TN: Enjoy~! I’m having a lot of fun translating this one ahaha. Romance is really my soul food.
Cassia had a truly wonderful dream for the first time in ages.
Not only were Rael and Lucy born safely, but unlike in her past life, Zester was a kind and affectionate father to them. The four of them strolled through the Greze territory on a fragrant spring day, smiling together.
Zester carried Rael on his shoulders and held Lucy in one arm. With his free hand, he clasped Cassia’s hand and smiled tenderly at her from time to time. Every time he did, Cassia’s heart raced at the unfamiliar sight of her husband.
So he’s capable of smiling like that…
Cassia was so happy in the dream that she woke up feeling miserable. It was a pity that she was destined to die young.
Please let me be happy a little longer, with my affectionate husband and my adorable children.
She prayed to God with that wish…then she woke up.
“Ah.”
It was just a dream.
Of course it was. Cassia muttered to herself and sighed deeply as she looked at the empty space beside her. Zester had disappeared without a trace after sharing a bed with her. That part of him clearly hadn’t changed. She had been a little surprised the previous morning to find him still lying beside her, but clearly, that was a fluke. The Zester she knew wasn’t going to change that easily.
She shook her head vigorously, trying to snap herself out of it. This was so unlikely her. Usually, she hated her husband and did not want to see his face. She had already gotten used to this in her previous life, so she didn’t understand why his absence now made her feel so empty again.
Just because of one unrealistic dream…
***
Paul was on the verge of collapsing this morning, trying to read Zester’s mood.
Since meeting the lady of the house, his master had started speaking more and even cracked a smile once in a while. But now, the old chill had returned.
They must have fought. Nothing else could explain why his master was already preparing to leave the territory. The documents Zester had been reviewing since morning were reinforcement requests that they had agreed to postpone until Cassia settled into the Greze Castle.
Before Cassia came, Zester had barely rested between deployments. From territory skirmishes to suppressing coups in the capital to clearing barbarian-occupied territories, he had constantly been at war.
Paul understood that in order to keep their poor territory afloat, Zester would need to clone himself ten times over yet he was managing without complaint. Since it was difficult to maintain the castle with only the taxes collected from the territory residents, Paul agreed that it was time to resume the expeditions but…
“Send word to Viscount Viche. I will depart tomorrow.”
“Um, Master…”
Zester looked up from the stack of expedition letters that he was signing off on and met Paul’s eyes.
“Did something happen with the Madam?”
It was a sharp question. Zester let out a long sigh as soon as Cassia’s name was mentioned since he had been trying to avoid thinking about it.
“No.”
“M-Master.”
“I said nothing happened.”
“No, aside from that, is there a chance you could reconsider the request from Viscount Viche for reinforcements? The reward is too little for the risk and the manpower he’s requesting.”
“Just send the letter. It’s the fastest deployment I can take.”
“Is there a reason you’re in such a hurry to deploy?”
Paul asked without back down.
Zester took a deep breath, closed his eyes tightly and tried hard to suppress his anger.
『I miss you, Rael… I love you, my…』
He was still twisted up from what he’d heard last night.
The unfamiliar name and love confession from Cassia’s lips while she slept. She even cried in her sleep. How much did she miss that man, that even in dreams, she sought for her lover? She must have been forced to leave him behind.
Of course, a noblewoman as beautiful as Cassia would’ve had a lover. That he had never considered the possibility was laughable.
In a way, it made sense. If she hadn’t been sold to this poor territory by the Emperor’s decree, she would’ve probably married her lover and lived happily ever after. She wouldn’t be suffering in a poor territory for no reason.
The more he thought about it, the less he could bear to lie beside Cassia and remain blissful. He felt guilty and ashamed, and a rush of remorse was flooding through his mind.
It wasn’t Cassia’s fault in any way. She had never rejected him by saying she had a past lover, nor did she throw a tantrum asking to be sent home. She only did everything that was asked of her, and simply uttered that name in her sleep. There was no way she could control that aspect of her.
And yet, here he was, angry and sad over her sleep talking due to missing her lover. It was petty, childish and ugly.
