The Strongest Man’s Fake Wife Wants to Live Chapter 11

Owen’s ice-cold voice came crashing down upon the butler.

“Any objections?”

As he said that, he pressed his foot down even harder on the butler’s hand.

“Argh! None, none!”

When the butler surrendered, Owen kicked his hand away as though he had nothing more to say to him.

The butler curled up like a pill bug, trembling as he clutched his hand.

Pesha shook her head as she watched him.

‘Well, that’s what you get for betraying the person who trusted you.’

It was all his own doing, after all. Thinking that, she glanced at Owen.

He was calling for a servant and ordering him to drag the butler away.

‘Come to think of it, I thought he was just a man who knew nothing but the sword and was easy prey whenever he stepped outside the battlefield. But it’s not that he’s bad at judging people. He simply doesn’t take an interest in things, and when he does make a judgment, it’s as sharp as a blade.’

Owen’s gaze as he looked down at the butler being dragged away was unusually cold.

Pesha had no idea why he had suddenly exploded like that when he had seemed to be enduring it well when she first brought up the matter.

‘Was he really that betrayed?’

Seeing him more frightening than ever, Pesha restored the image of him that had almost seemed approachable for a brief moment back to its original state and let out a sigh of relief.

 

***

 

The butler was subjected to an investigation into all the transactions he had conducted since coming to Namoi Count’s Castle, with the head of the household, Owen, personally overseeing it.

He remained uncooperative with the investigation until the very end, but after a double ledger was eventually discovered beneath the bed in his quarters, he began growing increasingly frantic.

Watching him, Pesha thought,

‘Ah, if we push just a little more, he looks like he’s about to confess everything…….’

Having almost all of the embezzled money he had accumulated taken away from him would certainly feel unfair from his perspective, but there was something even more frightening to him than that.

It was the future that awaited him once the investigation ended, when he would be handed over to the security forces along with the evidence.

If things continued like this, not only would he be dismissed from his position as butler, but he would also have a criminal record for fraud, making it difficult for him to find another job.

With nowhere left to retreat, he was desperately denying everything to the bitter end.

Seeing straight through his intentions, Pesha made him an offer when the butler fell silent, as though he wanted to confess but could not bring himself to do so.

“I know what you want.”

At that, everyone who had been interrogating the butler turned their eyes toward Pesha.

“If you return every last coin you embezzled, I’ll only fire you and won’t hand you over to the security forces. I can even write you a letter of recommendation for another household. How about it?”

The people around them began murmuring.

Everyone had naturally assumed that he would receive proper punishment, so the idea of simply getting the money back and ending things there seemed far too lenient.

Just as one of the knights was about to object, Owen raised one hand and silently stopped him.

“Is…… is that really true?”

When the butler asked with hopeful eyes, Pesha nodded firmly.

“Of course. I swear on the honor of House Rydell that I will never lie.”

“If that’s the case, then, actually…….”

Feeling that enduring all this had finally paid off, the butler began hesitantly revealing bits and pieces about the embezzled money, still suspicious despite himself.

He must have felt quite relieved.

He would only be driven out of this castle, and without a criminal record, plus a letter of recommendation, he could simply move to another region, get another butler position at some baronial household or the like, and start lining his pockets all over again.

“That’s everything. There’s no more money that I diverted…….”

“Really?”

“Yes! Truly.”

“All right. Good work.”

“Th-Then, as promised…….”

It was just as the butler asked in a voice full of expectation.

Pesha smiled and ordered the private soldier standing beside her.

“Now, take him to the security forces.”

“What? What do you mean by that?!”

The startled butler shouted, his voice filled with betrayal.

Pesha widened her eyes and put on an innocent expression.

“Is there a problem?”

“You swore on Lady Rydell’s name and promised! How can you have no honor as a noblewoman……!”

When the butler shouted, Pesha blinked innocently and played dumb.

“Oh, the honor of Lady Rydell? You can have it.”

“What does that mean?!”

