Abandoned Empress's Survival Manual Beside the Male Lead - Chapter 77

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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 77
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That evening.
Mood be damned—the work had to be done.
“Grand Duchess, we sent knights to inspect the mines you’d purchased, and they report that every single one shows signs of having been thoroughly excavated and then refilled.”
I listened to Erichi’s report with half attention, absently tapping my pen.
“What should we do?”
His voice carried a caution he didn’t usually employ, which meant he’d already heard what happened in the Garden.
Right. Work it is.
No matter how wretched the world becomes, you have to eat, so you have to work.
I flicked my eyebrow.
“The Council of Elders must be frantic after hearing about the Spirit’s Foresight. Leave them be. They won’t find a speck of gold vein no matter how hard they dig.”
They could dig forever and strike hot spring water instead.
“Understood…….”
“Why do you look so disappointed?”
“To be honest, I’d been hoping. That the Sun Spirit gifted you—a Contractor who comes along once in a thousand years—those gold veins.”
I laughed despite myself.
Ratku, dragged off to the spirit realm, hadn’t returned yet.
But if Ratku had heard that just now, this is what they would have shouted.
-No way they’d give it! But Relei’s just gonna get it tomorrow anyway!
“How pure a being the Spirit is—would they indulge in such vulgar greed?”
“You’re right. I still have much to learn.”
“I was joking……. You don’t need to take it that seriously.”
“No, I really did reflect.”
“In one second?”
“Yes!”
…….
I couldn’t help but let out an astonished laugh.
Oddly enough, my mood improved a little.
I have Ratku and the spirit-worshipping devotees who love Ratku.
Small in number though they are.
Erichi’s the same, and so is the Emperor. Their numbers may be few, but their devotion runs deep.
Among the nobles I met at the Gaiard Imperial Court, I encountered several whose reverence for the Sun Spirit was quite profound.
If love for the Saint is a mass love, then love for the Sun Spirit is a minor love with an exceptionally devoted core…….
Erichi glanced at me sideways and asked.
“Speaking of which, Grand Duchess. If it weren’t the Spirit’s gold vein, why did you purchase all those Abandoned Mines?”
“Because I have knowledge that can make money.”
“Knowledge?”
“Yes. In fact…….”
I set down my pen and folded my hands together beneath my chin.
As my mood lifted, I felt the urge to play. So I spoke like some sinister organization boss.
“It’s rather lucrative knowledge.”
“Did the Sun Spirit teach you?”
…….
“Grand Duchess?”
“Yes. Well, something like that…….”
My answer trailed off halfheartedly, but Erichi shot to his feet, eyes blazing. I startled. “What is it?”
“Why?”
“My apologies. I got excited and……. So what should I prepare?”
Hmm…….
What would Erichi need to prepare?
Still, I couldn’t waste an IQ 999 character showing this much enthusiasm.
“Will you help?”
“Of course! It’s your word, Grand Duchess!”
I smiled and held up two fingers to cover his eyes.
He immediately went slack-jawed.
“Pardon?”
“There’s just one thing I need from you, Erichi.”
A beat late, Erichi recoiled in alarm, pressing his back away.
“My eyes? You need my eyeballs, Grand Duchess?”
I burst out laughing.
“Surely you don’t think I’d need that?”
“……Well, wouldn’t you?”
Still smiling, I spoke with sudden seriousness.
“I want to know how commercially viable the thing I’m about to show you really is.”
They say that if you dig into a hobby for ten years, it becomes a profession.
During my terminal patient days, I’d spent every day in a hospital bed watching videos about returning to farming.
I’d exhausted the agricultural content, so I’d watched livestock farming, ocean industries, and mining operations too.
I had that much free time on my hands, after all.
In any case, thanks to those days, I knew from which era onwards humanity had begun using what was once treated as mere black garbage in earnest, and exactly how to handle it to make it profitable.
‘And it seems this era hasn’t started using coal yet.’
The wealthy nobles used charcoal, and the poor commoners burned firewood.
The problem was that I wasn’t from the coal generation either.
I was someone who’d used oil, nuclear power, renewable energy—everything lavishly—so coal meant nothing visceral to me.
