Chapter : 1
Prologue. I Was Offered as a Concubine
“Depart.”
The carriage began to roll.
There were no fewer than forty carriages, all loaded with silk, jewels, and various precious works of art.
Outside, the whispers never stopped.
“So Princess Laureltianna is finally being offered.”
“I heard the Emperor of the Pasa Empire originally wanted the Second Princess…”
“Shh! Be quiet! The Second Princess is our kingdom’s treasure! How could His Majesty give the Saintess’s daughter to an old emperor as a concubine?”
“His Majesty loved the Saintess more than anyone.”
“When you look at it this way, being the First Princess, the legitimate daughter of the Queen, is completely useless. Well, she was practically a princess kept in the background anyway…”
I rolled my eyes and stared blankly into the air.
The carriage ceiling was tightly sealed. And that wasn’t all.
The windows and doors of the carriage were secured with large locks.
From the outside.
They weren’t trying to protect me.
They were locking me inside so I wouldn’t escape.
They were afraid that I might secretly run away because I couldn’t bear being offered as a concubine to an old, greedy emperor.
Because the precious ‘female protagonist’ of this novel was being dragged away as a concubine.
“By the way, the Pasa Empire is currently at war with the Allied Forces, isn’t it? I heard the Empire is losing badly… If the Empire ends up collapsing, will that princess die after having to serve the emperor in his bed?”
“Not serving him and dying would actually be a blessing. That emperor is already seventy.”
“At that age, can he even…?”
“Tsk, tsk. Poor thing.”
Poor thing.
Poor First Princess.
Poor Laureltianna.
‘Yes. She really is pitiful.’
I felt terribly sorry for this pitiful supporting character too.
‘I was just an ordinary terminally ill patient.’
Why had I possessed this poor Laureltianna and ended up being sacrificed just like in the original story?
Have you ever opened your eyes and found yourself as the heroine’s half-sister?
I have.
It happened three years ago.
At first, I was completely dumbfounded.
In my previous life, I had been terminally ill.
It was unfair enough that I had died after suffering from an illness for so long. And now I had to live another ridiculously difficult life.
That was how terrible the difficulty level of the life I had possessed as ‘Laureltianna’ was.
First, there was my father, the King of the Northern Kingdom.
He did not love his wife, Laureltianna’s mother, the Queen.
Because the King already had someone he truly loved.
A beautiful mistress?
His wife’s cousin?
Neither.
The King’s true love was none other than a Saintess who had descended from the heavens.
‘But so what if she’s a Saintess?’
Honestly, I thought it was disgusting.
What difference did it make that he was a king and she was a Saintess?
They were still just a cheating man and a cheating woman.
What about the mouths of the people? The eyes of the nobles?
And my mother, too.
She was pathetic as well.
Because of the man who had betrayed her and slept with another woman, she suffered from terrible insomnia, anorexia, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and more.
Every day, Mother prayed to the heavens.
She prayed that she would give birth to a son before the Saintess did.
She prayed that the Saintess’s child would just die.
At the time, both Mother and the Saintess were pregnant.
‘Crazy king.’
And then… crazy heavens, too.
As if mocking all of my mother’s devotion, I, Laureltianna, was born.
A daughter, at that.
And a useless princess who could barely manifest the royal family’s power.
A few months after I was born, the Saintess also gave birth to a daughter.
That girl was the heroine of this world, ‘Ayu.’
Ayu had inherited the Saintess’s exotic beauty and was extremely beautiful.
More importantly, she possessed the royal family’s ability, the power of purification, more strongly than anyone else.
The King adored Ayu and officially registered her as the Second Princess.
If it hadn’t been for my mother’s noble bloodline, he probably would have gotten rid of the Queen and replaced her.
‘Honestly, if the Saintess hadn’t existed, how could Mother have been pushed aside so easily?’
Meanwhile, Laureltianna grew up with a nasty personality and would occasionally bully her half-sister, the heroine, in secret.
Eventually, she incurred the King’s wrath and was offered to the old Emperor of the Pasa Empire.
Then she was poisoned to death by the First Empress…
That was the life of the Laureltianna I had possessed.
‘But something is strange. I acted completely differently from the original story.’
Anyway, that was the original Laureltianna.
I wanted to live.
The moment I understood my situation, I worked desperately to survive.
