
I was frowning, pondering the origins of that carriage, when I suddenly looked up.
Perhaps it was mere fancy, but there had been something odd—an urgent anxiety—in the maids’ voices just now.
The servants had even rolled up their sleeves and clung to the carriage, quickly moving luggage into the castle.
The two knights remaining in the castle joined them as well.
It was as though they feared someone might seize it all at any moment.
‘Seize it?’
A light switched on in my head like a sudden spark.
That was it—there were people who could seize it.
Sherkan’s family. His blood-relations in name only, not by ties of love.
The Former Grand Duchess had placed her relatives on the Council of Elders, and through them had channeled vast sums of money from the Council’s coffers.
Even after her death, their positions had not wavered.
‘This grand fortress has grown so shabby in half a year because of them.’
They had torn away every piece of glass that adorned the castle, every marble statue, every brick painted with gold leaf.
I glanced at the maids hurrying with their burdens, then moved on.
Rather than help them, I searched for bundles that might contain my personal belongings.
Then my fingers came to an abrupt halt.
‘This…?’
I knew these things. They were far too familiar.
These were the treasures the Northern Kingdom had sent with me when I was offered as a concubine to the Emperor of Pasa.
Fearing the aging Emperor of Pasa might take offense that the Holy Mother’s daughter was not being sent, the King had accepted a considerable loss to satisfy him.
But since entering the palace of Pasa, I had never touched them again.
They had all been consigned to the Pasan warehouses.
‘How did they end up here…?’
I drew on the White Jeweled Gloves and placed the Pearl Tiara upon my head, yet could not still the trembling in my gaze.
Then.
Dozens of carriages drew to a halt before the castle gates, and people spilled forth like a torrent.
The maids’ faces went pale, and the knights’ expressions hardened into grim resolve.
“Oh, it’s real!”
“We heard word that carriages were rolling into the Grand Duchess’s castle, and now War Spoils have actually arrived!”
“Ah, stop pushing! Form a line, if you please!”
‘These must be the Former Grand Duchess’s relatives.’
By their appearance, they were no nobles—all of them looked like merchants, likely subordinates of the merchant companies those relatives controlled.
“Wait, wait just a moment, please!”
The knights stepped forward to block the approaching men.
“These are not War Spoils! They are not goods to settle debts, so lay no hand upon them!”
“That’s a lie—who doesn’t know the Grand Duke went to war in Pasa?”
“Exactly! And if these aren’t War Spoils, how else could forty carriages full of such precious treasures arrive?”
“The Grand Duke has sent War Spoils every time he’s won a battle! All to repay the debts hanging over the House of Gonet!”
“Of course! These must be those same War Spoils!”
“Look at my contract here! I’m entitled to debt forgiveness, so I’m taking these at once!”
The men were like a swarm of ants.
Scrambling after a fallen sweet on the ground, their eyes wild.
One man, having managed to push his way to the front, suddenly turned toward me and muttered in a bewildered voice.
“My lady, who might you be…?”
“My lady? Did you say my lady?”
“Eh?”
In an instant, the raucous clamor fell silent. It was as though someone had pressed the mute button.
Every eye fixed upon me, and slowly the men regained their wits.
“There—look at those gloves the woman is wearing. They seem to be the same material as what’s poking out of that box, don’t they?”
One man cried out with a piercing gaze.
“Then isn’t that woman War Spoils too?”
“She must be! Look at her—clearly a lady of gentle breeding. The Grand Duke must have brought back a captive noblewoman from Pasa—perhaps a duchess’s or marquis’s daughter!”
“Is he finally taking a concubine then? Ha ha!”
“A concubine? If she’s a war captive, she’s War Spoils by right, and that means we have first claim to dispose of her! Of course we should sell her and divide the proceeds.”
“I’ll buy her!”
“Hold on!”
My ears rang as though trapped in a pit of noise.
The men’s voices were too loud, and soon they seemed ready to come to blows.
Though there appeared to be some hierarchy among them, and a few front-runners quickly emerged.
“Well then, I’ll take her for thirty thousand Ribe.”
“I can pay thirty-one thousand Ribe!”
“Our merchant house can offer thirty-one thousand one hundred Ribe!”
I couldn’t even laugh.
‘What a pathetically meager sum.’
And yet this oh-so-noble male lead supposedly paid ten thousand Ribe to buy me?
‘I learned a thing or two in that hellish Imperial Palace.’
Snap.
I yanked the gloves from my hands with my teeth and hurled them at the face of the man still shouting the highest bid.
Smack!
In that instant, the crowd fell silent as if doused with cold water.
Like someone had pressed the pause button itself.
I stepped forward with a sneer playing at my lips. In the same breath, I jutted my chin and spoke.
“Vulgar wretch.”

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