“But I’m not Lady Rydell anymore, am I? It was your mistake for falling for those words.”

“What?”

“Oh, look at this. How dare you raise your voice at the Countess? Countess Namoi is so frightened by you that she’ll be leaving now.”

“You…… you……! What kind of swindler are you……!”

“Who are you calling a swindler? Besides you, the one who siphoned money out of this place, who else is the swindler?”

The butler was so furious that he grabbed the back of his neck and nearly collapsed.

“Well, good luck, then?”

Pesha giggled and left the interrogation room. She felt thoroughly refreshed.

Afterward, the financial ledgers of the castle naturally became Pesha’s responsibility as the Countess.

Although it was her first time handling such matters, because of the years she had spent being pushed aside by her younger brother Jeremy and treated poorly, she was already well-versed in managing a household on a tight budget.

The moment Pesha took control of the castle’s finances, the first thing she did was recruit the personnel they were lacking.

Construction workers, attendants, cleaners, kitchen staff…….

There were simply too many people this castle was short of.

After bringing in enough people from both the territory and outside it, she ranked the matters that urgently required financial investment in order of priority.

Among them, the embezzled money recovered from the butler was used to repair the collapsed embankments in the territory and the fortifications used to defend against monsters.

That would at least help prevent flooding to some degree and delay monster attacks for a certain period of time.

‘Though that doesn’t mean we can do anything about the land that has already been contaminated by monsters.’

Once the repairs were complete, the ledger she received showed that a total of four-tenths of the recovered embezzled funds had been spent.

Four-tenths. It was no small amount of money.

She felt reluctant to part with it, but the safety of the people of the territory came first, so she decided not to dwell on it.

Then, one afternoon, after the urgent matters had been more or less taken care of.

Pesha, who had been sitting at a tea table on a balcony overlooking the territory and drinking tea, set her teacup down with a sharp clink.

In one hand, she held a copy of the castle’s household financial report.

“This isn’t right.”

The bitter aftertaste of the tea, which had gone completely cold while she was reading the ledger, lingered in her mouth.

Pesha opened the ledger again and let out a groan.

“The money is just leaking away. What’s going on?”

She understood that four-tenths of the money had gone into repairing the important embankments and fortifications, but only a few weeks had passed, and another tenth had already disappeared.

‘The embezzled money that bastard had so carefully saved up……!’

He had accumulated it so diligently that when Pesha first recovered the money, it had felt like receiving a hefty matured savings account.

Thinking that all of it was the territory’s emergency fund had made her feel strangely pleased, even though it wasn’t her own money.

But on top of the major repair costs, money was leaking out in small amounts, and then leaking out again, and again.

Worried that there might be another embezzler, Pesha flipped through the ledger rapidly with bloodshot eyes, checking each of the smaller expenditures.

[Stable repair costs — 500 gold coins

Plastering costs for the castle’s outer walls — 1,400 gold coins

Loophole interior repair costs — 300 gold coins

Main tower safety equipment inspection costs — 150 gold coins

Drawbridge counterweight replacement costs — 320 gold coins

Chapel expansion costs — 400 gold coins

Main building, third-floor construction costs — 220 gold coins

Hiring craftsmen for the workshop — 90 gold coins…….]

Pesha had personally reviewed every one of these repairs.

The amounts were reasonable for the going rates, so it did not seem as though anyone had inflated the costs, and the money had only been spent where it was genuinely necessary.

But there were simply too many of those “necessary places”!

The old, aging castle had far too many things that needed repairs, and the castle was not the only thing that was short on money.

The public facilities throughout the territory were also worn-out and desperately in need of replacement and repairs.

Pesha muttered with a dark, exhausted expression.

“At this rate, the embezzled money is going to run out…….”

And then this territory would once again be struggling in poverty.

Even the places that had only been repaired for the moment would grow old and deteriorate again with time, turning the whole place into a monster that devoured money.

To fill this monster’s belly without ever letting it go hungry, there was only one thing she could do: earn enough money to pour into it without holding back.

‘But how?’