Abandoned Empress's Survival Manual Beside the Male Lead - Chapter 62

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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 62
Ratku returned from being trapped in the Spirit Realm for two full days unable to accept Atil’s existence.
To what degree, you ask……
Every time Atil called out “Grand Duchess!” Ratku would smack his head with his tail.
“Ow! Ow!”
And whenever I stroked Atil’s head, Ratku would dart out from nowhere and swat his rear instead.
“Ow! Ow! Ow-ow-ow!”
Of course, Atil felt nothing at all……
“That fuzzy little thing keeps tail-whipping me? Hmph! And all that baby-talk mumbling—it’s all an act! Pretending to be a baby!”
“You act like a baby with me too, don’t you?”
“That’s different! Ratku was the baby first! Ratku’s the original baby!”
The original baby, Ratku, sulked.
“Ratku is the cutest! Ratku is the cutest!”
I laughed in exasperation and turned to gaze out the window.
Autumn was deepening, and winter, soon to arrive, seemed to brush my fingertips like something half-real.
The Subjugation Grounds would be much the same.
Perhaps winter would come even faster there.
‘I wish I could write to Sherkan.’
Unfortunately, he was set to return to the Imperial Capital shortly, so I couldn’t send a letter now.
Gabin had said it would never reach him anyway.
But I could see him instead.
[I’ll come to see you then.]
That single line, read over countless times, surfaced in my mind once more.
At night, lying alone in bed, I would turn my head and catch sight of the box containing Sherkan’s letter.
Why did certain words carve themselves into my mind rather than onto paper?
I would linger for long stretches unable to tear my eyes from that box, only to think the same thought every single day.
After possessing Loreltianna and mending my actions and bearing, people began treating me far more kindly.
“Loreltianna. That cloak you’re wearing is quite worn. Why didn’t you tell your father?”
“Does it look to you like I’m your older brother? If the maidservants had been stealing your allowance, you should have told me! I’ve already disciplined them thoroughly!”
So I too allowed myself to hope easily.
That I could be saved.
That because I gave sincerely, they would give sincerely to me in return.
That I would be different from the wretched Loreltianna of the original story……
‘It was a delusion.’
Not a single person treated me kindly to the very end.
“Loreltianna. Ayu cried again. Your sister cried again. Don’t you feel pity? Must we watch that little girl dragged away as Pasa’s concubine?”
“Please face reality, Loreltianna. Ayu’s mother is a Saint. Will the entire royal house incur the Grand Temple’s resentment because of you alone?”
Not a single soul.
Not one person took my hand and went against the original story.
Except for Sherkan Gonet.
And so……
To those who were kind to me, I too wanted to be kind in return.
I am one possessed by the desire to repay debts.
Even if Sherkan risks his life racing through the Subjugation Grounds, he cannot prevent ruin.
So I have to be the one who stops it.
The mining work was already something I looked forward to.
* * *
“A gold vein, you say?”
Sherkan lifted his head while organizing his shoulder straps. His hand, gripping the leather cord, froze in place.
“Yes, Your Highness the Grand Duke!”
“A gold vein appearing suddenly—what does that mean?”
The knight could barely contain his smile at the news that had just arrived.
Reading the reports sent separately by Erichi and the knight order, he could only rejoice!
Was there anyone in the world who did not know of the Sun Spirit?
Such a spirit had chosen the Grand Duchess—just how extraordinary must she be!
And perhaps she had even received Premonition in a dream of the location where the gold vein was buried!
The knight was beginning to understand now.
Why the Grand Duke, despite having the subjugation of those creatures still remaining, had sent nearly the entire knight order back to Gonet!
Someone so remarkable deserved the full care and support of Gonet.
Not even a Saint or Minor Saint could compare to this!
“Of course, Advisor Erichi’s letter was somewhat different. The Grand Duchess mentioned that he’d spoken ambiguously of the Premonition, saying it was ‘merely a dream.'”
But wasn’t even such a statement only possible because she was a true contractor of the spirits?
The knight had been grinning with pride, but gradually his smile faded.
“……?”
The young lord facing him bore not a trace of amusement on his face.
No—worse than that, he appeared to be…….
Tremendously angry.
‘But why would he be angry? Even if he’d bought up all the abandoned mines, it shouldn’t have cost much…….’
The knight swallowed hard, his throat suddenly dry.
“Go fetch Aslan for me.”
The voice was cold enough to pierce—sharp as a stylus driven downward—and the knight found himself freezing without meaning to.
“At once!”
The knight hurried out of the barracks.
