The Strongest Man’s Fake Wife Wants to Live Chapter 15

‘Where is she going?’

There was something oddly hurried and suspicious about the way she set the carriage off with only one maid accompanying her.

The moment Pesha’s carriage departed, Jane ran to the stables, mounted a horse, and followed after her.

‘There’s definitely something going on……!’

He adjusted the horse’s pace as he trailed behind, thinking.

Could she be trying to leak the secrets of our territory to some spy working for the Emperor?

Or maybe there was some place where she had buried the jewelry she brought with her when she married?

Just as his suspicions were deepening, the carriage stopped at a secluded stretch of road.

Seeing Pesha get out of the carriage, Jane dismounted and quickly hid himself in the forest.

The place she entered was a relief tent.

Why would Pesha Rydell go to a place mainly used by miners working in dangerous areas near the old town when they were injured?

He wanted to know what was going on, but since she had gone inside the tent, he had no way of knowing what she was doing.

Gradually moving closer to the tent and glancing around, he wavered between rushing the scene as though he had merely happened to pass by, or watching a little longer.

In the meantime, Pesha came out of the tent.

“My goodness. You made it sound like it was something urgent.”

She grumbled, but at the same time, she also seemed somewhat relieved.

Then the doctor and nurses came out of the tent one after another.

They seemed to be seeing Pesha off.

“I’m terribly sorry about this. The letter meant for somewhere else got mixed up with the letter we were supposed to send to you, my lady…….”

The elderly doctor, standing with a cane, gave an embarrassed chuckle.

“Anyway, if it’s nothing serious, I’ll be on my way back.”

“We’ll make sure nothing like this happens again. Please return safely.”

Before long, the carriage carrying Pesha left the tent.

As soon as the carriage disappeared from sight, Jane approached the medical staff who had been hiding in plain sight.

“Ahem. Ahem.”

He deliberately made his presence known by clearing his throat, and the old doctor immediately noticed him.

“Oh! A knight from the Count’s castle! What brings you here……. Are you perhaps injured?”

If that were the case, though, Jane looked perfectly fine, without a single external injury.

“No, I was passing nearby and happened to think of this place…….”

He made up a vague excuse and furtively watched the doctor’s reaction.

He wanted to interrogate him about what he had discussed with that troublesome woman who had been exchanged for a dukedom, but asking outright would look suspicious.

So instead, he brought up something that seemed appropriate for the lord’s adjutant to say.

“Ahem. In any case, do you have enough tobacco leaves? I heard your stock has gone down considerably. Just hold on a little longer. The lord has given his approval, so we should be able to increase the supply of tobacco leaves.”

He thought the old doctor would be delighted at hearing something like this.

But all the medical staff reacted rather indifferently.

“Is that so? I don’t think you need to do that.”

“Exactly. We have no use for hoban these days.”

“We have a replacement that works much better and doesn’t have any side effects, so there’s no reason to use hoban.”

What the hell were they talking about?

Come to think of it, the tent, which had always been filled with acrid smoke, did not smell of tobacco at all today.

“Wh-What do you mean? This is a place where critically injured patients never stop coming. You’re always short on painkillers.”

“Didn’t you hear? Thanks to Iceberg, the patients are much more comfortable.”

“What?”

When Jane frowned, unable to understand, one of the nurses simply lifted the tent flap and showed him inside.

“Look. The patients seem more comfortable now that they don’t have to breathe in smoke, too, don’t they?”

Jane’s eyes widened as he looked inside the tent.

The patients who had always suffered in pain were now receiving treatment with much more peaceful expressions, or sleeping and otherwise resting.

“It’s all thanks to the Iceberg herbal water that my lady sent us.”

When the nurse said this with a smile, Jane asked again with a dazed expression.

“My lady…… The wo-woman who just left—no. That lady gave you something, and the patients got better because of it?”

“They didn’t get better, exactly. It’s a painkiller that reduces their suffering. But it works much better, and it doesn’t cause smoke or side effects, so both we and the patients are very satisfied.”

Just as the medical staff said, they seemed quite pleased with the thing Pesha had given them.

Jane could not hide his bewilderment.

He had thought that if Pesha Rydell caused trouble or went around doing something strange, he would follow her trail and expose her to disgrace.

But instead, she had helped them?

‘It must have been a fluke.’

He shook his head vigorously, pulling himself back from the momentary lapse in vigilance.

‘In any case, I have to report this.’

If an outsider entered the territory and caused an unusual change, it was not Jane’s place to determine whether it was beneficial or harmful.

There was someone else who owned this territory, after all.

 

***

 

Pesha closed the book she had been reading and let out a short sigh.

“Haah…….”

It was fortunate that the medical staff viewed Iceberg’s effects positively, but the problem was the supply.

‘Even though it’s a wildflower, it’s only cheap in the north. Once it comes farther down, it gets rather expensive…….’

Unlike hoban, which was easy to obtain even in the southeastern region, Iceberg had to be brought in from the north, which increased the cost.

It was not a flower that could not grow in the relatively warm eastern climate, but the fact that most of Swapro’s land was polluted was an obstacle.

For that reason, she had to buy it directly from the north, but the middlemen took far too much in fees.

In a wealthy place like House Rydell, where Pesha had grown up, the price of medicinal herbs becoming a little cheaper or more expensive would hardly be an issue.

But Swapro was different.

‘With the finances in their current state, bringing in a large quantity would be difficult.’

Even though Owen Namoi had happened to take her side once when she drove the butler out, he was still a difficult person for Pesha to deal with.

‘Back then, Owen was conducting his own investigation, too, so the circumstances simply happened to line up. This time, I’m going to have to persuade him entirely on my own, so I need to prepare thoroughly before I bring it up.’

She had looked into the price of the herb and its distribution channels for that very reason, only to be blocked by the problem of money.

Managing the ledgers did not mean she could freely move the financial budget, so money was always a difficult issue.

“What a headache.”

In truth, Pesha had never intended to interfere much in the affairs of this territory.

After all, her goal was to stay as quiet as a dead mouse and wait for the right moment to get a divorce.

But once she actually encountered the state of the territory, it was far too dire, and injustice was rampant.

This time, too, she had simply discovered the tent while out for a walk, and happened to have an Iceberg in the castle, so she helped.

If the butler had not committed fraud with Iceberg, making it difficult to obtain, or if Pesha had been ignorant about the herb, she would have had no way to help and would have simply given up.

But when it came to people in a vulnerable position whom she knew she could help, people whose situation could become so much better with just a little assistance, it was difficult for Pesha to simply turn a blind eye.

‘So I’ll help with just this much. And after that, I’ll live quietly.’