Abandoned Empress's Survival Manual Beside the Male Lead - Chapter 90

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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 90
* * *
The day the work clothes were finished, Siaka finally spoke.
“There’s a thief in the workshop.”
The women all froze at once.
“Eight of you snuck fabric home in bundles. I made it clear on the first day—nothing in here is to be stolen, not a single thing.”
The hands holding needles trembled visibly.
Siaka let out a sharp laugh and called out names one by one. Eight women shuffled forward, quaking.
Among them, a woman with dark auburn hair and freckles was singled out by Siaka.
“You stole fabric for three whole garments—the most of anyone.”
“I’m sorry! I’ll bring it back right now!”
“So if you steal something and simply return it, that makes it as if nothing happened?”
Siaka’s voice turned glacial.
“I’m having you sent home. Pack your things and go.”
“Please, I’m sorry! Workshop manager! Just one more chance!”
But Siaka didn’t so much as twitch an eyebrow.
With the slightest nod to a knight of House Gonet, the knight dragged the woman out bodily.
No one dared breathe until her sobs faded beyond the door.
“The rest of you seven will work without pay until the stolen fabric is repaid in full.”
At the word “unpaid,” all seven women stiffened in protest. But they quickly did the arithmetic in their heads and quieted.
Where else would they find work like this?
The wages were generous, paid out daily at the end of each shift, and the meals were abundant.
Such work was never offered to women from the slums.
Yet the word “unpaid” still stung terribly.
That evening, raw nerves set two women squabbling over something trivial.
Siaka strode over and grabbed both of them by the hair.
“……?!”
The knights of House Gonet watching nearby flinched in surprise.
“You two think I’m some kind of joke?”
Her tone had shifted entirely—pure street thug now. Both women shrank back.
“You dare fight in a sacred workplace? That means you think I’m soft, doesn’t it?”
“No, no! It’s not that……!”
“Then what is it? Speak.”
“…….”
“You can’t explain, but you’ll quarrel? I’m worked to the bone, and you two want to pick fights?”
Siaka was utterly brutal. She kicked the coal dust container sitting between the women—hard.
The heavy bin, packed with silvery-white coal powder, flew across the floor.
“From today on, you work two extra hours before you leave.”
“Pardon?”
“You had energy to spare, or you wouldn’t have fought. Use that energy on work.”
“But even so—how can you make us work unpaid for extra hours? You’re not even the workshop proprietor……!”
Siaka’s voice dropped low and heavy.
“And? That’s how this world works. You got a problem with that?”
“…….”
“If you’ve got complaints, get out. There’s no shortage of people willing to work.”
In the end, the women had no choice but to nod through their tears.
After that day, quarreling vanished from the workshop.
* * *
I, disguised as a servant and keeping watch inside the workshop, trembled.
‘Good heavens. To actually hear those words spoken aloud!’
“If you’ve got complaints, get out. There’s no shortage of people willing to work.”
It seemed that threat never died, regardless of era or world!
In any case, I was deeply satisfied with my choice of Siaka.
This place required airtight security. A kind and naive workshop manager would never have sufficed.
I watched a while longer, then slipped away at an opportune moment.
Only after I’d climbed into the carriage with Erichi did I speak.
“Starting tomorrow, let’s process the coal. When does the seaweed and sand arrive?”
“Everything should arrive this evening, Grand Duchess.”
The seaweed and sand were purchased in bulk from a nearby coastal village.
The villagers had been bewildered, I’m told—that the Grand Duke’s House would pay good money for things rotting on the shore.
Carts reeking of fish and salt rolled into the old quarter several times a day.
And then some.
As the list of purchases grew, the spies could no longer tell which materials were genuine.
Coal. Clay. Seaweed. Sand. Ash water.
Only half of these were real.
* * *
“Grand Duchess! They’ve arrived! They’ve come through!”
Erichi came running toward me, shouting.
A week had passed, and at last, the first proper batch of shell charcoal had been produced.
“Wonderful!”
I examined the shell charcoal with great delight.
The silvery-white pieces were beautiful to look at.
It seemed only the most evenly formed ones had been sent, as if they’d been stamped out at a factory.
“This is kindling charcoal, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Grand Duchess. We sent everything you ordered from the workshop without exception.”
Shell charcoal has a high ignition point.
That’s why we needed kindling charcoal that ignites easily.
“This has been fired beautifully as well.”
To use shell charcoal effectively, I also needed a ceramic mesh to fit the bottom of the brazier perfectly—iron was difficult to obtain and expensive besides.
So I’d asked Siaka to have it fired in ceramic, and indeed, the potter was worth her salt.
She’d prepared everything I needed.
That night.
Lying in bed with excitement, I suddenly rolled onto my side and gazed at the hearth.
The image of Sherkan tending the fire on that first day came to mind.
Whenever I thought of him, my heart grew complicated.
The maids had nearly all recovered, thankfully, but Atil’s mutism persisted.
She smiled brightly, bounced about, and had taken to trailing after the maids again.
But she had not yet recovered the language she’d lost.
I rolled over completely, staring up at the ceiling, glaring into the empty air.
