The Fake Wife of the Strongest Husband Wants to Survive - Chapter 15

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 15
‘Where is she going?’
There was something hurried and suspicious about the way she departed with only a single maidservant and a carriage.
The moment Jane saw Pesha’s carriage leave, he rushed to the stables, mounted a horse, and followed.
“There’s definitely something going on……!”
He regulated the horse’s pace as he trailed behind, thinking.
Could she be trying to steal intelligence about our territory to the Emperor’s lackeys?
Or perhaps she has a hiding place for some trinket she brought when she married in?
As his suspicions deepened, the carriage came to a halt on a secluded stretch of road.
Watching Pesha descend from the carriage, Jane quickly dismounted and concealed himself in the woods.
The place she entered was a relief tent.
It was where miners who worked in the dangerous areas near Old Town came when they were injured — but why was Pesha Raidel here?
He wanted to know what was happening, but she had disappeared into the tent, leaving him unable to see anything.
As he gradually crept closer to the tent, glancing about nervously, he was torn between staging a casual interruption or watching a bit longer.
Then Pesha emerged from the tent.
“Really. I thought it was urgent business.”
Her grumbling seemed mixed with relief.
At that moment, a doctor and nurses followed her out of the tent.
They appeared to be seeing her off.
“We’re terribly sorry. The letter meant for someone else got mixed up with the one meant for you, madam…….”
The Old Doctor, leaning on a cane, laughed awkwardly.
“In any case, since it’s nothing serious, I’ll be on my way.”
“We’ll make sure something like this doesn’t happen again. Safe travels, madam.”
Soon the carriage carrying Pesha departed from the tent.
The moment the carriage disappeared from view, Jane emerged from his hiding place and approached the medical staff.
“Ahem. Hem.”
After making a deliberate cough to announce his presence, the Old Doctor spotted Jane at once.
“Oh! The Earl’s knight! What brings you here……. Are you injured anywhere, sir?”
To judge from appearances, Jane bore not a single wound — he looked perfectly sound.
“No, I was passing nearby and thought of this place…….”
He offered a vague excuse while studying the doctor’s expression intently.
He wanted to press and pry about what they’d discussed with that wretched woman traded for a duke, but asking openly would look suspicious.
So he fell back on something a lord’s aide might reasonably say.
“Well then, speaking of which — do you have enough tobacco leaf? I hear your stockpile has diminished considerably. Bear with the shortage a while longer. Now that the lord has given his approval, we should be able to increase the supply of tobacco.”
He thought the Old Doctor would be pleased to hear that.
But the entire medical staff gave a tepid response.
“Is that so? We don’t think that will be necessary.”
“That’s right. Hoban hasn’t been in use lately.”
“There’s a substitute with much better effects and no side effects, so there’s no reason to use Hoban anymore.”
What were they talking about?
Now that he thought about it, the tent that always reeked of acrid smoke carried no scent of tobacco leaf whatsoever.
“W-what do you mean? This is a place where critically ill patients never run short, so analgesic medicine is always in demand.”
“Haven’t you heard? Thanks to the Iceberg, our patients have become much more comfortable.”
“What?”
Jane’s brow furrowed in confusion, unable to grasp what was being said. One of the nurses took it upon herself to draw back the tent flap and show him inside.
“Look. The patients are relieved to no longer have to inhale smoke, aren’t they?”
Jane’s eyes widened as he peered into the tent.
The patients who had always languished in agony were now resting in far greater comfort — receiving treatment or sleeping with peaceful expressions on their faces.
“All of this is thanks to madam sending us Iceberg herbal water.”
When the nurse spoke with a smile, Jane asked again, his expression blank.
“Madam…… The woman who just left, or rather — she gave you something and the patients recovered?”
“They didn’t recover exactly — it’s a pain relief medicine that reduces suffering, but it has much better effects, produces no smoke or side effects, so we and the patients are all quite satisfied with it.”
The medical staff spoke as though they were quite fond of the thing Pesha had provided.
Jane could not hide his bewilderment.
He had thought if Pesha Raidel caused trouble or did anything strange, he would catch her at it and expose her in shame — but instead, she had helped?
‘It must be coincidence.’
He shook his head vigorously, steadying his thoughts against the moment of weakness.
‘Regardless, I need to report this.’
Whether an outsider entering the territory and causing change was beneficial or harmful was not Jane’s call to make.
The true master of this territory was someone else.
* * *
Pesha closed the book she’d been reading and exhaled softly.
“Sigh…….”
The medical staff viewed the Iceberg’s effects positively, which was fortunate, but the real obstacle was supply.
‘It’s a wildflower, sure, but it’s cheap in the Northern Region—the moment you come south, the price climbs…….’
While Hoban could be sourced easily enough from the southeastern territories, Iceberg had to be imported from the north, a fact that inflated costs considerably.
It wasn’t a flower incapable of growing in the relatively warmer eastern climate, but the problem lay in the fact that most of Swarf’s terrain had been contaminated.
For that reason, they had to purchase directly from the north, and the middlemen’s commissions were ruinous.
In a wealthy place like the Raidel duchy where Pesha had grown up, herb prices fluctuating slightly would scarcely matter, but Swarf’s situation was entirely different.
‘With our current financial state, importing large quantities would be a burden.’
Even though Owen had sided with her once, quite by accident, when she’d dismissed the steward, he remained a difficult figure for Pesha to approach.
‘That time, Owen was conducting his own investigation, so circumstances simply aligned. This matter is something I must convince him of entirely on my own, so I need to gather all my facts before I broach the subject.’
She’d looked into herb prices and distribution channels for precisely this reason, only to be stalled by financial constraints.
Managing the ledgers didn’t mean she could shuffle the budget at will—money was always the thorniest problem.
“This is infuriating.”
Truth be told, Pesha had never intended to meddle deeply in the territory’s affairs.
After all, her plan was simple: keep her head down, wait for the right moment, and divorce.
But faced with the territory’s actual conditions—impoverished and rife with corruption—she found herself unable to look away.
This whole matter had begun when she’d stumbled upon the tent on a walk, and only because the castle happened to have Iceberg on hand could she help at all.
If the steward hadn’t attempted to defraud them with the Iceberg—making it scarce—or if she’d been ignorant about herbs, she would simply have given up for want of a solution.
But to ignore a known fact, to turn away from the vulnerable when a small gesture could dramatically improve their plight—that was not a thing she could do easily.
‘So I’ll help with just this, and then I’ll keep my head down again.’

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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