The Fake Wife of the Strongest Husband Wants to Survive - Chapter 22

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

Chapter 22
Owen dismounted and handed the reins to the stablekeeper.
For the week-long inspection, he’d lived rough in the Borderland—barely better than sleeping under open sky—checking the fortifications and barriers, culling the swollen population of monsters.
In a place where battle could erupt at any moment, he couldn’t help but keep his nerves perpetually wound tight.
After days of sustained vigilance, arrival at the castle felt like finally being able to breathe.
Massaging his shoulders as he entered, the first thought that came to him was of his wife.
A week ago, the last time he’d seen her: she’d moved busily through the castle, her small frame darting from room to room, yet her hectic schedule hadn’t masked the worry etched into her face.
She’d been visibly preoccupied, lost in thought or concern, and that dark expression had haunted him throughout the entire inspection.
In the end, he’d shortened his planned itinerary by several days and decided to return early.
“My goodness, the master has remarkable stamina. After a week of sleepless nights, you could afford to take your time coming home, couldn’t you?”
Rebecca Bates, his deputy, called after him with a teasing remark, but he didn’t hear her.
Ignoring the servant who’d hurried over with his cloak, Owen went straight to the second floor where Pesha stayed.
Unavoidable.
His wife had always been that kind of necessity to him.
Since she’d openly objected to marriage with a lowborn mercenary-turned-count, he’d done his best to refrain from approaching her unnecessarily or speaking more than required.
He had no wish to burden her further—a woman forced into marriage by command.
Yet once worry found its opening in his mind, it became difficult to contain.
He felt he wouldn’t be able to calm himself until he’d seen Pesha’s face and confirmed she was well.
Having climbed without even thinking of a pretext, he found Jane fidgeting anxiously in the middle of the second-floor corridor.
It was just outside the Research Room—where Pesha had recently begun setting up a study and multipurpose workspace.
“Jane.”
She’d been watching her move back and forth past Pesha’s research room with suspicion when Jane finally noticed him.
“Master—Master!”
“What are you doing there?”
“You’ve just arrived? You must be exhausted. Let me show you to your—”
“Is something wrong with Pesha?”
“Wrong? I—”
Jane swallowed hard, her eyes darting nervously until she couldn’t withstand his piercing gaze any longer and spoke.
“The truth is, madam has barricaded herself away claiming she’s researching something, and she won’t come out.”
“What?”
“We even tried bringing the servants the Raidel House provided to coax her out, but she doesn’t respond at all. And she’s apparently skipped several meals now.”
Owen left Jane to her distress and stood before the Research Room door, knocking.
“Madam.”
……
“Just a moment. Let me see you. Are you all right?”
……
“Even just showing your face would be enough. You need to eat something.”
Still, no answer came from Pesha.
Sensing something amiss, Owen’s voice dropped lower.
“Madam, I’m coming in.”
The moment he turned the handle, the Research Room door flew open simultaneously.
A rabbit and a chicken burst out with a flutter, startling the very soul out of anyone in their path before bolting away in haste.
Pesha appeared behind them.
Dark shadows hung beneath her eyes, extending all the way down to her jaw.
“I’ve done it.”
Speaking those cryptic words with a haggard face, she looked genuinely mad.
“Madam.”
“I actually succeeded…….”
Try as he might to make sense of it, the situation remained incomprehensible.
“Succeeded at what, exactly?”
Pesha, who had been staring down at her own hands, suddenly lifted her head and explained to Owen with bright, fevered eyes.
“The Dual-Purpose Potion—healing wounds and purifying Aura Corruption at the same time!”
It wasn’t as though Aura Purification Potions or Wound Healing Potions didn’t exist in the market, but the two were rarely used together.
Adding wound-healing components caused the purification potency to drop dramatically.
Yet a potion that retained both effects—this was the first he’d heard of such a thing.
“Such a thing couldn’t possibly—”
I took a Purification Plant that doesn’t require special growing conditions and cross-bred it artificially with a healing plant. Since the Purification Plant belonged to the Orchidaceae family, I selected healing plants from the same family, cross-bred them to extract only the best properties of each, and formulated the potion. The trials were conducted on a rabbit and a chicken that had been marked for culling due to Aura Corruption—and as you just saw them scurry out perfectly healthy, the experiment succeeded.”
Even after her explanation, Owen stood slack-jawed and dumbfounded, so Pesha drove the point home.
“This means the people of my territory won’t have to die anymore.”
……
Owen scrutinized Pesha with bewildered eyes, taking her in from head to toe.
In barely a week, she had grown noticeably gaunt, her frame even more drawn than before.
Setting aside the matter of the medicine itself, watching her grow so frail in the process of making it—he couldn’t bring himself to celebrate, even if an alternative to the Aura Corruption problem had emerged.
It was then that Rebecca Bates, who had been observing the situation from behind, interjected into their conversation.
“Madam, what do you intend to do with that potion now?”
“Of course we’ll distribute it throughout the territory and commercialize it for sale. But there’s a problem.”
“A problem?”
“We don’t have space in the territory to cultivate the medicinal herbs needed as ingredients for this potion.”
“Is that so?”
“The Count’s Castle Garden is saturated with icebergs, and the territory is contaminated to varying degrees everywhere. Given that Purification Plants have weak breeding rates to begin with, it will be difficult to cultivate them properly.”
Owen, who had been watching the half-shadowed profile of Pesha’s face intently, let out a short sigh.
It seemed he would need to at least make a show of solving this problem if he wanted her to rest.
“If what we’re planting is a Purification Plant, there should be ways to purify the land through the method of planting itself.”
“Unfortunately, this plant only has the ability to purify wounds. While there are plants that can purify land when cultivated, their effects are minimal, and the land here has been barren for so long that it won’t be easy regardless.”
Another dead end. Then Owen offered a simple solution.
“Then we’ll buy them.”
“Buy them?”
“Since we’re going to commercialize it anyway, we’ll entrust the material procurement phase to a merchant company from the start.”
“But is there a merchant company that would take on such a task? It would need to be fairly large—at least the size of the Fontloy Company.”
“Fontloy? The Uz Merchant Company is even larger than that.”
“Th-the Uz…?”
Pesha’s eyes widened in surprise.
The Uz Merchant Company was unquestionably the largest in the nation by revenue, and it was operated by the Clark Marquessate—Io’s family.
Though Clark Marquess was the villain who tormented Io in the original narrative, there was no denying the scale of the company.
“You’re planning to send someone to the Uz Merchant Company in the Capital?”
“I’m going myself.”
At Owen’s words that he would go directly, Pesha unconsciously rose onto her toes and pressed her face close to his.
“You’re going to see Io?”
“…Io?”
“Ah, yes. To the Uz Merchant Company. You mean you’re going there to negotiate with the Clark Marquess, don’t you? Right?”
“Yes, well.”
Owen answered tersely to the now-flustered Pesha, who seemed uncertain why she was so eager.
But regardless of what he said, Pesha’s mind had already been flooded with rosy thoughts.
‘The Uz Merchant Company is owned by Io’s Clark family, so if Owen goes to negotiate, they’ll come face-to-face. If they meet and one of them falls for the other, my divorce becomes much easier. This is an opportunity. I need to watch how things develop between them and help make sure nothing goes wrong!’
For the sake of her own comfortable future, Pesha was more than willing to play Cupid for the two of them.
“Then I’ll go too!”

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