Abandoned Empress's Survival Manual Beside the Male Lead - Chapter 75

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

Chapter 75
5. How to Revive the Male Lead’s Ruined Territory
The moment I returned to Gonet, I was greeted not by steamed buns or dumplings, but by a skeleton of a boy.
“…Atil?”
“Grand Duchess!”
“Atil? Why have you become so thin? Are you ill? Haven’t you been eating?”
Atil’s eyes widened in a perfect circle, and he quickly shook his head.
“No?”
“But you have…how could you have lost so much weight so suddenly?”
Atil had always suffered from chronic malnutrition.
From the first moment I saw him, his long hair had stood out like straw, yellowed and stiff, and he was far shorter than children his age.
Yet despite it all, his fine, delicate features gleamed with an almost pebbly prettiness.
When Atil gazed up at me with sorrowful eyes, I quickly offered him a smile.
“It’s all right. From now on, you’ll eat plenty with me.”
Color bloomed across Atil’s face at once.
“Yes!”
‘Did something serious happen to Atil while I was away?’
I was about to ask the servants about it when I raised my eyebrows slightly.
To greet my return, all the servants and knights of the estate had lined up at the main gate.
But every last one of them hung their heads low, fidgeting nervously.
‘What is this?’
A strange unease flickered through me alongside my confusion.
If Atil had merely been ill, the servants and knights wouldn’t have looked this frightened.
In fact, Atil had run a high fever for several days when he first arrived at the estate.
Of course, he recovered after taking medicine, but still—a malnourished patient wouldn’t suddenly become healthy just from eating well a few times.
With the weather turning cold, Atil, who was already so thin his bones showed, might have caught something like a chill.
But why did everyone look like trembling criminals?
Suspicious as it was, I asked Atil, who had stuck himself to my side and was beaming up at me.
I knew his condition well enough that I could hardly scold myself for not caring for him properly.
“Atil. Did you wait for me long?”
“Yes!”
“Have you eaten?”
“No!”
“Then shall we go eat together now? I’m hungry too, as it happens.”
“No!”
“…?”
Was it my imagination?
Why did Atil’s answers seem to be repeating?
“Atil?”
“Yes?”
But Atil’s face, thin as it was, looked no different from before I’d left for the capital.
Even the way he grasped my dress—barely using two fingers instead of his whole hand—remained unchanged.
Suddenly, Atil sprang out of my arms and tugged me toward the deeper part of the garden.
In truth, I had rarely taken walks in the estate’s garden.
I only frequented the chicken coop and the dairy cattle pen.
The reason was simple.
The estate’s sprawling garden was desolate to the point of bleakness.
Maintaining beautiful plants and topiaries required an enormous sum of money, and naturally, Sherkan’s household, on the brink of bankruptcy, had no funds left for it.
This vast garden, large enough to swallow an entire district, resembled a small jungle.
Even so, the servants had managed to keep it to this state only by periodically cutting away vegetation without regard for form or mercy.
‘If they’d at least planted plenty of fruit trees, we could harvest fruit each autumn and help support this impoverished household. But no.’
Why plant nothing but boxwood and yew—trees whose berries you can’t eat and whose leaves you dare not touch?
Mentally cursing the Previous Grand Duchess as I went, I followed Atil by the hand.
“Grand Duchess.”
“Hmm?”
After walking only a few paces through this embarrassingly vast garden, Atil pointed directly at the ground beneath our feet.
There lay a pit, covered in dried brown leaves pulled in handfuls.
At first glance, it looked like a trap meant to catch rabbits or squirrels.
“What is this?”
Atil grinned and sat down, clearing away the hidden entrance with his small hands.
“What is this? Did Atil make it?”
“Yes!”
At first glance it looked like a small trap meant for catching woodland creatures, but when Atil had dug it out, the interior proved to be quite large and deep.
It was a pit deep enough to swallow an adult whole.
A trap….
“Why would he make something like this?”
In that instant, an unpleasant flash of intuition struck through my mind.
A trap designed to catch a grown man?
Why would Atil dig something like that himself?
‘Could the Council of Elders’ people have attacked while I was gone?’
Atil had sworn—nearly with his life—that he would patrol the castle and protect the servants.
