Honey, I’m Going On a Strike - Chapter 2

Flash.

 

Her eyes opened.

 

“Ah…”

 

The moment she died, Cassia opened her eyes as if waking up.

 

‘Is this heaven?’

 

After being sentenced to a time limit in her previous life, she imagined a lot about what the world would be like after death.

 

She used to think that if there was a heaven and a hell, as people usually say, she would go to heaven.

 

If someone like her doesn’t go to heaven, then who would go to heaven?

 

However, the first visual after death, which she thought would be heaven, was rather closer to hell…

 

She saw her bedroom ceiling, the same as always, even after her death.

Cassia always considered the ceiling of her own room as hell.

 

If she had had no memory of her death, she might have mistakenly thought she had woken up to another usual day.

 

Cassia carefully raised her body.

 

‘Am I dead…?’

 

The fleece blanket that covered her slid down, revealing her [email protected] body.

 

As far as she remembered, she was skinny.

 

But now, she looks different from her own body.

 

The milky white skin, curvy body… which had risen beautifully, were what it looked like before her troubles in the Greze Estate.

 

‘When you die, you leave everything behind and come to heaven.’

 

‘So it must have been true.’

 

‘I have returned to the arms of God in my original form.’

 

Cassia was truly moved.

 

When she meets God, she will tell Them how troubled she was and how many hardships she had been through in her previous life.

 

She will ask God to help her live a little happier in her next life.

 

God, who has watched her pitiful life, should gladly grant her little request.

 

“Oh God.”

Cassia slowly closed her eyes, clasped her hands, and began to say her prayers.

 

“Oh God? When are you coming?”

 

Cassia peeked in front of her with one eye open.

 

She was in a room that was scarier than hell.

 

Sensing something was wrong with her, Cassia looked around as she loosened her grip and opened her twinkling eyes.

 

What immediately caught her eye was a man sleeping next to her in bed.

 

The dark feet and well-tanned muscular body looked beautiful.

 

She thought she would never see him again after she died…

 

No, she didn’t exactly want to see him.

 

The number one contributor to her miserable life in her last life.

 

Her husband.

 

Baron Zester Greze.

 

“What!”

 

Cassia was startled and twisted her body. The bed was narrow, so her tilted body fell off the bed.

 

“Ouch…”

 

She didn’t even realize how painful it was, or that she was lying embarrassingly  on the floor [email protected] without a thread of clothing on her body.

 

Cassia swallowed her groan, gently stroking her tailbone.

 

“…Are you okay?”

 

Then she heard a familiar voice.

 

Her husband’s.

 

It was only for a moment that Cassia thought her thinking circuit hardened.

 

On her bed, Zester looked down at her with a slightly startled expression.

 

As Cassia and Zester looked at each other, she shouted loudly.

 

“Who are you?!”

 

Zester’s forehead narrowed.

 

“What?”

 

“Why? Why? Are you going to bother me even if I die because you don’t feel sorry for me? Please! I don’t want to see your face anymore! I’m sick and tired of it! So annoying! I hate your handsome face! Please go away!”

 

Zester’s expression became strange at her cry, which contained her sincerity.

 

She was behaving in a way that she would not have even thought of doing if she was alive. Now that she was no longer his wife, she dared to say those words.

 

As much as she hated him, the nakedness he looked down on was also embarrassing.

 

The couple’s relationship was still new, so it was strange and embarrassing every time they took off their clothes.

 

It was a futile movement, but Cassia desperately raised her arms and covered her body, tightly closing her eyes.

 

She then inwardly prayed to God again.

 

‘Are you making me experience hell before going to heaven? Hurry up and take me!’

 

As if God had heard her earnest call, a soft fleece blanket fell over her head with a sudden fluttering sound.

 

Her vision was blocked. Soon, she could feel her body lift up with a rustling sound.

 

‘God is holding me and trying to ascend to heaven.’

 

She wasn’t stupid enough to comfort herself with such a positive thought.

 

This warmth was obviously Zester, not God.

 

As soon as she was laid back on her bed, Cassia threw back the duvet he had covered her head and her  body with.

 

As always, Zester, with a dry expression on his face, stood looking down at her.

 

His gaze involuntarily fell between her legs.

 

Cassia rolled her blanket over her head again and muttered loudly as if she were reciting a spell.

 

“Oh God! Please save me from this hell!”

 

If God intended to give her a hellish experience before going to heaven, it was a success.

 

The face of her husband, the person she hated the most in this world, his features that were annoying every time she saw them, and even the worst situation of waking up in the same bed with him was reproduced in front of her eyes in a three-piece set.

 

Cassia was now slowly mixing profanity and calling out to God.

 

But, strangely, nothing happened to her.

 

It seems that God is negligent in his work.

 

“You’re the type of person who expresses their dislike quite a bit late.”

 

Zester’s voice was limp like cotton in water.

 

He was sad as well as angry.

 

Cassia gently removed the blanket from her head.

 

Suddenly, Zester was no longer there. He noticed Cassia’s extreme dislike and contempt for him, so he quickly left the room without even putting on his clothes, just putting on his robe.

 

Bang!

 

Cassia stared at the closed door for a long time with a blank expression on her face.

