Abandoned Empress's Survival Manual Beside the Male Lead - Chapter 83

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

Episode 83
* * *
The next day.
When I woke, I found myself moved to my own bed.
The maids must have transferred me while I slept.
I glanced at the clock—it was nearly noon already—but I wasn’t surprised.
“Relei, you doing okay?”
At Ratku’s question, I smiled and nodded.
“I’m doing just fine.”
“Hehe.”
Ratku wagged his tail and pressed himself against my side. After playing with him for a while, I pulled the bell-cord to summon the maids.
Once I’d finished eating and washing, I had only Briget remain in the bedroom.
“Briget.”
“I am at your service, Grand Duchess.”
“I want to ask you something about the Empress Dowager.”
“……!”
Briget’s expression shifted.
“What would you like to know?”
“When the Empress Dowager dealt with ambitious concubines, how did she arrange the surroundings? Could I borrow some of that wisdom?”
Briget’s face contorted in a peculiar way.
No—she was grinning hideously!
“Few understand Her Majesty’s spirit as well as I do. Which impertinent wretch do you wish to question?”
“A man.”
“Even better. Men have superior stamina compared to women, so one can interrogate them far longer.”
“…….”
It was unmistakably vulgar language, yet somehow she delivered it with such refinement.
“I shall make the preparations, Grand Duchess. Grant me until this evening.”
I nodded, somewhat reluctantly.
The next day.
I sat trembling in the Reception Room—or what used to be one—now drenched in blood.
This is terrifying.
Despite the daylight outside, the room was dark as midnight. Every curtain had been drawn shut, and only a handful of candles flickered here and there. Each time the flames wavered, the shadows on the walls writhed as though alive.
Red stains were scattered across the floor and walls, though upon closer inspection, they weren’t actually blood.
They were merely strips of red cloth torn convincingly and scattered about, yet under candlelight they looked convincingly like dried bloodstains.
How could this be?
On one table, mysterious implements lay arranged in neat rows by size: pincers, awls, something curved into a hook at the end. Tools whose purpose I decidedly did not wish to imagine.
Every one of them gleamed wickedly in the candlelight, clearly sharpened fresh this morning.
And in the corner, bones had been stacked.
What are those bones? Surely not human ones…….
The air even carried a metallic, rusty smell. Incense had been burned too. I tried not to ask where such a scent came from, but curiosity got the better of me, and I received an answer beyond imagination.
“A trifling touch, Grand Duchess. I merely spilled the blood of a dead chicken about the room.”
Briget smiled serenely as she spoke, and I trembled even more with dread.
I was seated in a chair of terrifying grandeur—three times higher than my usual one—positioned to force anyone looking up at me to crane their neck painfully.
My feet didn’t touch the ground. That was the real problem.
Erichi stood before me, utterly transfixed.
His slender frame looked even thinner than usual, and his ink-stained fingers fidgeted helplessly.
“Erichi.”
“I apologize!”
“……For what?”
“Well, surely you’ve gone to such lengths arranging this room not to interrogate me, have you?”
‘It’s working well.’
“Briget arranged this. I have a command for you.”
“If I may ask—what sort of command requires such ominous preparation?”
“Of course.”
I nodded and held out a document.
“Stamp it first.”
“Pardon?”
“Stamp it.”
“Surely you must tell me what this is!”
“If you’re confident, stamp it.”
Erichi stared at the paper with an aggrieved expression.
I tapped the hastily scrawled oath with my fingertip.
[I swear that should I reveal anything heard from the Grand Duchess, I shall first be beaten to death by Briget, second be beaten to death by the Grand Duke, and third be burned fiercely by the spirit of the sun.]
“……Why is the order like this? If the spirit comes last, won’t I already be dead twice over by then?”
“Exactly. That’s why you’re swearing your very soul will burn in hellfire. Then I’ll know you mean it.”
“Your Highness! You don’t trust me that little?”
“I do!”
“……!”
Erichi deliberated for a long while, his face a portrait of injustice, before finally pressing his seal down firmly.
The way he pushed hard enough for the red ink to bleed was plainly the gesture of someone half-resigned to his fate.
“Come.”
Erichi waved a weary finger as he spoke.
“What on earth are you doing, Your Highness?”
Only then did I rise from my seat, satisfied, smiling.
I had to gather my skirts briefly as I descended from the high chair, but my dignity remained intact.
“Follow me.”
It was before the fireplace in my bedroom.