‘Rael, huh? If he was Cassia’s lover, then I’m sure he is a noble. Someone far better than someone like me.’
‘Who knows. He might be cursing me now, saying I deserve to die.’
‘Wait, wouldn’t Viscount Havelyn also know who this ‘Rael’ guy is?
Zester burst into laughter as his thoughts went in circles.
What am I, some obsessive stalker? It was beyond pathetic to see himself venting his anger towards his wife’s former lover, whose face he didn’t even know.
That’s why he suddenly started reviewing the expeditions requests he had been putting off until Cassia got settled in the Castle. It would feel uncomfortable looking Cassia in the face. No, more likely, Cassia felt uncomfortable looking at his.
His thoughts were in disarray and at times like this, the only way to shut them off was to wield his sword.
“Master, if something unpleasant happened with the Madam, like I’ve said before, you need to communicate it. If hard feelings go undressed, they will eventually fester and may become impossible to mend later on”
“I told you; it’s nothing like that.”
“Master, I’ve served you for years. At this point, I can tell what you’re thinking just by looking at your eyes. I can’t help but wonder if this sudden rush to go on deployment isn’t some attempt to run away from reality…”
“Haa…”
Paul always saw right through him.
Zester was about to open his mouth, thinking he should at least confide in Paul for his worries.
“Zester!”
But then, the door burst open, surprising both Zester and Paul. Frankly, there was only one person who would barge into Zester, the master of the castle’s office, like this.
“…Vita?”
Since Cassia placed her in house arrest, she hadn’t been seen in the castle in quite some time. So why was Vita…
『Alright, I’ll have Miss Vita released tomorrow. You’ll have nice time seeing your old friend again, Baron』
Right. Cassia did say that.
Zester massaged his forehead, recalling Cassia’s curt voice. He should have just recommended keeping her in house arrest for a month.
“Vita, have you already forgotten why you were punished by my wife? What do you think you’re…”
“How could you do this to me?!”
Standing in the middle of this, Paul’s jaw dropped.
This wasn’t the first time he was seeing her act recklessly due to her childhood friendship with Zester, but this was on a whole new level.
Of all things, she had barged into Zester’s office, with apparent tears in her eyes, and immediately started yelling at him.
Paul’s head hurt.
“Are you out of your mind?”
Zester retorted, looking utterly flabbergasted.
“Am I out of my mind? You’re the one that’s lost it! Answer me. How could you just abandon me there without even a second glance?”
“Hah…”
They say that when you’re faced with something truly absurd, all words fail. That was exactly how Zester and Paul were feeling right now. They were so stunned that they couldn’t even open their mouth to scold Vita, who was flailing around the office like a wild animal.
“No matter how thoughtless you are, how could you bring a prostitute into the castle? And that Madam of yours. I was just trying to punish that vixen in her place, and somehow I’m the one who got punished? And you, Zester, you didn’t even think to stop the Madam right there?”
“Shut your mouth, Vita. Do you think this is still those years when I—.”
“If my parents find out about this, they are going to be so disappointed in you! Don’t you remember how many times they begged you to look after me?! You promised to do so! So what is this, huh?! It’s so shameful and humiliating that I don’t even know what to say!”
I’m the one who doesn’t know what to say here…
Zester hung his head, clutching his pounding forehead.
At this point, it would be fair to call his relationship with Vita an ill-fated one. Not only had she caused him plenty of grief with Paul, but she had even led to misunderstandings between him and Cassia.
His terrible history with Vita started exactly ten years.
The two, who were from the mountain village of Bohem, were actually more like master and servant than childhood friends.
In their remote mountain village of Bohem, Vita’s parents were landowners who held a large piece of land unclaimed by the royal family and Zester’s parents were tenant farmers who borrowed that land from them to work.
Naturally, the relationship between their children was one of hierarchy.
The number of times he had suffered in Vita’s hands was unmeasurable.
While there wasn’t a particular class distinction among those Bohem, there was a clear line between well-off and the poor. Vita always acted like she was a noble lady. And she wasn’t exactly wrong. At least in Bohem, she was a noble lady.
