The Strongest Man’s Fake Wife Wants to Live Chapter 40

It was an hour later before the carriage was finally able to set off again, thanks to the throng of territory residents.

When the carriage arrived in front of a temporarily constructed workshop building, the wooden door opened with a soft creak.

As Pesha stepped inside the workshop, she heard the cheerful clinking of metal and stone colliding from all around her.

One gemstone after another was coming to life beneath the artisans’ fingertips.

“You’re here, my lady. Please, sit over here.”

The head maid, Philia, led Pesha to the reception area set up in one corner of the workshop.

Philia, who had originally been responsible for educating and training the maids at Namoi Castle as head maid, had been put in charge of managing the workshop grounds a month ago.

She had originally been pulled into the project in a hurry because she was good with numbers, at a time when they were already short-handed due to the business expansion.

As soon as Pesha sat down, Philia brought her tea.

Black tea and nut biscuits were arranged on a silver tray.

“Thank you, Philia.”

“Oh, my. What are you saying? This is my job, after all.”

“I should let you rest more, but things have been so busy…”

“No, it’s fine. I’m the one who feels sorry for making you come all the way here because I haven’t had time to go to the castle.”

After exchanging apologies that had somehow become almost a greeting between them, Pesha lifted her teacup and took a sip.

She liked the Assam aroma that enveloped her mouth.

Meanwhile, Philia brought over a thick folder that had been meticulously organized.

“This is this week’s sales report, my lady.”

“Oh, you prepared it in advance.”

“Of course. This week, we finalized direct contracts with merchants from three cities, and apparently the birthstone campaign has spread all the way to the north.”

“All the way to the north?”

Pesha set down her teacup and asked with interest.

Philia nodded and opened a page in the report.

“After Lady Rosa Hardy wore the newly designed morganite earrings at her last performance, more than thirty percent of the noble families in the capital inquired about the same design. We’re currently producing six variations of similar designs, but all of them were already fully reserved within two days.”

Pesha slowly flipped through the design samples Philia handed her.

A necklace with round, gentle curves, a ring decorated with craftsmanship that scattered like flower petals, and earrings with colorful pieces of beryl hanging from chains as thin as silver thread.

They were all results that made the effort of selecting and mobilizing experts in each field worthwhile.

“Right now, the miniature pendant necklaces matched to people’s birth months are selling the best. These days, it’s fashionable among noblewomen to show off their necklaces and say, ‘This is my birthstone.’”

Philia continued her report, seemingly even more excited than Pesha.

“And there was another proposal yesterday.”

Philia pulled out a new document and handed the folder to Pesha.

“The production team for If You Cannot Remember Me, a new play opening at the Royal Grand Theater next month, sent us a sponsorship proposal. They want the heroine to wear beryl as her accessories. They said she’ll mainly be wearing white dresses, so we’re thinking of setting her birthday in May and proposing a golden-hued heliodor.”

“So they want to create a second Pollyanna. If they do it well, the concept of birthstones will spread even further.”

“Now, more people are curious about ‘What represents me?’ than about simply buying jewelry. If you don’t know your birthstone, you can hardly join a conversation anymore.”

Another report Philia handed over contained detailed information about each workshop’s production schedule, profits, and popular items.

Rings for young children, brooches for gentlemen, popular designs by age group, and differentiated, high-end custom sets for the upper nobility.

Everything was expanding so rapidly that it was becoming difficult even to keep up with the pace.

“At this rate, I don’t think orders will decrease next year. If anything, they’ll continue to increase.”

Pesha let out a satisfied breath and leaned back against the sofa.

“Good. Then we’ll need to prepare a larger workshop.”

When she whispered the words, Philia gave a small laugh along with her.

“If the artisans hear you say that, they might shed tears.”

“They won’t even have time to cry. We have a mountain of work waiting for us.”

The sound of hammers coming from outside the reception room, the workers’ chatter, and the occasional bursts of loud laughter made Pesha feel much more at ease.

The workshop district was always noisy, but she didn’t dislike the commotion.