Several palm-sized chunks of Silver-White Coal, kneaded by hand from powder, lay in a neat row before the hearth.
“Light it.”
Erichi brought a spark to it with a skeptical expression.
At first it seemed to burn quite ordinarily.
“Is this all I need to see?”
“Yes.”
Erichi asked, his face alight with anticipation.
“Will the spirit of the sun burst forth from the flames?”
Or so he seemed to wonder.
“If you’re to be the Grand Duke’s chief advisor, you’ll come to understand why this flame is a secret.”
Erichi fixed both eyes wide open, watching the flame as though it might disappear.
The Silver-White Coal burned without a whisper of smoke rising.
An hour passed, then two, and still it was the same—only the embers quietly reddened and glowed through the night, radiating warmth.
Not a sound either. Charcoal would crack and pop, spitting sparks by now, but this burned only within itself.
The air in the room had changed.
There was no acrid wood-smoke to sting the nose or burn the eyes—only the even warmth of a sun-soaked afternoon.
At some point, Erichi settled entirely before the fireplace, unable to look away.
I crouched beside him, and we kept watch over the flame through the night, losing track of time.
The candle in its holder burned down to half, then to two finger-widths, until finally it slumped into the pooled wax at its base.
The chunk in the hearth remained unchanged.
When the window paled with the approach of dawn.
Erichi suddenly lurched to his feet, the Silver-White Coal still before him—not extinguished once through the entire night.
“Your Highness! What in the world is this?”
“Do you understand what’s good about it?”
“One of these does the work of ten logs! A flame with no smell, no smoke……it’s like some lost magic from the ancient world, isn’t it?”
Erichi’s eyes glistened with fervor.
“It’s coal.”
“Coal, you say? But coal……”
Erichi tumbled out words without drawing breath.
“When you burn it, your eyes sting and your throat grows raw. And the soot! Even burning it for one season turns the ceiling black. The smell—once it soaks into clothes, three washings won’t get it out. And if you burn it indoors, you’ll suffocate half the time, won’t you?”
Erichi was right.
In a world where timber was everywhere, who would use such a flawed stone? The mining cost alone would exceed the gain.
I smiled faintly.
“Which is why I’ve rectified all of that, and that’s why I’ve called you.”
“……Rectified, you say?”
“Yes.”
Erichi’s eyes widened a beat too late. He reached unconsciously toward the coal before catching himself.
“If what you’re saying is true, Your Highness, then this isn’t stone at all—it’s gold.”
“Precisely.”
I glanced at the coal and spoke.
“White gold.”
“But how can coal be this white?”
“Want to know? Care to press your seal to another oath?”
“I’d rather not know and pretend I never saw it.”
But her face betrayed her—burning with curiosity.
“Is this magic? Or a spirit’s blessing?”
“My knowledge.”
……!
Erichi asked, a beat late.
“……Grand Duchess. Is this knowledge common in the Northern Kingdom?”
“How could it be? This exists only in my mind. No one else knows a thing about it.”
Erichi swallowed hard.
His eyes, darting between the lump in the stove and my face, gleamed with a sharpness that seemed impossible for someone who hadn’t slept all night.
“Grand Duchess Lorelthiana.”
Erichi spoke with grave solemnity.
“You could earn money. A great deal of it.”
“Yes. We need the money.”
“For that, you’d need to keep this technique monopolized for a very long time. Which means maintaining absolute secrecy.”
‘As expected.’
For all his occasional foolishness, Erichi was genuinely clever—a gifted advisor.
He read my ambitions and intentions in sequence so accurately that I hardly needed to explain anything. Convenient, truly.
“That’s exactly the counsel I need. How do I keep this technique from leaking out for as long as possible?”
Erichi answered in a measured voice.
“Keep the process hidden from everyone.”
“You’re delivering an obvious truth with such gravity.”
Ordinarily, Erichi would have protested, boasted about his cleverness—but now his expression remained unmoved.
He stared silently at the silver-white coal, his face profoundly contemplative.
“Grand Duchess. To prevent the technique from being revealed, you must fragment every process—and fragment the people who execute them.”
……?
“This coal isn’t in the same state as when it was mined days ago. I can see that much. So you mixed in several secret ingredients of your own, didn’t you? You’ll divide that process into the finest possible steps. And to guard against any possible spies, you’ll need to introduce false processes alongside the real ones.”
…….
My eyes widened at Erichi’s words.

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