Oh! My Empress

Past one week had flown by just like that because Kim Su Won was still busy adjusting to her surroundings. Her meals were different from what she used to have. The food here was much blander than she was used to. The water tasted different too, albeit more tasty and less polluted. The clothes were definitely uncomfortable. She had not had a chance to go our yet but from what she had seen her mother wearing that day, this was the era of corsets.

In the meantime, she was also evaluating where she could use her skills in. She was proficient in coding but there were no computers here. She could do something with the food and clothes. Those would be the business opportunities she could look into. But she also needed to understand the power dynamics of this time.

The novel had largely focused on how Emmeline Whittemore had implemented the mindboggling business ideas, taking advantage of difference between her original world and here. The kingdom was free minded enough to let females run their own businesses, although they were fewer in number. Emmeline in the novel did not have to fight against any laws. The main theme of that book was the bias she faced in the society being a businesswoman. And how she crushed the people who doubted her with her successful enterprises.

Could Kim Su Won do the same? She did not know. The only thing she could now do was be a diligent student again, from scratch. But learn everything on her own terms rather than being directed a parent or someone else.

Anna had finally brought the pen and paper, this time without anyone's knowledge. She had put everything away, stored safely, once she had realized her miss was not interested in doing her own chores. Those stored things were finally going to be put to use. She was just relieved that the ink had not dried out after all these years.

She spread the paper and dipped the brush in the ink enthusiastically. "This is how we write sound 'a'," she had started. Kim Su Won paid attention fiercely for she had always loved learning languages. It was another story that her mother would not let her learn one out of interest if it was not a course in the school.

Hah! In her original life, when she was in 10th grade, she had actually secretly copied a Spanish manual from her school's library in a notebook to learn later. She could not keep renewing the book loan again and again and had to take drastic measures. Her mom would not buy any other book apart from a textbook after all. And she did not have enough allowance to get the whole book photocopied.

Unfortunately, she never got time to study that book after that. Her interest had also faded when she realized she had to go to great lengths to keep the fact a secret from her mom.

Anyway, she was in this world now and she was getting to fulfill at least one of her dreams at the moment, a completely new language! She ended up mastering the alphabet within an hour. This was what the brain of a twenty four year old could do. Her retention rate was higher for sure.

"Oh my! Miss! Are you a genius?" Anna almost jumped in joy. Who would have thought her miss had a knack for studying? Why was she running away all this time?

"Y-Yeah, I guess that the memories are slowly coming back. That's why I am able to learn so fast," Kim Su Won made an excuse that would bind her illiteracy and her transmigration in a white lie. Anna seemed to accept the explanation without any suspicions.

"I am so glad. We should move on to reading books now," Anna had not taught anyone before and since this was her other tongue, she had no idea about the steps one could use to learn a language. She recommended to get on the next step right away.

Kim Su Won shook her head in negative. "It would be too soon. I cannot learn everything in a day. Let's do this. Let me practice the alphabet a bit more, then we could move on to learn simple words. That will help me retain the knowledge. Then we will move on to children's books. Do we have any in the house?" she asked, tilting her head. This was a big castle, there must be a big library somewhere here.

Oh yes! This was another dream of hers, to own a big library! She could finally go out of her wing and check out the library. She pictured the tall shelves, touching the high roof filled with endless books. The picture of those big medieval libraries floated in her mind, more than one floor, spiral staircases, books and books and the smell. She was delighted just at the thought.

"Miss… miss!" Anna shook Kim Su Won to bring her back to the reality. "Miss, we will require Duke's permission to access the library. You once went in and tore up a few rare books in there. Since then, you have been banned from entering the library," the maid explained, in a bit scared way. She understood that her miss had lost her memory, so she had to explain everything.

But that was such a ruckus she had made that day that the duke had literally thrown her out of the library. Anna had never seen him that furious, he was on the verge of slapping his daughter that day. The maid had thought she had lost her job but in the end, she ended up getting flogged for her miss. It was so painful that her back hurt even now just thinking about it.

"Wait, what?" Kim Su Won was thoroughly disappointed.