Abandoned Empress's Survival Manual Beside the Male Lead - Chapter 66

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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 66
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‘What if the Empress Dowager poisons me just because I’m Ayu’s sister?’
I swallowed hard, watching Briget and the handmaids busily packing trunks.
‘Or maybe a sterility drug? She could slip that into my food…….’
Evelyn the Empress Dowager was truly…… truly a terrifying woman.
Sometimes I genuinely wondered what state of mind the author had been in to conjure up such a psychopath.
-The next episode will be somewhat cruel (´͈ ᵕ ` ͈ )◞♡
-The next episode will contain some brutal descriptions, so please be cautious while reading! ♡(っ˘ڡ˘ς)♡
-This episode features torture scenes, so readers who’d prefer to avoid them can skip straight to page 52! Always love you! ◝(⁰▿⁰)◜
‘……As if cute emoticons make up for everything?’
It was a thought I’d had more than a thousand times over.
“Atil. Guard the castle well. You understand?”
“Yes, sir!”
Atil’s eyes sparkled as he made his promise.
“I’ll patrol the castle every single day and lock all the doors every single day. It’s a castle with Ladies in it, after all!”
‘Here we go again.’
I let out a hollow laugh and continued speaking.
“And you’re keeping up with your pronunciation practice?”
“Yes, I am!”
I ruffled Atil’s hair gently. The child looked around cautiously, then hugged me tightly and bolted away.
“Ayu! Ayu! Ayu!”
Ratku chased after him and swatted Atil’s head with his tail, though no one seemed to notice.
I took my leave, waving to everyone in the castle—Atil foremost among them.
“Grand Duchess, please board the carriage.”
With Gabin’s escort, I climbed into the carriage.
The carriage that Gaiard’s Imperial Court had sent especially for us was remarkably spacious and comfortable.
Moreover, thanks to Briget’s careful repairs over the past several days, there was nothing at all that felt inconvenient.
“Your Highness the Grand Duchess, as this Briget must oversee the children’s education, I shall ride in another carriage.”
For this reason, Briget rode in a separate carriage, leaving me alone in the spacious one.
The carriage procession was incomparably more magnificent than before.
Having left only the minimum necessary force to guard the main castle, we were now taking along a full twenty-five Gonet knights and as many as twenty handmaids.
A long line of carriages stretched before and behind mine.
Sitting on the plush seat, I removed my shoes and folded my legs beneath me.
Curtains hung over the glass windows, so the outside scenery flickered in and out of view.
I fell into thought.
‘The Council of Elders must be thrilled.’
No doubt, while I was away from Gonet Castle, they would be frantically deploying every professional hand each night to hunt for veins of gold.
Such diligence. Such admirable effort.
All for nothing.
The more they tore up the mines, the better it suited me. Every search they made meant far less anthracite I’d have to gather myself.
Spending other people’s money was always a thrill.
‘Gonet’s true descent into bankruptcy begins when Sherkan is gravely wounded at the Subjugation Grounds.’
The Grand Duke’s House, which had relied entirely on the spoils of war that Sherkan brought home, would suffer a devastating blow.
‘I won’t be able to earn quite as much as Ayu did, but I reckon I can manage about two-thirds.’
When I’d first arrived at the Grand Duke’s House, I hadn’t had such confidence.
I lacked the advantage that came from being the Saint’s daughter.
No matter how much briquette coal I produced, the nobles wouldn’t use it straightaway.
At first, I’d been genuinely worried about how to promote it.
“But now I have Ratku.”
“Ratku?”
Ratku, who’d been dozing on my lap, perked his ears up.
I stroked Ratku’s head and giggled softly.
Spirit Devotees might not be as numerous as Saint Devotees, but they possessed the advantage of a fanatical obsession.
If I could win them over, anthracite would surely flow smoothly into market, and it would be a tremendous help in paying down Gonet’s debts.
‘And just in case, I’ve prepared medicine too.’
Medicine to give to Sherkan.
I touched the bundle of medicine tucked inside my dress, then stretched out completely beside Ratku.
‘Will Sherkan stop by Gonet briefly this winter before moving on?’
Of course, I wasn’t holding my breath for a long visit.
But…….
But soon it will be winter, so won’t we stay together for a while?
Because there’s so much delicious food in the castle.
Plenty of eggs and milk.
Ratku once said that no living creature in the world would dislike the animals raised in the Breeding Territory.
Last time, I taught the servants how to make Castella.
Since I couldn’t quite remember the exact recipe, I told them it was bread steamed with plenty of eggs instead of flour, and a few days later they made the most delicious Castella.
It tasted wonderfully happy when eaten with cold milk.
The firm cheese had aged quite well too, so it would be nice to melt it and dip all sorts of things in it together.
‘Sherkan should eat things like that.’
If I kept feeding him good things, wouldn’t that free him somewhat from the mental illness that kept bursting out?
If the seizures decreased, I couldn’t ask for more.
