The Fake Wife of the Strongest Husband Wants to Survive - Chapter 5

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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 5
At those words, Pesha’s face drained of color.
‘Of course he’d share a Ring with me—the man who’s supposed to marry Io.’
It was no comfort at all.
While she listened halfheartedly to the handmaidens’ attempts to console her, Owen, who had been speaking with the knights, drew near.
“The sun will set soon, and we cannot rest much longer. Shall we board the carriage?”
“Yes, of course.”
Pesha forced a smile, but inwardly she sighed deeply as she climbed into the carriage.
As her mind grew sluggish in the oppressive silence, the carriage rattled on for ten days until at last they arrived at Swaf, in the Namoi Earldom.
Pesha stepped down from the wretched carriage and tapped her stiff joints gently, stretching with a small groan.
‘I thought I’d die in there.’
Setting aside Owen’s indifference, Pesha—who had never undertaken a long journey before—writhed under the torment of exhaustion and travel-worn fatigue.
Had the journey lasted even one more day, she would have collapsed from sheer weariness.
As she rolled her sore neck side to side, her eyes suddenly met Owen’s.
Had he been watching her? The moment their gazes locked, Owen looked away.
‘What was that?’
Tilting her head in confusion, she suddenly became aware of the mansion’s steward approaching, but somewhat late.
There was no way he could have failed to hear the news that the master and mistress would arrive at the mansion, yet he appeared to have rushed out without any preparation.
“My lord! It has been a year since we last met. Welcome home.”
“Mm.”
The steward was an elderly man with graying hair, dressed in black steward’s livery, his mustache carefully groomed.
Beyond his delayed appearance, his bow to Owen was awkwardly stiff—a greeting that seemed more like an afterthought than genuine deference.
‘Perhaps he’s comfortable with him because he’s served the household so long?’
No, that was unlikely.
Owen had only recently been granted his earldom, so the steward was simply an elderly man hired into service—nothing more.
Though he did not openly disrespect his master, there was an unmistakable air of contempt hovering beneath his courtesy.
It was clear the steward had not shed the notion that Owen was still a commoner.
And truly, Owen remained scorned by the nobility as little better than a commoner; why should the common folk think differently?
It would be hard to deny that among Owen’s supporters were those who championed him out of a shared sense of kinship, seeing in him one of their own.
The steward seemed to be a man cut from the same cloth of thinking.
Having offered Owen a cursory greeting, the steward caught sight of Pesha standing nearby and drew in a sharp, surprised breath.
“Might this be the legendary Clark Marquis’s daughter? I’ve heard she is a precious Purification Magic practitioner…!”
Pesha, who had opened her mouth to greet the steward, went rigid as stone.
His misunderstanding froze not only Pesha but also Owen and the knights who had followed behind him.
It made sense—as Owen accumulated merit and news of Io’s Purification Power spread far and wide, people had grown accustomed to linking the two youths of Marriageable Age together.
Though Io’s rapid awakening of her abilities had altered the original trajectory somewhat, the Eastern Region still needed Purification Power; Pesha remained steadfastly convinced that until an Imperial Decree fell, whoever became Owen’s wife would undoubtedly be Io.
Indeed, the Clark Marquis House had been the first marriage match discussed as Owen’s reward.
‘But who could have predicted that Io’s father would resort to scheming to avoid marrying his daughter to a commoner?’
Normally, the Clark Marquis would have bartered his realm and daughter to the kingdom; but once he recognized the worth of his awakened daughter’s ability, he hid her away in his earldom under the guise of recovery and treatment to solve the problems of Clark Marquis territory.
And so he had elevated the Raidel Duke House as the alternative.
While most fathers would have hesitated to entrust a carefully raised daughter to one of humble birth like Owen, the Raidel Duke was different.
He exchanged Pesha and his lands as though he had been waiting for precisely this opportunity.
‘Yes, that’s right—I’m no son like Jeremy, just a child of the previous wife.’
The steward apparently had not yet heard the rumor that Owen’s bride had been changed to another woman.
When he heard the master had received an Imperial Decree to marry, he naturally assumed it was the Purification Magic practitioner who had been the subject of gossip for so long—the young lady of the Clark Marquis House.
Pesha tried to break through the awkward atmosphere with a strained smile, preparing to correct the misunderstanding.
But before she could speak, someone else opened his mouth first.
“Not at all, Roam. You’ve gotten it entirely wrong. This lady is no mage whatsoever—she’s the Raidel Duke’s daughter, and she has no abilities to speak of.”
It was a man with bristling red hair, like a lion’s mane, gathered into a single ponytail.
Having just dismounted, he handed the reins to a stable hand, then spoke in a brusque tone.
“If they were sending a Purification Magic practitioner to marry, the escort procession wouldn’t be this sparse, would it?”
“…….”
Thanks to the man’s unsolicited and overly helpful explanation, Roam the steward belatedly grasped his error and apologized hurriedly.
“I—I’m terribly sorry. The news reached us late, and I have committed a grave rudeness! Expectations for Lady Clark have run so high in the earldom that I could not help but…….”
Pesha watched the steward’s bowed head and lifted the corners of her lips.
“It’s all right. You needn’t apologize. It’s true I can’t cast magic.”
At her words, the atmosphere grew solemn.
Everyone stood in silence, unsure what to say.
After a brief pause, she spoke again.
“But it is rather surprising that a well-trained knight should so carelessly disregard propriety and courtesy.”
“I beg your pardon?”
The red-haired knight’s face crumpled in an instant, his sneer forgotten.
Pesha turned to look at him, then continued speaking to the steward.
“Calling a woman married to my lord ‘my lady’ out of sheer stubbornness—surely that doesn’t mean you object to this marriage the Emperor himself commanded?”
“That’s… that’s not what I meant at all…!”
“It’s a pity, really. I’d always thought cultivation was a quality anyone could learn, just as much as any other—unlike magic, which requires natural talent.”
She yielded nothing.
Even when she mortified him openly, he neither sputtered in rage nor shrank away.
Her voice, pointed out his mistakes with such composure, was like a blade honed in silence.
He’d been certain she was an ordinary woman—gentle-faced, delicate of frame—but the knight found himself startled.
“That’s… that’s not it!”
He was scrambling for an excuse, feeling the weight of every eye in the room pressing down on him, when—
“Jein. That’s enough.”
Owen issued the command to the knight.
It was a brief order, stripped of threat or warning, yet Jein flinched as though struck, his shoulders jerking.
Owen’s face remained expressionless as his eyes slid sideways, glancing at Jein before he spoke.
“She’s my wife.”
That single sentence carried more weight than a hundred reprimands.
Jein’s face drained of color. He bowed deeply to Pesha, stammering his apology.
“I’m… I’m deeply sorry, my lady. Please forgive my rudeness…”
Pesha answered with a smile, as though the entire exchange had never happened.
Owen turned from Jein—who had somehow managed to offend on his own and apologize just as thoroughly, and now stood deflated—and looked back at the steward.
“I’m exhausted. I’d like to rest.”
“Of course! We have a room prepared for you!”
The steward hurried to gather the maids with frantic gestures.
The tallest of them stepped to the front, listening to his instructions before asking a question.
“Steward, what should we do about the master and mistress’s bedchamber? It’s still under renovation…”
“Renovation?”
What renovation could possibly be happening?
Shouldn’t it have been finished before the lord arrived home?
As Pesha stood bewildered, Owen answered the question in her stead.
“There were deteriorated sections. I ordered repairs before my deployment. It seems they haven’t been completed yet.”
He’d been gone for a year, after all.
So they’ve been working on it for a whole year?

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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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