Albeit a commoner, Vita had grown up without lacking anything and she never hesitated to lord over others.
She wasn’t evil to the core but perhaps because she was raised with too much coddling, she was a little immature and lacked any self-awareness.
Neither Zester nor all the other village kids liked her, but they didn’t dare to show it. Even their parents told them to keep their mouths shut.
To stay in Vita’s good graces.
Among them, Zester was Vita’s favorite friend, or rather her slave.
If she wanted to play horseback riding, she would immediately demand for him to get on the floor and if she didn’t like someone—usually boys who didn’t follow her orders—she asked him to beat them up…
One day, she fell in love the with son of a neighboring village’s lord and decided she needed to practice physical affection on her own. She was probably around 15.
He still remembered how angry he was when she suddenly thrust her lips in front of him, saying she needed to practice skinship.
Zester, who had been holding back thinking of his struggling parents, got really angry and yelled at Vita for the first time that day.
Vita cried and cried and ran over to her parents and Zester was beaten so hard by his father that day that his calves were bruised.
From that moment on, he decided to just accept that he was bound to play the obedient servant in front of Vita. Vita was the daughter of a rich family, and he was her servant.
A consequence of repeated conditioning.
Even after Zester dived into the mercenary life to try and escape that miserable life, and became a dragon born from a little stream, those trails still clung to him.
Vita wanted to go to the Greze territory, which was a little more developed than their hometown, Bohem, and she was curious about life in a castle. And Vita’s parents asked Zester to bring her with him.
“Zes! Ter! Are you even listening to me?!”
Vita completely exploded and the temper that she had been suppressing all this time finally came out.
Zester shook off the nightmarish flashbacks of his past and stood up with a solemn expression, ready to end this long ill-fated relationship.
“Answer me, Zester!”
He wasn’t even sure what she wanted an answer to, but he no longer intended to humor her. Zester slowly walked up to her with a stormy expression on his face.
“Is it the Madam or is it me?!”
But the next moment, he couldn’t help but freeze at that truly absurd question.
What kind of bloody question is that? And what kind of answer is she expecting…?
“Miss Vita, your rudeness has gone far enough! Please leave!”
At that moment, Paul came to his senses and realized he could no longer bear to watch and had to kick Vita out. He quickly opened the door to Zester’s office.
“Oh my God.”
It was like adding insult to injury.
Paul’s eyes went wide. The door, which he had opened without thinking, revealed the standing figures of Cassia and Drian, who seemed to have heard the commotion inside the office.
Cassia, who wore an indifferent expression, like she had no opinions at all and Drian, who looked thoroughly baffled, like he couldn’t understand what was going on.
Zester, too, was completely thrown by their sudden appearance.
“M-M-Madam? W-W-What are you doing here…?”
Paul’s voice was trembling.
Cassia glanced at Paul and quietly replied.
“I had something to discuss with the Baron, so I came with Viscount Havelyn. But he seems busy so I shall return later. Goodbye.”
After uttering that nonchalant sentence, Cassia turned around to leave.
“W-Wife!”
Shocked, Zester instinctively tried to stop Cassia, then he froze.
She had definitely misunderstood again…
But how was he going to explain it when he caught up to her? Say it wasn’t his fault, that Vita was just doing this and that?
Just as he was about to just let her leave helplessly, Paul gave him a pointed look that said: Hurry up and go after her.
『If hard feelings go undressed, they will eventually fester and may become impossible to mend later on.』
Paul’s calm advice echoed in his mind.
Right. How long was he going to keep this bottled up?
Making up his mind, Zester sprinted after Cassia. Her strides were shorter than his, so it didn’t take long for him to catch up.
But now that he was here, how was he supposed to stop her?
Looking at her back, his hand wavered in hesitation. Finally, he squeezed his eyes shut and hugged her from behind.
“W-W-What are you doing?”
“My wife, please don’t go!”
Dumbfounded, Cassia looked down at the strong arms wrapped around her and all she could do was blink.
Early Access available on Patreon!
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For the love of God man explain this right!!!! This is totally an abusive relationship and your wife needs to knock the shit out of your “childhood friend”