I worked myself to the bone trying to win the favor of my older brother, the Crown Prince, my biological father, the King, and even Ayu, the heroine.
But in the end, I still couldn’t escape being offered to the old emperor of the Pasa Empire.
‘Ah. There is one difference, though.’
The Laureltianna in the original story was exiled after angering the King, but the current me…
“Loreltianna. When have I ever hated you as your father? It’s just… Ayu is still young, isn’t she? You’ve always been mature. Haven’t you?”
I would almost have preferred it if he had gotten angry and thrown me out like in the original story.
At least then I would have had the right to feel wronged.
Instead, the King patted my back affectionately as he gently pushed me toward a cliff.
I didn’t cling to him.
I obediently climbed into the carriage with my own two feet.
Every child wants to be the person their parents love the most.
Because their parents are the first people they ever love after being born.
So even though I wasn’t the real Laureltianna, the wound the King inflicted on me still hurt quite a bit.
‘Well, what kind of father-daughter bond could a possessor possibly have?’
Besides, I didn’t have anything like that in my previous life either.
‘Ayu must be happy. The whole world loves her and protects her.’
And she was only a few months younger than me. How young could she really be?
I’m young too, you know?
If we were in Korea, people would basically consider us the same age!
I complained to myself as much as I wanted, but reality wasn’t going to change that easily.
At least, there was one small consolation.
This novel.
It was an extremely tragic and brutal story for Ayu.
And the Northern Kingdom’s royal family, where I lived, would also suffer such extreme poverty that it eventually went bankrupt.
When I first possessed this novel, 《The Seats Beside the Male Leads》, I naturally intended to prevent the tragedies that would befall the Northern Kingdom’s royal family.
Who would want the place they lived in to collapse?
Using both the knowledge from my previous life and the memories of the person I had possessed, I had worked nonstop to lay various foundations.
‘In the end, everything became meaningless when I was offered as a concubine to the Pasa Empire’s emperor.’
But none of that mattered anymore.
Right now, my own future was the most dangerous thing.
As proof of that…
“The Allied Forces have invaded!”
“Aaaah! Save me!”
“Pasa has fallen! Everyone, get down on the ground!”
The Pasa Empire had fallen, and the imperial palace was burning!
I had entered the palace as a low-ranking concubine exactly one month and one day ago.
‘Burn more! Just burn it all down!’
While cursing the empire like some great demon in my head, I crouched down as small as possible and carefully looked around.
‘But in the original story, it was supposed to take half a year after Laureltianna entered the palace before the Empire fell.’
Why had everything progressed so much faster?
I was puzzled, but honestly, it was a good thing for me.
‘I thought I might starve to death, but I survived.’
Of course, I had no intention of escaping the imperial palace in the middle of the war.
I had no way of getting past the countless soldiers.
And even if a concubine of a fallen empire escaped, she would probably just get caught and executed.
So I…
Had already decided to surrender to the male lead!
‘Please, please let this work.’
Hidden tightly against my chest was a ‘tribute’ that I had managed to obtain by using all my knowledge of the original story.
My tribute.
My everything.
It was my offering for surrender.
“What did you say you brought?”
A cold voice rang above my head.
I looked like a complete mess after coming all the way here.
On the other hand, I couldn’t even open my mouth.
Because…
“G-General Duke, that young concubine presented this map.”
I cautiously raised my head and looked around.
The duke’s aide was holding up half of a torn map with trembling hands.
Yes.
It was only half.
“A map of the imperial palace?”
“Yes, Your Grace! We checked it quickly, and it really contains the entire layout of the Pasa Imperial Palace! Even the secret passages are marked without missing a single one! If this is genuine, we can immediately capture the remaining forces and even bring in that old emperor bastard who is running away. Then we can claim the greatest prize among all the Allied Forces…”
“What about the other half of the map?”
The aide’s excited voice was abruptly cut off.
From between my lowered eyelashes, I could vaguely see the aide pointing at me.
“It’s inside that concubine’s mouth.”
“…Inside her mouth?”
For the first time, I sensed the cold, beautiful voice tremble slightly.
“Yes. But no matter what we do, she refuses to open her mouth. We can’t cut it out because she might swallow it, so we had no choice but to bring her before Your Grace… Your Grace?”
Step. Step.