Once Sherkan’s face surfaced in my mind, it refused to leave, like a daytime moon.
Then again, wasn’t he the male protagonist this world had been shaped to produce?
His face dripped with yin-like darkness, yet his body gleamed with yang-like vitality.
This impossible gap confused a person’s mind.
Among all humans, only Sherkan as an individual seemed made differently. He was born with the kind of golden radiance that captivated people.
‘That’s the level that makes him the male protagonist, I suppose.’
Just as scooping up a single small fish brings up an entire school in its wake, a voice I thought I’d buried long ago surfaced quietly once more.
Those moments when Sherkan called me a noble lady in that mocking tone, or as if making a tedious joke.
I’m not noble at all.
There’s nothing noble about me whatsoever.
Yet Sherkan always said such things.
Even if those words were meant to be inscribed on my tombstone, they would have sounded lovely—and Sherkan will never know that fact for his whole life, will he?
“I really don’t understand.”
I let out a laugh like a sigh and leaned back.
I felt like a cake baked with carefully raised eggs and milk poured in abundantly.
Which was just my way of saying I felt thoroughly soft and tender.
* * *
Sherkan succeeded in setting the Monster Nest ablaze.
No amount of swords would have been enough.
Still, he had to bring as many as possible. In total, thirty-seven swords snapped, and in the end he crushed them using pure strength.
Sherkan gazed at the ragged flesh beneath his neck and paused to take a breath.
The creatures had torn his neck quite badly. If it hadn’t been for his Consecrated Armor, half his body would have been stripped of flesh.
In this single Monster Nest alone, tens of thousands of creatures were born to devour people.
So it was only natural that an astronomical bounty hung over the elimination of even one such Nest.
The closer one approached the Monster Nest, the more difficult breathing became due to the polluted Demonic Qi.
Only by cutting down all the continuously regenerating and hatching monsters in a short time, then setting fire to the Nest’s roots and sprinkling Holy Water could that Nest be completely destroyed.
It was knowledge only those who had faced a Monster Nest knew, and the Holy Water sprinkled while praying for the dead to return to the bosom of the divine served another purpose.
Just as fire spreads relentlessly when an ember falls into oil, so too did the Holy Water.
The difference was that the fire ignited by Holy Water did not suffocate those who touched it.
Sherkan dropped the last drop of Holy Water, then collapsed to the ground.
He wiped his face, sticky with blood and sweat.
He knew.
He thought himself mad.
This was Sherkan’s first time destroying a Monster Nest alone.
Throwing himself onto a thousand swords planted upside-down would have given him a higher chance of survival.
And yet he couldn’t help it.
Ever since hearing the news that gold might be found, it seemed he’d been in the grip of seizures all along.
“Damned fool…….”
If only he could go back to the past, he would never rescue that woman.
Even starving to death, he should never have saved that sorrowful face.
Sherkan waited for the Monster Nest’s end, then clawed his way out with the proof in hand.
After wandering through that narrow, suffocating space dozens of times over, he finally could breathe the outside air.
“Your Highness!”
“The Grand Duke is coming out!”
“Physician! Call all the military physicians!”
Sherkan was loaded onto a stretcher and carried to the barracks.
The military physicians were occupied with pushing fractured ribs back into place.
Twenty military physicians alone clung to Sherkan, treating his bleeding and setting his bones.
“How could anyone survive wounds like that?”
“I know, right?”
“Because he’s a Barbarian Hybrid…….”
“Hush. Quiet!”
The loaded remarks scattered like mist.
The two physicians, having failed to guard their tongues, were dragged away by the bloodshot-eyed Gonet knight, their mouths sealed shut.
“Your Grace!”
Only after hours of treatment had passed did Sherkan’s quarters finally fall silent.
“Your Grace…….”
Aslan clung to the unconscious Sherkan, tears streaming down his face.
Few Gonet knights remained, but Sherkan was the Grand Duke of the Gaiard Empire. Outside his quarters, Gaiard knights stood watch with grim expressions.
“Let go of that! Your Grace, Your Grace!”
“What kind of mad woman is this? Get out of here at once!”
“Do you know where you are, making such a commotion!”
Aslan, who had been shedding tears while changing Sherkan’s bandages, snapped to attention at the familiar voice.
He hurried outside to see the woman being dragged by the knights.
“Stop!”
Aslan quickly moved to restrain the knights.
“This woman is one of our order’s physicians! She went to gather medicinal herbs, so please let her through!”
“Our apologies!”
At Aslan’s words, the knights released the woman.
Aslan reentered the quarters, and turned to the woman who hurried in after him.
“Beate! Did you find the herbs? Well?”
“I found them, I found them!”
Beate was the physician who had spent Sherkan’s childhood with Aslan.
Now fully grown, she rushed toward the bed where Sherkan lay, tears streaming freely down her face.
“Your Grace, I’ll make sure you don’t suffer! Beate will make it so…….”

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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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