That’s why I needed someone raw, someone who’d never tasted coal energy.
‘Someone to give me an objective assessment.’
Of course, they had to be loyal—someone who’d listen to me carefully yet let no information slip.
That was precisely Erichi, who’d begun as a Spirit worshipper and been reborn as a Lorellia worshipper.
“The item? It’s in the mine, then?”
“Yes.”
Erichi furrowed his brow.
“If you’re confident there’s something commercially valuable there, even though the Council of Elders turned the entire place upside down and found nothing……”
He tilted his head and continued.
“Could it be that you have the knowledge to make something from the soil or coal dust in the Abandoned Mine?”
“……?”
This time I nearly jumped to my feet.
‘What?’
IQ 999 character—that was just something I’d made up on the spot.
‘He really isn’t just ordinarily smart, is he?’
No wonder he’s the male lead’s aide!
Even as I admired this, anxiety crept in simultaneously.
‘What if I’m the only one who doesn’t know, and everyone in this world is already using it?’
Specifically, the processed goods made from coal—things like shell briquettes or briquettes.
Just moments ago I’d been so confident.
Now I found myself hesitating as I asked.
“Is it possible……that this world already knows how to use coal?”
Erichi blinked.
“That’s rather a strange thing to say, Grand Duchess.”
“Strange how?”
“The way you speak, it’s as though you’ve come from an entirely different world……”
Cold sweat began to form on my skin.
‘How perceptive!’
So that’s why his name is Erichi!
I worked hard to hide my panic from the keenly perceptive Erichi and replied.
“I pieced together some knowledge from what the Spirit told me and things I’ve read, to come up with this idea. I’m just worried it might already be known.”
At the mention of the Spirit, Erichi’s eyes sparkled once more.
“I’ll explain the details tomorrow when we go there. But tell me one thing—is coal used in homes for heating?”
Erichi shook his head immediately.
“I’m not certain of your intentions, but as far as I know, no country uses coal in the home. In the first place……”
He looked at me as though I were a rather dim-witted angel.
“Setting coal alight requires several workers gathered round it. Any household wealthy enough to employ that many laborers would naturally use good charcoal instead, would they not……?”
“Right? Of course I knew that.”
“Then why did you ask if you didn’t know?”
Even as he questioned me, Erichi reflexively lowered his head.
“……Why are you doing that?”
“I apologize. Whenever I say anything even slightly disrespectful to you, Grand Duchess, the maidservant Briget comes flying out to strike my cheek, so I’ve developed an automatic reaction……”
‘She won’t be coming out today.’
Briget had no opportunity for that now.
She was busy soothing and putting Atil to sleep, then conferring with a doctor brought in from the City.
Of course, I didn’t say that aloud.
I knew that if I suddenly brought up Atil, the carefully ventilated mood and atmosphere would crash back down to the bottom.
“Briget is busy and can’t attend to me today. That works. Tomorrow I’ll show you something truly amusing, so prepare yourself to go to the mine. Let’s head out around noon.”
“What? You’re saying the Grand Duchess will go herself? I can simply bring the coal back, can’t I?”
“The spirit instructed me to observe it directly.”
“The spirit did?”
Erichi jolted upright in excitement, but the moment he saw me grinning like a fool, he collapsed back down like a jellyfish drained of all resistance.
“You’re teasing me again, aren’t you?”
Instead of answering, I wrote characters on a sheet of paper. Erichi narrowed his eyes and scanned it before asking.
“What does this mean? Is it a symbol?”
“Hmm…….”
By this point, I was beginning to relish teasing Erichi.
It was a truly unexpected source of amusement.
I spoke with deliberate gravity, as though weighing the matter carefully.
“You don’t need to know.”
“What? Grand Duchess! Were you cursing me? Is it a language from another continent?”
“I said you don’t need to know.”
Even as I ordered him to leave, Erichi clutched at the paper, turning it this way and that, examining it with utmost seriousness.
I giggled, waving the paper he’d abandoned.
What was written on it was the simplest of sneers.
ㅎㅋㅎㅋ

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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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