The Strongest Man’s Fake Wife Wants to Live Chapter 20

“What?”

“The merchant just said it, didn’t he? That he ‘dug them up while mining emeralds near the Abyss.’”

“Ah……”

Swapro was a territory at the very edge of the east, bordering the land known as the ‘Abyss,’ which had been swallowed up by monsters.

Thanks to Swapro’s existence, the Empire could remain safe from the Abyss, but in the eyes of the Empire’s people, Swapro was simply another land of monsters, no different from the Abyss itself.

“At auction houses and places like that, they introduce unusually deep-colored emeralds as being from the Abyss, but I doubt there’s a single noble who actually believes they’re real. I was one of them, too. But I guess emeralds really do come from the Abyss.”

The Emeralds of the Abyss were extraordinarily expensive, but the supply was pitifully small compared to the demand. As a result, not many people had actually seen one, and most simply dismissed them as a baseless rumor created by merchants trying to boost their sales.

And yet they actually existed, and somehow, I had come to this much-rumored land.

Even in the original story, there had only been a brief explanation that the Abyss was located near Swapro, so the existence of the emeralds was bound to be surprising.

Wondering if there might be something else worth finding, Pesha continued looking around the market, but nothing in particular caught her eye.

In the meantime, the sky was gradually darkening.

“Shall we head back?”

“Yes, my lady.”

They had just turned around and were on their way back to the Count’s castle.

“An injured man! There’s an injured man in the cart, so clear the way!”

From the road at the edge of the market, a knight with a wounded shoulder and blood pouring down came riding in at a hurried pace, driving a horse pulling a cart.

Pesha caught sight of an unconscious middle-aged man lying inside the cart as it rushed past.

She stood there blankly, watching the cart enter the Count’s castle, until Brie grabbed her arm and checked her condition.

“My lady! You almost got hit by the horse. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. More importantly, let’s get back to the castle immediately.”

The Count’s castle, which they returned to after catching a hired carriage, looked chaotic, unlike its quiet state during the day.

While the injured man carried in by the cart was being treated by the physician who had hurried out of the castle, without even having time to move him indoors, the knight who had brought him was explaining the situation to Owen.

“He’s a miner. It seems he gathered some people and went to the borderlands intending to mine the Emeralds of the Abyss. Ten people died, and he’s the only one who survived.”

“……”

They had apparently even taken the miner to the medical tent, but there was nothing they could do there either, so they had come seeking help from the physician at the Count’s castle.

After hearing the report, Owen asked the physician who was examining the miner,

“How is he? Can he survive?”

“I’m sorry. The attack was too severe, and with the skin having decayed to this extent, we have to assume that his internal organs have all been contaminated as well……”

The reason the Empire had been locked in confrontation with monsters for hundreds of years without an easy victor was the energy they emitted.

A monster’s aura did more than simply contaminate the land. It could seep into human wounds and cause the body to decay from within.

The injured miner was actually clutching his wounded forearm and screaming.

“Argh……! My arm, my arm…… P-Please, do something for me. Somehow, please……!”

Owen’s brow furrowed at the miner’s desperate plea.

The physician let out a sigh, finally removed his medical instruments, and shook his head.

If even the physician belonging to the Count’s castle had given up, it meant there was no way to save him unless he could at least leave Swapro.

While they stood helplessly by, the miner’s screams became even more desperate.

Then Owen’s large hand, which had been clenched as though he were struggling with some decision, finally grasped the hilt of the sword at his waist.

Seeing that, Pesha rushed toward Owen without even realizing it and clung to his arm.

“Don’t do it!”

Even when Owen saw Pesha suddenly rushing over to stop him, he showed no sign of surprise and merely murmured,

“……It’s dangerous. Step away.”

He had not drawn his sword yet, but his hand gripping the hilt was exerting enough force for the veins to stand out prominently.

A monster’s aura causes an infected person to experience tremendous pain.

They said the pain was so severe that it felt as though one were being burned alive.

Owen, who had spent his past years tirelessly fighting on battlefields to drive back the monsters, must have seen scenes like this countless times.

In the middle of battlefields where monsters rained down upon them, watching comrades and subordinates suffer in agony, he must have been forced to make an unbearably painful decision.

To kill them in one stroke and free them from their terrible suffering.

That must have been the only way Owen, who had lived his entire life as a swordsman, could help them.

But who could understand the miserable heart of the person who actually had to swing the sword himself?

“Ah, n-no one will understand. People won’t understand what you’re feeling……”

There was no doubt that few people would understand just how heavy his heart must have been when he made that decision.

If he was lucky, the rumor might not spread that he was a shameless villain who ruthlessly killed his own territory’s people once they were injured and became useless.

And yet Owen couldn’t take his eyes off the miner, who was crying out in the grip of agony.

Since their marriage, Owen and Pesha had been seen as extreme workaholics.

He went on long inspections without taking a single day off, and whenever he was at the castle, he practically lived in his office.

He had worked that hard to make his territory a place where people could live comfortably.

And yet he couldn’t even save a single one of his people right in front of his eyes. His sense of helplessness must have been immense.

But this was something beyond the limits of what Owen could prevent.

“A lord isn’t a god. You can’t control every danger!”

“……I know that.”

“No, you don’t know anything.”

When Pesha snapped at him without backing down, Owen looked at her in surprise.

Just then, the strength in his grip, as though he were about to draw his sword, seemed to loosen slightly, so Pesha called for her maid.

“Brie! Bring the Iceberg tea I made. Undiluted. Make it very strong!”

“Yes!”

Owen watched the maid hurriedly run into the castle before murmuring in a low voice,

“It’s only a stopgap. You’re the one who said it was nothing more than a painkiller……”

“That’s right! I don’t have the power to save someone who’s dying either! But I can at least ease his pain. I’ll help this man rest without suffering…… so stop hurting yourself just because you want to help others.”

“……”

“You’re hurting too, aren’t you?”

A short while later, Brie hurriedly handed over the tea she had stored in a bottle.

Pesha swallowed hard and poured the contents of the glass bottle into the miner’s mouth.

The miner, who had been writhing because he could no longer endure the pain, struggled to swallow the tea.

Before long, his rapid, ragged breathing gradually slowed and steadied.

The screams he had been letting out until his throat was raw also slowly subsided.

“Haaa……”

The miner felt the pain weakening and, at some point, lost consciousness.

He slept peacefully, breathing evenly. His face and entire body were covered in wounds, and even the skin on his face had begun to decay, but at least his expression looked peaceful.

Once the miner had fallen quiet, the knight who had brought him said to Owen,

“My lord. I…… I’ll ask around and try to find his family. So that they can at least be with him at the end……”

Owen silently nodded.

When the cart left the castle, the servants who had come running out in alarm at the commotion gradually dispersed and returned to their work.

The urgent situation was over, but Pesha couldn’t bring herself to feel completely at ease.

‘What if what I made had been a purification medicine instead of a painkiller? The result might have been different.’

Her heart felt heavy, as though a stone had been placed upon it.

She was staring at the empty glass bottle with a dark expression when someone spoke to her.

“His wounds were too deep and the contaminated area too extensive. Even if he had been treated, he wouldn’t have lived much longer.”

Owen, whom she had naturally assumed would have gone back, was still standing beside her, looking at her.