Sherkan straightened his shoulder armor again. But his hands would not obey him.
In the end, he hurled the armor aside roughly.
The lamplight in the barracks wavered. Deep shadows flickered across Sherkan’s profile, appearing and vanishing in turn.
Like molten metal cooling, his crimson eyes dulled and trembled within the shifting darkness.
Just before Sherkan could explode, a slender knight came rushing in urgently.
“Your Highness! My apologies! I’m late!”
Aslan, Vice-Captain of the Gonet Knight Order, breathed heavily.
“……Your Highness? What’s wrong? Your Highness?”
Sherkan sat half-collapsed on the floor, his face covered with one hand. His other arm hung limp at his side.
“Bring me the medicine.”
“Medicine? Where are you injured? Should I call Beate? She said she’d gone to gather more herbs for you…….”
Aslan fumbled forward with questions, then belatedly understood that the medicine Sherkan meant was “that” medicine.
That medicine.
The medicine given to him long ago by the Grand Temple.
Sherkan had to take this medicine periodically. Without it, he would draw his blade against anyone and everyone without thought.
The moment Aslan produced the medicine from his pouch, Sherkan chewed and swallowed it without water.
His eyes, which had glimmered with madness, slowly subsided. It was not a calming but an exhaustion—a strange, creeping helplessness wrapped around his body.
Aslan hesitated.
“Your Highness…….”
Sherkan wiped his face with both hands and spoke.
“If even one gold vein appears in Gonet’s abandoned mine, how much money would that be?”
“……What?”
“I’m asking what sum a private individual would receive for discovering a gold vein!”
Startled, Aslan hastily began calculating.
“It depends entirely on the scale, Your Highness. Though Gonet has always been rich in ore, so at least a high-grade vein should emerge…….”
“High-grade. I see…….”
Sherkan laughed bitterly.
“Damn it. So it would be as I thought.”
“Your Highness…….”
Aslan grew tense.
“Your Highness, what on earth is the matter? Please, compose yourself…….”
Vice-Captain Aslan was different from the other knights.
From earliest childhood, he had served the young Sherkan, who was equally young then.
It was when Sherkan was three years old.
Around the time the Previous Grand Duke’s son was confirmed to be malformed.
The Previous Grand Duke himself lost his wits at that news.
The Previous Grand Duke formed mistresses frantically, but there was no word of a child, and it was then he remembered Sherkan’s existence.
A son left to rot, or rather—a beast bound and forgotten would be the more apt description.
The Previous Grand Duke, on a desperate gamble, no longer kept Sherkan chained, but instead cast him into the most remote villa.
Fearing he might escape, he also appointed an apprentice knight of Sherkan’s age as servant and keeper.
That was Aslan.
And so Aslan knew well.
That Sherkan was not himself now.
It was exactly like him in childhood.
More precisely, it resembled Sherkan just before a seizure.
‘He hasn’t had a single episode since he was thirteen. Why is this happening now?’
“Your Highness, I will find out. What is troubling you?”
Sherkan, flipping through the spoils ledger with the frantic urgency of a madman, stopped short at the Grand Temple’s inventory list.
“So the Grand Temple accepts donations of gold veins as well.”
“Yes, Your Highness…….”
Ever since the Saint had appeared in this world, the Grand Temple’s prestige and influence had soared beyond measure.
From that moment onward, the Grand Temple had shifted from being the giver to the receiver of spoils.
So many tributes had poured in that the Grand Temple had actually established standards on its “spoils inventory list,” redistributing them anew to each knight order.
Aslan, unable to fathom why Sherkan had grown so visibly angry, ventured to continue speaking with great care.
“If I recall correctly, when one donates a superior-grade gold vein, the Holy Nation grants territory equivalent to a Count’s Domain in return. The tenure lasts three generations…….”
“Yes. Three generations…….”
Aslan looked at Sherkan’s twitching, expressionless eyes and suddenly grasped it.
‘Surely not?’
When he was very young.
The Previous Grand Duke had ordered Sherkan to undergo a purification ritual to cleanse the Barbarian Blood mixed in his veins.
For a full ten years.
Because of it, Sherkan Gonet had grown perfect on the surface, but inside, he was gradually breaking down.
He exhibited strange obsessions with his possessions from time to time.
It was no different from a starving beast that had gone mad and was tearing into its own flesh.
Possessions.
Obsession.
Aslan’s mind spun in mounting dread, and against all odds, he arrived at a deduction that bordered on truth.
“Your Highness! You don’t mean to say you’re afraid the Grand Duchess might flee to the Grand Temple?!”

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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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