The Strongest Man’s Fake Wife Wants to Live Chapter 31

Standing with her arms crossed and her back to the harsh autumn sunlight, Pesha had Minnie beside her, fidgeting anxiously with a parasol.

“My lady. Your skin is going to get ruined if you stay out here like this. Why on earth are you watching a construction site?”

“I’m not watching it. I’m thinking.”

“Just look at the foreman’s pale face. If you keep standing here, those people are going to have a hard time working properly.”

Pesha let Minnie’s words go in one ear and out the other as she stared intently at the construction site.

Because the land was contaminated by aura, there was a limit to how deeply they could dig even while constructing the ditches.

‘At this rate, even if they finish the ditches, they won’t have much effect.’

Owen’s plans for the territory were broad in scope and meticulous, but the contaminated land became an obstacle every single time he tried to put those plans into action.

They needed a more fundamental solution than painkillers or purification potions.

Having reached that conclusion, Pesha crossed her arms and casually remarked,

“We need to plant trees after all.”

“What?”

“Minnie, when you’re eating hot soup, how do you eat it without burning your tongue?”

“Soup? Hmm… I scoop from the top with a spoon and eat it. The top has cooled down.”

“Exactly. It’s too hot to eat right away, but once you know the trick, you can eat it just fine.”

“But why are you asking about soup? Are you hungry?”

“No. I simply want to teach the person in charge of this territory’s finances how to eat soup.”

“If you mean the person in charge of finances…”

Pesha smiled at Minnie, whose face had taken on an anxious expression.

“I need to see Jane Penrose. Go catch Lord Penrose and bring him here right now.”

This time, it was Minnie’s face that turned pale.

 

***

 

After finishing the soldiers’ morning training, Jane trudged down the corridor with exhausted steps.

He had been shouting commands from horseback and leading the soldiers since early morning, leaving his entire body feeling as heavy as a thousand pounds.

Normally, training the soldiers to this extent wouldn’t have drained him, but he had already been working himself to the bone for an entire week.

Every page he turned in the accounting ledgers gave him another headache, while requests coming in from each department piled up like mountains.

Sometimes, he was genuinely confused as to whether this was really a count’s territory or a fortress that experienced wartime conditions every single day.

Here, it was common for one person to take on several different jobs.

He had certainly intended to focus on training and actual combat as a knight at first, but before he knew it, he had become a slave to paperwork and numbers.

Normally, this kind of work should have been handled by an official steward.

Someone who served as the central figure overseeing the castle’s finances, diplomacy, and military affairs.

Unfortunately, there was no one in this castle capable of taking charge of all that.

Moreover, finding a trustworthy steward was not easy, so for the time being, the lord’s three adjutants had divided the authority among themselves.

His fellow knight Rebecca Bates was in charge of military affairs, while the obnoxious Fulton Taylor handled diplomacy.

Lastly, financial management and all kinds of accounting adjustments had fallen to Jane.

Grabbing his throbbing head, he let out a deep sigh.

He had a feeling he wouldn’t be getting proper sleep again today.

He would probably greet the morning after barely getting two hours of sleep.

He closed his eyes as though trying to shake off the hallucinations flickering in his vision, then sighed again.

That was when people appeared at the end of the corridor and spotted Jane.

“There he is!”

“Catch him before he runs away!”

The maids, spouting words more suited to hunters chasing a wild boar, suddenly charged at him and each grabbed one of Jane’s arms.

“W-What are you doing?”

When the bewildered Jane asked, the maids answered with solemn expressions.

“You’ll have to come somewhere with us for a moment.”

“Come where? Is this an order from the lord?”

The maids exchanged glances.

“Not from the lord…”

“My lady would like to see you.”

“My lady wants to see me?”

Jane pointed at himself and blinked, but for the time being, he followed as he was told.

No matter how much he racked his brain, however, he couldn’t think of anything that could have caused this.

Still bewildered, he arrived in front of the Countess’s room, where the maid accompanying him knocked on the door.

The door opened, revealing Pesha Rydell sitting elegantly at a tea table, drinking tea.