The sound of military boots stopped.
Right in front of me.
Then something happened that shocked me.
Shurkan, the male lead himself…
Kneeled down in front of me.
“……!”
Startled, I raised my head.
Our eyes met.
Red eyes.
A cold gaze.
An expression of boredom.
I had never felt that the word ‘beautiful’ was so inadequate.
He really looked as if he had been sculpted by a god.
‘Now I understand why the entire social world of the continent loses its mind over Shurkan Gonette.’
Shurkan Gonette.
He was the Grand Duke of the Gaiard Kingdom, one of the main forces of the Allied Army that had come to destroy the Pasa Empire.
Many nobles in high society despised Shurkan, calling him a wild mixed-blood.
But at the same time, they lusted after his unreal appearance.
Even Ayu had been described at length as losing herself when she first saw Shurkan.
I wasn’t any different.
If my mouth had been free, I probably would have stammered helplessly.
Fortunately or unfortunately, I had shoved half of the large map into my mouth and crumpled it up.
Saliva?
Of course I couldn’t swallow it.
I couldn’t let this precious tribute be damaged.
My throat was painfully dry and scratchy.
Shurkan stared at me for a while before asking,
“What do you want?”
I immediately pointed at my throat with my index finger.
Thinking that one finger might not be enough, I raised both fingers and pointed desperately at myself.
Shurkan lowered his gaze toward my throat.
Even during the brief silence, cold sweat broke out along my back.
I thought I might faint from the pressure he gave off.
Then Shurkan spoke.
“You want me to spare your life?”
I nodded furiously.
“Fine. I will.”
Before I could even process his unexpectedly easy acceptance, Shurkan’s hot hand gently grasped my chin.
My eyes widened.
He forced my mouth open and pulled the map straight out.
“Sh-Shurkan Gonette…”
Shurkan, who had been about to examine the crumpled map, suddenly stopped.
He looked at me.
“Do you know my name?”
I wanted to open my mouth, but my tongue felt stiff, and I couldn’t speak properly.
It felt as if someone had ripped the airway out of my body and rubbed it into desert sand.
‘I don’t know.’
“Yes…”
I answered briefly and watched him carefully.
Shurkan continued to stare at me.
His face was filled with nothing but coldness, and honestly, he was frightening.
What good was that beautiful appearance when his eyes were so cold?
The aide who had approached Shurkan from behind finally spoke.
“Your Grace? What should we do with this young concubine?”
“Hmm.”
Shurkan tossed the other half of the map to his aide and said,
“Check the map first. Can you restore it within fifteen minutes?”
“More than enough, Your Grace! My goodness, the gods must truly be looking after us! What incredible luck!”
Shurkan’s aide looked at me with a foolish grin.
‘I know that guy.’
Erich.
Shurkan, the male lead’s chief aide.
Among all the countless supporting characters who appeared in the original story, he was almost the only one who wasn’t particularly obsessed with Ayu.
Normally, the people surrounding the male lead were supposed to devote themselves to the heroine.
That wasn’t the case with Erich.
That didn’t mean this aide named Erich was looking at me with any particular goodwill, though.
Rather, how should I put it…
Yes.
He was looking at me the way someone might look at a stupid angel.
Anyway, his eyes were filled with goodwill, so I couldn’t complain.
‘When am I supposed to get up?’
Just as I was watching everyone nervously…
Suddenly, my body was lifted as easily as a doll.
At the same time, my feet left the ground.
Before I could even understand what was happening, I was dangling in Shurkan’s arms, and I instinctively placed my hands against his chest.
Shurkan’s voice rang directly above my head.
“Tell the Commander-in-Chief that Gonette will take one of the former imperial concubines in advance.”
“Yes, Your Grace!”
“And…”
Maybe it was just my imagination, but there seemed to be a faint hesitation in Shurkan’s voice.
But I didn’t dare raise my head and look at the red-eyed man.
“Your Grace, then should we lock this concubine in the prison assigned to Gonette?”
“Stop talking bullshit.”
“Huh? Ah, then the common prison… Agh!”
Erich, who had cheerfully asked his follow-up question, screamed as he was struck somewhere by Shurkan and went rolling across the floor.
For some reason, I felt strangely satisfied.
“Prepare a carriage. Send her directly to the Grand Duchy.”
