Chapter 2

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Translator: Harry Potta

Chapter: 2

Chapter Title: Leona's Life - 1

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‘Leona Felbus’ hails from a viscount family, a mid-tier noble house in the Hamel Empire.

Her father, ‘Ose Felbus,’ was a viscount—lowly ranked among the nobility—but he possessed an innate talent for handling money.

Though only a viscount, he had amassed wealth rivaling that of an earl.

Ose was a man who placed the highest value in the world on riches.

To him, even blood ties were merely items on a ledger of assets.

He judged his children based on whether they brought him profit or held any worth.

Leona was the cherished daughter among Ose Felbus’s two sons and one daughter.

She was the family’s only girl, but in truth, she was an illegitimate child he had accidentally fathered outside and brought home.

As such, Leona was an unwelcome presence in the household.

Not only the viscountess but also her two older brothers and even the maids looked down on her with contempt.

Had Leona possessed outstanding beauty, her fate would have been entirely different.

Her father would have seen her as a valuable asset worth investing in and cherished her accordingly.

Unfortunately, Leona lacked such allure.

She was not ugly, but her face was utterly ordinary—brown hair and blue eyes, as common as roadside weeds.

To a father with refined tastes, such a daughter was nothing more than a burdensome liability to be married off, even at the cost of a dowry.

Though Leona had no exceptional beauty, she made up for it with sharp wits and keen perception.

From a young age, she fully understood her precarious position.

Every time her father appraised her like merchandise, she felt in her bones that she would one day be sold off cheaply somewhere.

To protect her future, Leona strove with all her might.

Largely neglected as she grew up, she secretly eavesdropped on her brothers’ lessons to gain what little education she could. Starting at age twelve, she began sneaking out of the manor to earn money.

In truth, there weren’t many jobs an young girl could do outside.

At first, she helped with odd chores at a vegetable stall and received mere pocket change. After two years of that, she realized she’d never make real money this way.

From then on, Leona began pilfering household items and selling them off.

Nothing grand—just her brothers’ old childhood toys, fairy tale books, or worn-out gloves and shoes discarded in storage. She’d mend and polish them, then sell them at the market for a good price.

She also took the viscountess’s discarded nightgowns or outdated dresses no one would miss, unraveled the seams, cut them into neat fabric panels, and sold them to clothiers.

Being noble castoffs, they fetched a tidy sum.

Once she had saved a decent amount, Leona began investing with a merchant broker.

The territory where she lived was barren land but rich in mines.

Most of the locals were miners. With scarcely any farmers, crop yields were low compared to the population, so licensed brokers imported food from other territories and sold it at premium prices.

Aware of this, Leona befriended one such broker, invested all her savings with him, and reaped smooth, substantial profits.

The more money she accumulated, the greater her hopes grew.

She believed that if she ever amassed a fortune, her father would finally see her worth.

At sixteen, on the day of her coming-of-age ceremony, Leona’s dreams were shattered.

To earn her father’s recognition, she showed him the money she had earned.

But he harshly scolded her, mocking a mere girl for presuming to have some paltry skill.

Ose Felbus was a man who, despite his talent for making money, lacked the prowess to rise to higher nobility and remained forever trapped as a viscount.

To him, Leona’s abilities held no value whatsoever.

Soon after, Leona learned her father intended to marry her off to an elderly merchant.

The dowry he had set for her was so meager that no noble house wanted her. Only an old man with eight children was willing to buy her.

Leona begged and pleaded with her father for days.

But it was futile.

Only ‘profit’ could sway him.

Locked in her room for three days and nights, Leona racked her brains.

How could she escape this cruel fate?

Then it dawned on her.

The one way for a noblewoman to break free from her family’s chains and stand alone.

Becoming a maid in the Imperial Palace.

The Felbus family’s longtime nursemaid had served as a palace maid in her youth, so Leona knew quite a bit about it.

The servants attending the Hamel imperial family were exclusively from noble backgrounds, mostly children of fallen or impoverished houses seeking to entrust their futures there.

Once hired as a maid or attendant, they could remain in the palace for life—unmarried—and draw a salary. With luck and favor from the imperial family, one might even seize great power.

Power.

Leona savored the sweet word.

As a woman, plain-looking, from a mid-tier noble house, an illegitimate child, with a cold-blooded father devoid of pity, she had suffered too many injustices.

“I’ll enter the Imperial Palace!”

Leona vowed to enter the palace, gain power, ensure no one could trample her again, and never let others dictate her life. She would seize that power in her own hands.

At first light, she went to her father and proposed a deal.

If he helped her enter the palace, she would surrender all her savings and the full contract fee for the ‘Lifetime Oath’ to the family.

The maid or attendant Lifetime Oath was a vow to serve the imperial family forever without marrying.

Signatories forfeited their family name and severed all ties eternally. In exchange, the palace paid them a massive contract sum.

Thus, those in desperate need of cash, like families drowning in debt, often took the oath.

Ose accepted Leona’s terms without a word.

No need for a dowry, his daughter gone, and wealth rolling in—what reason did he have to refuse?

Fortuitously, it was just then the palace was recruiting maids.

Ose promptly arranged the necessary documents and procedures for her entry and provided a carriage to the imperial capital.

Leona departed home alone, without farewell or fanfare.

After a grueling month-long journey, she successfully entered the Hamel Empire’s Imperial Palace as a maid.

The year Leona entered the palace, the emperor’s eldest son and Crown Prince died suddenly of pneumonia.

Soon after, the Second Prince—who had spent years recuperating in the borderlands—returned to the palace.

Leona completed her two-month probation and became an official palace maid.

Around the same time, the empire’s sole remaining imperial prince, the Second Prince, ascended to the Crown Prince position.

The following year, the new Crown Prince became engaged to the prime minister’s daughter.

Three months later, he welcomed her as Crown Princess Consort.

And at that time, a woman entered the palace, basking in the emperor’s favor.

‘Biota Helsian.’

A possessor of radiant beauty.

A woman whose allure glowed like light itself.

With her beauty and youth, she captivated the aged emperor at once and entered his rear palace. He was sixty then, while Biota was merely twenty-two—just two years older than the Crown Prince.

Leona was stunned upon seeing Biota.

Not by her beauty, but by her shrewdness and maturity, which astonished and impressed her.

Biota’s mind was brilliantly sharp and her insight keen, beyond what one would expect from her young age.

Seeing the blazing torch of ambition in her eyes, Leona intuited at once.

This is the woman!

She’s not one to settle for that position.

Soon, she’ll rise even higher.

If I stay by her side, I’ll rise too.

With this thought, Leona began striving to catch Biota’s eye.

And her efforts soon bore fruit.

Just as Leona had recognized Biota, Biota saw Leona’s talents and ambitions.

Biota brought her into her own palace as a Close Attendant Maid, empowered her, and gave her wings.

Afterward, Leona mobilized every means at her disposal for Biota, seizing control of palace personnel.

Before long, Biota—once a mere concubine—became the true power behind the inner court.

Moreover, backed by the emperor’s favor, she ascended to Empress less than a year after entering the palace.

By then, she carried the emperor’s seed, while the Crown Prince rapidly fell from his father’s graces.

Behind all this stood Leona, moving at the Empress’s command.

That October, the Empress bore the Third Prince, and the Crown Prince was deposed, withdrawing from state affairs.

Coincidentally, it was then revealed that the Crown Princess Consort was three months pregnant.

On the day her pregnancy came to light, Leona received a secret order from the Empress.

Eliminate the child in the Crown Princess Consort’s womb.