Abandoned Empress's Survival Manual Beside the Male Lead - Chapter 7

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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 7
For a moment, everyone doubted their own ears.
But only for a moment.
“You dare strike your master?”
The man who’d taken my glove across his face came at me in a fury.
But who were the Gonet knights?
They were considered the strongest among all the knights on this continent.
Two of them seized the man in an instant.
“Do you know who this lady is?”
“She is no war captive — she is the Grand Duchess!”
The knights and servants had been screaming themselves hoarse with this fact all along, but no one had listened.
“What? The Grand Duchess?”
“Did she just say Grand Duchess?”
“Are you saying the Grand Duke brought home the Grand Duchess?”
Even the man held at the front lost his wits for a moment.
And yet…….
I could predict it.
Their next reaction.
“That’s ridiculous! I came from the Council of Elders — I heard nothing of the sort!”
“Right! You’re lying through your teeth!”
“You’re all in on this, aren’t you? Trying to make off with these spoils, so you’re making up stories!”
“Tsk, tsk!”
Sherkan was a man whose very presence commanded attention.
But that only worked when he stood before them, physically present.
The Gonet Grand Duchy was on the brink of bankruptcy, and these men had the Council of Elders as their steadfast shield.
Moreover, in the minds of the duchy nobility, Sherkan was nothing but a lowborn half-breed bastard.
When out of sight, he inspired not even a whisper of fear.
I walked forward with heavy steps until I stood before the man still being restrained by a knight, still bellowing.
Crack!
With the dull, meaty sound of thick flesh striking flesh, the chaos around us fell silent in an instant.
To one who’d survived as both a back-palace princess and a bottom-tier concubine, these men were beneath notice.
“You — you just hit me——”
“Ha! Ha-ha-ha!”
I laughed with arrogant abandon, even rolling my eyes back.
There was no way I would appear to be a meek and fragile captive.
If anything, I’d look pleasantly unhinged — and that was a mercy.
‘Of course.’
The Imperial Palace was full of mad concubines.
Some genuinely lost their minds, while others were far better at driving others to madness.
“This is my dowry, which I brought myself. What on earth makes you dogs think you can lay hands on what is mine?”
Having mimicked the antics of a few of those countless concubines, even my voice dripped with arrogance.
“Dowry?”
“You mean a dowry?”
Confusion flickered across the men’s faces.
“Do you not see the seal stamped on the carriage? To your eyes, does that Pasa Empire seal look like a Gonet one?”
Following my gesture, the men turned as if bewitched, and froze solid at once.
“Could it be that the Emperor of Pasa has taken the Grand Duke as his Imperial Son-in-law?”
“Then she’s an imperial princess?”
“You mean to say the Pasa imperial princess came as Grand Duchess?”
I made no move to correct whatever misunderstanding had taken root in their minds.
The continent is vast.
And did this world have automobiles? Did it have radios?
News of the Pasa Empire’s fall would take at least a month to reach here.
And even then, only the royal family and high nobility who kept their ears sharp would know of Pasa’s fate.
A tenth of the men stared at me with startled eyes, while the rest fixed me with disbelief.
“What are you staring at?”
I let out a contemptuous laugh for all to hear.
“So this is a place where commoners may stare directly into the face of a Grand Duchess who stands above royalty? How beastly you all are.”
“……!”
Never lower your chin.
Never laugh in a servile manner.
It would be your greatest weapon against those crude enough to guess at your station.
I kept my gaze cold and fixed it upon the knights.
“Just how incompetent is the Gonet Grand Duchy that it cannot even properly guard a new Grand Duchess’s dowry? Is this how you show disrespect to me, your Grand Duchess?”
“……No, that is a misunderstanding, Grand Duchess!”
The knights, a beat too slow in collecting themselves, quickly bowed their heads.
“A misunderstanding, you say?”
I gestured with an imperious expression.
“Then prove it. You have thirty minutes. Cut out the tongues of every wretch who insulted me and lay them in neat rows before my feet.”
“……?!”
“No, wait.”
“Grand Duchess……”
A knight stammered out a protest, but I paid him no mind.
“On second thought, it wouldn’t be proper for a newlywed bride to witness so much blood.”