‘That’s right. Sherkan is mad.’
It wasn’t deliberate—he’s mad because he’s been broken.
Years of abuse from childhood…….
In the end, I threw off the bedcovers and rose.
Then I carefully packed the shell charcoal I’d selected earlier into a prepared box, piece by piece.
I have no right to be angry with Sherkan.
And truthfully, I couldn’t bring myself to be.
* * *
At the same moment, at the Subjugation Ground.
The knights of Gonet were shouting themselves hoarse.
“Your Highness! The holy water is running out!”
“You must come out now!”
Cries that sounded like screams tore through the air, but Sherkan swung his sword as if he heard nothing at all.
More than twenty broken blades lay scattered across the ground.
This nest they’d discovered was unusual.
For four days the knights had thrown themselves at it, cutting the creatures down, yet their numbers never dwindled.
In tunnels twisted like a mine, miasma pooled so thick that the moment they cleared a space, creatures oozed back like pus.
With an irritated sigh, Sherkan confirmed that even the last flask of holy water was truly empty, then spoke a low curse.
He had to leave.
But even knowing he had to leave, his body moved with mechanical precision.
Something else had lodged in his mind like a tumor.
A single letter that had reached Sherkan yesterday.
It had been sent by Earl Oswald.
[The Grand Duchess has pardoned a lifer by her seal and admitted him to the workshop.
According to law, the Grand Duchess’s seal permits the pardon of ten criminals per year, so there is no procedural defect.
However, the crime was of such grave and vicious nature that I felt compelled to report it. A woman of eighteen years who killed her own father by her own hand.
While Your Highness was away from the territory, such a person has come to oversee a workshop bearing the name Gonet.
I ask out of concern: for what reason does the Grand Duchess pursue such undertakings?]
Letters were rarely left in this camp, where circumstances could shift at any moment.
Sherkan, out of habit, smiled coldly and cast Earl Oswald’s letter into the flames.
But the letter, now reduced to ash, had impossibly burrowed deep into Sherkan’s mind and would not fade away.
Oswald’s letter had transparent intentions.
He was the Previous Grand Duchess’s brother, and among those who despised Sherkan of Gonet, he stood firmly at the forefront.
Sherkan still remembered the way that man had looked at him in childhood, weighing him up with those eyes.
Back then, Sherkan had thought something.
If only he had been a little weaker.
Those mad siblings would have roasted him whole and divided him between themselves amicably.
On the day Sherkan was enfeoffed as Grand Duke of Gonet, Earl Oswald had even coughed up fresh blood—so his twisted, anxious heart was beneath contempt.
Earl Oswald was an irritant to Sherkan, like a biting insect.
Every action he took was full of attacks and malice directed at Sherkan himself, and therefore his concern could never be genuine.
The problem was…….
Crack!
Sherkan smashed the creature’s teeth aside and clamped his lips hard. Blood seeped from the corners of his mouth, already torn raw from clenching.
[Forgive my impertinence, Your Highness, but for what reason do you undertake such efforts?]
Damn it.
Damn it.
Damn it all…….
Earl Oswald was one of the few people who could hazard a guess at Sherkan’s affliction.
He couldn’t be certain exactly what it was, and he lacked the courage to probe it properly, so he merely took any opportunity to needlessly provoke.
The problem was that prodding his nerve strings this way had worked this time.
Sherkan simply could not understand what Lorelthiana was thinking or what she was doing.
Why had she brought a woman into the Workshop who was as good as condemned to death?
Lorelthiana’s sweet whisper made his head spin.
She had said she wanted to prevent Gonet’s ruin.
She had said that was the whole reason.
But was that truly all?
Could it possibly be so?
To sacrifice so much for only that reason?
Why does she treat me so well?
It shouldn’t be possible.
Beside Lorelthiana, he was nothing but a firefly.
That woman was dazzling in her very existence, and such crude light as his would never catch her eye.
And yet, if even winter comes to long for summer, doesn’t it gather up every last warmth it possesses and offer it all?……
“Your Highness!”
His sword hand was half a beat too slow.
Teeth sank into his shoulder.
It was the sensation of being bitten through to the bone, not merely flesh.
“Your Highness is wounded!”
“Call the physician!”
Sherkan tore the creature hanging from his shoulder away entirely.
And gritted his teeth.
Immediately, overwhelming pain crashed over him.
“Your Highness! Your Highness! You must not lose consciousness!”
“Bring the anesthetic!”
Sherkan barely pulled himself up, breathing ragged and harsh.
The creatures’ attack had this as its problem: it inflicted far greater pain than the actual wound.
The agony that began at the bite wound crawled along the bone and clawed its way up to the back of his skull.
There was a saying that someone was having their heart cut out piece by piece, but that was putting it gently. This was closer to having the pieces sewn back on and torn apart again.
It was for this reason that innumerable people had died from the shock of pain itself rather than the wound.
“Your Highness, the physician has arrived!”
“Hold on a little longer!”
Sherkan whispered low.
“Be quiet…….”
Cold sweat beaded on his forehead and dripped down his chin.
What threatened to break him entirely was something else.
Something familiar.
A seizure.

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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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