Rather, because it was no longer as desolate as before, it made her feel that the territory was truly alive.

‘…At this point, things are going smoothly, right?’

Somehow, she had ended up marrying the male lead who was supposed to punish her, and she had even gotten into a major fight with the female lead.

Still, all the running around she had done to change the twisted storyline had been worth it.

The business was going even better than she had planned.

Trees were being planted throughout the territory, and soon Wibus seeds or seedlings would be distributed across all of Swapro.

Wasn’t it safe to say that the blade of fate had missed her by this point?

‘I don’t know. You can’t know how things will turn out until the very end…’

Pesha let out a short sigh and rose from her seat.

She would only be able to know the final outcome once a substantial portion of Swapro’s land had been covered in greenery—enough that she could confidently show it to others.

Until then, all she could do was give her best to everything within her power.

 

***

 

That evening.

Pesha returned to Namoi Castle a little later than scheduled and walked along the corridor, once again organizing her thoughts.

‘Starting tomorrow, I need to go over the new workshop contracts again, and I also have to review the new design drafts…’

Her mind was busy calculating everything, so she only noticed the footsteps approaching from the opposite direction rather late.

“I think I’ll rest for a bit.”

Pesha turned the corner of the corridor while tapping her shoulders, then suddenly stopped.

It was because of the heavy, steady footsteps.

There was only one person in Namoi Castle who walked with such perfectly measured strides.

Owen Namoi was approaching.

She was puzzled.

‘At this hour, shouldn’t he be holed up in his office working?’

Perhaps because he had spent so many years living in groups, from his days with the mercenary corps until he was granted his title as a count, Owen had an extremely well-established routine.

Unless something special happened, he would look over his work materials after finishing his daytime duties. After spending enough time at the castle, Pesha had naturally come to know this about him.

“Wife. There you are.”

His tone made it sound as though he had been looking for her, so she asked in confusion,

“Were you looking for me?”

“Yes.”

Judging by the direction he had come from, it seemed he had stopped by her room and the laboratory on his way.

“Did something happen?”

Owen rummaged inside his coat and pulled out an envelope embroidered with shimmering gold thread.

“An invitation has arrived from His Majesty the Emperor.”

“The Emperor?”

Pesha accepted the letter he handed her and read it.

The introduction was long, but the main point was this.

『Count Owen Namoi is to attend the Founding Day Grand Military Parade and Oath of Allegiance Ceremony to demonstrate the military might of the Imperial Defense Forces.』

The moment she read it, Pesha was horrified.

‘What? Is it already time for the Founding Day incident?’

The Founding Day military parade.

It was a massive military procession in which soldiers were gathered and their military strength displayed before the public, an event that drew the attention of the entire continent.

On the surface, there seemed to be nothing wrong with it.

But in the original story, Owen was summoned to the capital to command the military parade, only to fall into a trap.

On the day of the Founding Day celebration, some of the personal guards Owen had brought with him suddenly drew their weapons and charged at the Emperor.

Owen managed to stop them, preventing the attack from succeeding.

However, because the soldier who caused the incident belonged to Owen’s knight order, suspicions arose that Owen had either committed treason or staged the entire incident himself.

Either way, it was not something that could be treated lightly, considering they had played with the Emperor’s life.

As a result, even though Owen had saved the Emperor and should have been rewarded, he was instead detained.

And it didn’t end there.

The fallout reached all the way to Swapro. With people arguing that Owen’s troops, who were suspected of treason, could not be left armed, his main forces were completely disarmed.

In effect, it was the same as throwing Swapro to the monsters.

‘The monsters actually attack later, putting Swapro in serious danger.’

She had thought that part of the story was still a long way off and had forgotten about it.

She hadn’t expected it to be happening already.

After reading the entire letter, Pesha’s expression grew serious.

If she thought about it simply, all she had to do was weed out Owen’s knights who had been bought off.

But there was one problem.

The names of those knights were never mentioned in the original story.

Because they were even more minor characters than the ‘villainess Pesha,’ who exited the story early!