I paused as if considering, then smiled and continued.
“I’ll make an example of them, as they do in the Imperial Palace. You there—sever the hands and feet of the five loudest troublemakers standing here. Throw them all to the pigs.”
“……!”
“……!”
As orders so shockingly cruel tumbled from my lips, the merchants’ faces drained to the color of corpses.
Some of them trembled visibly.
‘That’s right. You’ve never heard such words before, have you?’
All of this—every last word—was something a favored Empress Consort had actually said when I was still a royal concubine.
The Imperial Palace was a place where such savage, abhorrent punishments were inflicted multiple times a day.
“Why are you standing there gawking?”
“……!”
The knights of Gonet, at least, were men who knew for certain that I was Sherkan’s wife.
They exchanged glances with one another, then nodded.
Sshing.
The cold, bone-chilling ring of steel cut through the silence.
“Y-you……!”
“Please, don’t do this……!”
I pretended not to hear, lightly toying with the hair at my temple with my right hand.
This cruelty—treating human lives like those of insects. This refinement, this weariness.
Only those closest to a tyrant who dwelt in the highest reaches of power, who sipped blood like wine each passing day, could wear such an expression.
“Cut faster!”
“Yes, Grand Duchess!”
The doubt that had been hanging in the air evaporated like dust in an instant. They knelt entirely.
“Forgive us! We were wrong, Grand Duchess!”
“Just once—please show mercy just this once! We did not recognize your nobility! Our lowly eyes failed us!”
One merchant prostrated himself and began to grovel.
When one begged, two joined in; and then, like a breaking wave, all of them dropped to their knees and pleaded for their lives.
I crossed my arms and tilted my chin to the side, feeling my long hair cascade with the motion.
I heard the maids who had been standing frozen gasp and draw in breath.
I knew it myself.
The destructive beauty that Loreltianna possessed.
A face like an angel sent by the gods, or a siren emerged to bewitch mankind—it could feel almost uncanny in its allure.
‘The cruelty of an Empress Consort combined with Loreltianna’s beauty becomes invincible in a different way.’
Especially with creatures like these.
One knight gripped the jaw of the man at the very front.
What expression had those Empress Consorts worn when they gave such orders?
Ah—I should wear one of delight.
My facial muscles felt as though they were paralyzed.
It seemed my time as a royal concubine had been far too brief to master the true methods of an Empress Consort so quickly.
My hands trembled so badly that I clasped them behind my back, fearful any sign might show.
All while hoping others would see only a ruthless wielder of power.
Then.
“Grand Duchess!”
Suddenly the maids threw themselves at me.
“Grand Duchess, please forgive them just this once!”
“The Grand Duke ordered us to serve you with utmost devotion! Please, we beg you—show mercy just this once!”
“Please forgive them! I’m sure they understand their mistake!”
The maidservants clinging to my skirts cried out sharply.
“Why haven’t you apologized to the Grand Duchess at once?”
“This was the Grand Duchess’s dowry from the start—you had no right to take any of it!”
“Apologize now!”
The maids looked genuinely terrified.
Even the merchants, who had knelt along with the crowd, now trembled enough to believe the threat was sincere.
“If you disturb my rest even once more, I will add today’s crime to your account and have your tongues cut out—that’s how they handled such matters in the Imperial Palace.”
Despite the arrogance in my voice, my heart churned with conflict.
The maids had clearly latched onto me after seeing my hands shake just moments ago.
‘Good people, all of them…….’
The people of this castle were good.
Truly.
And…….
‘Only Sherkan could gather all the Northern Kingdom’s treasures from a crumbling Imperial Palace and send them here.’
Like someone forced to walk across a writhing nest of rats, my head kept drooping.
I gritted my teeth and forced my gaze upward.
The men who had swarmed like rats fled as if fleeing from a cat.
It was only after the procession of carriages they’d brought had vanished into the distance that my body finally went slack.
The sinister smile I’d worn all this time faded slowly.
I let out a deep sigh.
“Phew.”
Barely escaped.
Debt collectors really are terrifying.
“My lords…….”
I let out a hollow laugh seeing the knights still huddled and trembling.
“You’ve all worked hard. Gather the supplies and head inside.”

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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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