Unless someone had made a forcible assault, there was no reason for him to suddenly dig these strange traps.
Fire flashed in my eyes as I raised my voice.
“Beibe!”
“Yes, Grand Duchess!”
The handmaids who had been trailing behind us at a distance hurried over.
“What happened? Why did Atil dig these traps?”
“That is… well….”
Seeing the servants struggle for words, my suspicion hardened into certainty, and indignation rose to the crown of my head.
Had the Council of Elders decided to sell even the barest courtesy short?
Breaking into a castle without its master and frightening a child?
Failed in their plot to slip in an informant?
Then Atil cried out, fidgeting with agitation.
“No… no, ma’am!”
“Atil?”
I furrowed my brow and bent down.
Atil was small enough that his head barely reached my knee; without bending like this, it was difficult to meet his eyes.
“Atil, did someone hurt you?”
“No, ma’am….”
“…Atil.”
Only then did I understand what that strange, uncomfortable feeling hovering over me since earlier actually was.
Since just before, all of Atil’s answers had been identical.
Yes.
No.
Grand Duchess.
He had been cycling through these same three phrases over and over.
Atil was usually quite articulate.
He spoke daily about how he, a boy, must protect the ladies with all his heart and devotion.
Watching him, I had thought that bloodline was indeed inescapable.
A child who had grown up harshly in a mine his whole life was somehow crammed full of chivalry.
Perhaps that was simply what it meant to be born into a noble house?
Apart from any such reasoning, Atil spoke clearly and distinctly, even in his young voice.
That was why this was strange.
Atil was not himself right now.
“Atil.”
“Yes….”
A child who has suffered abuse becomes hypersensitive to shifts in their caregiver’s emotions.
Right now, Atil had his fur raised like a starving kitten, his entire focus fixed on my gaze and the cadence of my breathing.
So that slight shift in my expression alone was enough to make his small hands fidget like that.
I drew a quiet breath and asked in a gentle tone.
“My dear Atil.”
“…!”
“Why did you dig all these holes?”
Color bloomed across Atil’s face as he opened his mouth.
“I… I….”
“Yes?”
“I….”
Atil’s lips trembled. They only kept trembling.
He squeezed out only stuttering sounds—I, I—and tried several times to say something, but ultimately nothing came out.
“…Atil?”
“Ah……. Ah…….”
Atil’s face flushed crimson.
Frustrated that words wouldn’t come, he suddenly began striking his own small chest with his fists, again and again.
“Ah…….”
But still nothing emerged. Atil dropped his head low. Tears fell in tiny drops from his small feet.
“…….”
I gathered Atil into my arms.
He had a habit of crying silently, which made sense—in the mines, making noise while weeping would only have invited more blows.
I stroked his back several times and spoke gently.
“Come inside now. It’s too cold out here.”
“Yes…….”
Normally, Atil despised being held and walked about in my arms.
He hated it just as much when the servants carried him.
By Atil’s own reckoning, a knight never allowed himself to be cradled in a lady’s embrace—nor carried.
It was a knight’s shame to do so.
In any case, the things he said were endless.
For all the world like a solemn little recitation from his round, delicate face—”Lady Knight, lady knight, lady princess, knight, lady knight”—repeated over and over.
But now Atil was so withdrawn that my heart ached for him.
I drew a deep breath inwardly, then changed my mind about taking Atil to the Bedroom.
Rather than first settling Atil’s nerves and then asking the servants and knights to explain what had happened, I resolved to question them here, directly.
“Beibe.”
“Yes, Grand Duchess.”
The servants showed signs of unease, their heads bowed deeply.
“What happened while I was away from the estate?”
“That is…….”
The servants glanced nervously at Atil nestled in my arms.
“Atil and I will hear it here directly. Tell me exactly what you witnessed.”
“That…… Grand Duchess.”
Finally, the servant at the front stepped forward, her face on the verge of tears.
“The truth is, just two days after you departed for the Gaiard Imperial Palace…… the Grand Duke visited.”
“……?”
Sherkan?
What could Sherkan’s visit possibly have to do with Atil’s mutism?
I felt cold sweat seeping from Atil’s hands as he gripped me.
In that moment, my mind flooded with terrible imaginings.
I steadied myself and asked.
“What did he do when he came?”

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