“You called for me?”

“Come in, Lord Penrose. Would you like some tea?”

“No. I’d like to hear why you called me.”

Even though he was making his suspicion blatantly obvious, Pesha remained completely relaxed.

“Then listen standing up.”

“Yes. I will. What is it?”

“Bring me some budget.”

“What?”

“Didn’t you hear me? Find some surplus budget.”

Jane’s mouth fell open.

“Surplus… budget…?”

A sense of déjà vu began creeping into his mind.

Hasn’t something like this happened before?

The budget currently allocated had already been divided and subdivided and subdivided again. Where on earth was he supposed to find any surplus?

His eyes narrowed instinctively.

Has this woman finally revealed her true colors?

He had been uneasy ever since she had supposedly poured even the money meant for her own personal adornments into making something.

When she had then said she would donate the money earned from selling the resulting potion to the territory’s operating fund, he had even been moved to the point of shedding a few tears.

Perhaps all his suspicions had been a misunderstanding.

He had even reflected on his own shallow knowledge and prejudice, regretting the disrespectful things he had said to his lady.

But there really had been another motive after all.

There was no doubt about it.

As the Emperor’s spy and Duke Rydell’s lackey, she was going to bleed the lord dry before long and destroy Swapro.

“If you mean your allowance for maintaining your dignity, I believe that was separately allocated.”

“I used my allowance for making Seedroka, so that’s why.”

‘Well, who told you to use it!’

Jane desperately suppressed the urge to shout it out, but Pesha frowned and spoke again.

“No, making sure we have enough to eat is important, but look at the scenery of the territory. It’s serious. What are we going to do about all these barren mountains? I’m telling you to secure some landscaping budget or something.”

What did she mean, a landscaping budget for contaminated land?

Jane simply could not fathom what was going on inside her head.

Regardless, there was no way something like that was possible under the current circumstances.

Jane became stern and cut her off decisively.

“Maybe the year after next, but this year is impossible.”

“That’s too late. Is it really not possible at all?”

“It’s really not possible.”

Although he firmly refused, Jane felt a little apologetic.

It would not have been strange for Pesha to get angry and claim ownership of the money she had earned herself.

Besides… it was also true that her profits had given the entire budget some breathing room.

“It’s not because I have any personal feelings about this. The budget has been allocated to the bare minimum necessary, and taking money away from an already allocated budget would…”

He hurriedly began making excuses, but unexpectedly, she gave up rather quickly.

“All right. Then it can’t be helped.”

“Thank you for understanding.”

“But can you grant me another request?”

“Another… request?”

What was she going to say this time?

Jane swallowed dryly, his face filled with unease.

“Check my assets for me.”

“Your assets, my lady?”

You had assets?

Pesha shrugged at Jane, who stared at her in shock.

“I may not look like it, but I was born a lady of House Rydell.”

“Ah… Should I check how much money you have deposited in the bank?”

“No. I don’t have any cash. It’s probably all in real estate. Find every last bit of it. I’m curious as to how much I have under my name.”

Three days later, Jane submitted a report on her assets.

As expected, there was practically no cash under her name, and almost everything was in the form of real estate.

After looking over it, Pesha thought with a devious smile,

‘God… Whether You forgive me for becoming a righteous thief today or not, that’s up to You. Hehehe.’

She sold off nearly everything as a quick sale, except for one large boutique building standing on prime real estate in the capital.

During the process, a broker who knew the capital’s financial situation inside and out tried to dissuade Pesha with a pale face, but she was adamant.

“It says so right here in the contract. My. Name.”

“H-But how can we proceed with the transaction without Duke Rydell’s permission?”

“Do you not understand what I’m saying? You can see it right here. My. Name.”

“Even so, this is, this is…”

The broker could not bring himself to finish and began to whimper.

And for good reason.

Every piece of real estate under Pesha’s name was property that Duke Rydell had put under his daughter’s name to evade taxes.

Only the name on the deeds was Pesha’s, but in every meaningful sense, it could be considered entirely Duke Rydell’s property.

‘So what? Who told you to put it under my name in the first place?’