 

It didn’t take her long to figure out that this place wasn’t heaven and that her life was worse than hell.

 

“God, if you have any conscience, please return the donations that I had given to the church for 10 years.”

 

Closing her eyes and having prayed for twenty-five times already, Cassia looked around her room again.

 

Obviously, the prayer, which began with a reverent and earnest appeal, had long changed to absurdity  by the time she reached her tenth prayer.

 

Instead of giving her the postmortem of heaven, God poured the hell of a decade’s return. It was crazy.

There were a couple of high-quality candles placed on the tabletop, the window sill, and the table where wine was shared before going to sleep.

 

Cassia had never set such a mood with Zester in her lifetime.

 

The only time she shared a relationship in a room decorated with expensive candles was on the first night of entering Greze territory, as she remembered.

 

The sharp pain around the waist, which doesn’t seem to be just from falling off the bed, also helped her realize her current hellish situation.

 

Perhaps because it was her first intimate experience or because her husband’s member was close to a weapon, she remembered that her back had hurt so much the next day.

 

So, Cassia seemed to have returned to that time in the winter when she was seventeen and first entered the Greze territory as if she were sold.

 

She was stunned.

 

It was clear that God had never felt sorry for Cassia.

 

Otherwise, he wouldn’t have turned back time to the first day when her misery began.

 

To have to repeat her 10 years of a living nightmare in the Greze Estate.

 

God, if you were going to turn back time, why not to when I was in my mother’s womb 20 years ago, or 27 years ago, or 30 years ago?

Why the hell?

Cassia cried inside as she shook her head. No matter how many years ago she returned, she was still destined to become Baroness Greze.

 

 

 

This was because this was not a marriage chosen by her or her father, but a marriage forced by the emperor, who was the most powerful figure in the empire.

 

If she wanted to blame someone, she should blame her husband Zester, who was more heartless and ignorant than God.

 

When Cassia was fourteen, war broke out between her native Simone Empire and the Berth Empire.

 

In this great war that lasted a year and a half, Zester, who was a commoner mercenary hired by the imperial family, achieved remarkable accomplishments.

 

At the time, Cassia was still young and did not know the details of how and what he was doing.

 

What was certain was the fact that the emperor praised him for doing such a great job.

 

Not only in the capital, but also in the Ruberno Estate at the time, Zester was famous as a ‘hero of the country’.

 

The emperor conferred on him the title of baron and territories.

 

According to what Cassia heard, the emperor wanted to grant a higher title, but he had to be satisfied with the title of baron due to the opposition from some high-ranking nobles. He also wanted to award Cassia, who was quietly living in the Ruberno Estate, to the war hero as a reward for saving the country. The emperor secretly urged Cassia’s father, Count Ruberno, for her to take over the glorious position as hostess of the hero’s new home since the position was currently empty.

 

The Ruberno Estate, which was spacious and fertile, had many things to see and made huge profits from agriculture and tourism. The family of Count Ruberno had good bloodlines and was actively involved in politics.  They were called the ‘center of power’ in name and reality, displaying the family’s prestige.

 

And Cassia Ruberno was a young woman of marriageable age, who grew up as a golden jade in such a powerful family with a long history.

 

She didn’t know what she did in her past life for God to have blessed her, but she had a beautiful appearance with an impeccable background, and at that time, more than a hundred marriage proposals came a day for her.

 

There were quite a few decent noble families besides the Ruberno, but the emperor wanted to give Zester, the hero of salvation, a reward he thought was worthy.

 

Cassia Ruberno was the perfect woman for Zester.

 

Now that she thinks about it, she really couldn’t help but be stunned.

 

If the emperor had wanted a perfect heroine for the hero, then he should have chosen one of the princesses!

 

Does this mean you can force this marriage onto another but not onto your own daughters?

 

Cassia added the emperor, who was mean, to the list of reasons for her misfortune, which she thought was having Zester as a husband.

 

And so Cassia was now here because of the emperor’s desire to give Zester the best bride in the empire.

 

At the first meeting, Zester, her husband, who gave off a cold feeling, gave Cassia the worst first night ever.

 

He was hesitating for an hour while his very nervous young wife sat there, and when he finally made the decision to leave the room, she grabbed him and what were the words she spoke.

 

[Please don’t leave.]

 

He was seven years older than her, so he was in his prime.

 

The misery was indescribable when he heard those words from the mouth of a lively young woman.

 

Cassia swallowed her shame and grabbed her husband with red cheeks that day.

 

[If you leave like this on the first night… Everyone will ridicule me. I know you don’t like me, but…]

 

She had heard he didn’t like her, so she desperately caught Zester, and after that, it was quick.

 

After hesitating for a few more minutes, he eventually embraced Cassia on the spot.

 

He was so terrifying and beastly that Cassia was engulfed in her pain and anguish as she struggled to hold back the tears that trickled down her eyes.

 

There was no consideration for his wife.

 

Her first time.

 

The inability to move was just an excuse Cassia brought up because she didn’t like it, and as if he decided to stick to his instinctive desires, Zester didn’t let go of his young wife until dawn of the next day.

 

It was the worst day Cassia remembers at Greze Estate, one out of five days.