A Demotion Isn’t That Bad – Volume 1 Chapter 3

The woman who overslept

Cutting it short, Lea wasn’t able to wake up at 5 o’clock the next morning.
On her first day as a newlywed, she had spectacularly overslept. By the time she jumped to her feet, the wall clock downstairs had rung seven times. She was, of course, the only one on the spacious bed.

Lea, wearing no clothes and in a state which she could only show to her husband, turned pale. As she searched her surroundings with her restless eyes, she found her clothes hanging on the chair next to the bed. She had no recollection of leaving them there, so Ulises must had been the one to do it. And there was no doubt her underwear was also there, albeit hidden. She had made her husband tidy up something like that too.

Feeling like she wanted to die from embarrassment, she struggled in the swamp of confusion, holding the quilt to her chest and unable to think of what to do next.

“Oh, you woke up?”

In that moment, Ulises opened the door and entered the room without knocking, which made Lea grow even paler. Of course, it was also his room, so he had no need to knock. However, that also had enough impact to make Lea’s small heart almost jump out of her mouth.
He was wearing a shirt and had a wooden sword for practice in his hand. It seemed like he had already finished training, as light sweat could be seen on his skin. If everything was going according to the schedule that she was told yesterday, Ulises would be eating breakfast now. His work would start in an hour. So far Lea had been completely useless.

“I-I-I-I-I-I’m-”

It was just two words, ‘I’m sorry’, but why wasn’t she able to say them right away? And why couldn’t she move her body? Lea felt a sense of frustration.

“Oh, it’s fine. There are some leftovers from yesterday, so I’ll eat that and go to work.”

Paying no mind to the ridiculous state Lea was in, Ulises quickly started changing his clothes. Looking at his strong back as he pulled out his military uniform from his closet, Lea felt ashamed of herself for already not being able to live up to her husband’s expectations.
In any case, she could not afford to dilly-dally like this. She could not redo what she had messed up already. There was nothing else Lea could do other than make up for it with her future actions. Conveniently, Ulises had his back turned towards her. It was a rare chance for her to move in her current state.
However, as she tried to wriggle to the edge of the bed with the quilt covering her body, she lost her balance due to pain in her legs, lower back and the area that she could not utter out loud.

“Ah…!”

She somehow managed to quickly put one foot down on the floor, so she did not tumble pathetically, but she did stumble forward grandly before stopping. She tried to overcome the turmoil in her heart caused by the surprise of her sudden near-fall and remained frozen for a while.

“…”

However, Lea felt a gaze on her and all blood was drained from her face. She slooooowly turned her head, looking towards the closet, and noticed that Ulises was also looking at her, having stopped mid-buttoning up his white shirt.
Because of the awkward position she ended up in, the cloth she was using to cover her body was only hanging down to Lea’s stomach. Neither her small chest nor her skinny legs were hidden.

“Ah…!”

Swayed by shame, Lea instinctively tried to pull up the quilt with both hands while in her unstable position. However, there was no way that her body, with her buttocks barely resting on the bed, would tolerate such embarrassment. She unceremoniously slipped down on her butt and sprawled on the floor.

Ah jeez, I want to cry. I want to disappear.
Feeling of patheticness, that couldn’t be expressed with just being embarrassing, engulfed Lea. Her butt hurt, but her heart was in more pain. The rest of the quilt slipped down from the bed, simply snuggling up next to her. It didn’t seem like it would heal the pain in Lea’s heart,

“Take a deep breath.”

Ulises, who had finished buttoning his shirt, approached her while tucking the hem of his shirt into his pants. Seeing that he showed no agitation at seeing Lea’s naked body, Lea was able to calm down a little, thinking ‘is that how it is?’. She thought that he probably had no interest in the body of a skinny woman like her.
Lea took a deep breath while still half-grabbing the quilt that had fallen next to her. By the time she exhaled, her husband was already standing in front of her, buttoning his cuffs.

“Can you stand?”

He held out a buttoned up hand to her.

“I-I’m fine.”

She had already showed herself at her most pathetic, but she had to at least stand up on her own or there was no saving her. Putting her hands on the edge of the bed right behind her, Lea propped herself up. She pulled up the quilt that had not been kind to her, in a vain attempt to hide her body as much as possible.

“I-I’m sorry for showing you such a pathetic appearance. I’ll do it properly from now on.”

Even if he was so disappointed with her that there was no fixing it, there was no way she could tell him that she would do better starting tomorrow. There was a big difference in being a million dali in debt or a hundred thousand dali in debt. Even if she were to end up in debt, she had to make an effort to keep it as small as possible, or she would no longer have a place in this house.

“S-sure… well, today is fine. I made you strain yourself last night. I don’t know much about women, but I smelled blood so it must have hurt.”

The smell of blood – being told something so animalistic, her sense of shame flared up once again. It really did hurt. Moreover, the man named Ulises had great physical strength and just as much vigour. By the time she heard the words ‘one more time’ for the third time, Lea’s consciousness had began to fade.

“For now, eat properly.”

In the end, he probably came to a conclusion that she lacked physical strength. Ulises concluded, then picked up all of Lea’s clothes that were hanging on the chair and pressed them against her unreliable chest. It would hide Lea’s skinny body even if she let go of the quilt.

“It must be difficult to change clothes if I’m here. I’ll go downstairs first.”

Saying so, Ulises grabbed his military jacket and belt and left the bedroom with wide steps. When she came back to her senses, Lea was alone in the room.
Siiiiiigh.
Hearing the receding sound of footsteps, the thread of tension and shame that had been torturing her finally snapped and Lea pummeled down on the edge of the bed. However, she wasn’t fully relieved. If anything, she was full of anxiety.
She was thinking if she would be able to do it properly if things went so horrible on the day one.

After getting dressed and arranging her hair, Lea hurried to the dining room, only to find the table just as it was yesterday.
Ulises had tipped the bottle with leftover juice and was pouring it into a new glass. The amount of bread had decreased, so he might have already finished his breakfast.

“I’m sorry… for showing you something so unsightly this morning.”

No matter how much she tried to look good, it probably meant nothing to him anymore. Still, unable to act innocent, Lea apologized to her husband, blushing all the way to her neck.
The morning sun shining through the window in the bright dining room did nothing to hide Lea’s shame. Ulises glanced at her, but he did not react much, only pointing to the seat across from him.

“It’s fine, just eat. Put on some meat.”

Even though she was told to put on more meat by the man who had seen her everything, Lea felt a tremendous power. It was natural that her current body would be considered frail. Unable to shake off her embarrassment, she hung her head down and took a seat. As she was munching on her breakfast, unable to find anything to say, Ulises across her stood up: “It’s time to go.”

“I-I’ll see you off!”

Lea hurriedly stood up and followed him. Ulises, who had started to walk, looked over his shoulder at Lea, who thought that she had to at least send him off properly, and he looked as if he wanted to say something, but he turned back to look ahead. As Lea followed his steady back, they soon arrived at the entrance.
As he pushed open one of the double doors leading outside, the morning sun softly illuminated the entrance. Ulises, who took a step forward and was surrounded by that light, briefly glanced at Lea.

“I’m going. Keep the front door locked.”
“Yes, please have a nice day.”

A worried look on his face as he looked at Lea, who could only smile awkwardly – was probably because of the incompetence she had shown until now.

---

—-
Deli is probably a currency used in their kingdom. I don’t have much frame of reference yet though.

Anyway, that’s the first day of their cohabitation. Lea oversleeps because her husband is a military man who has probably never even heard of foreplay and Ulises is too awkward to hold a proper conversation with his new wife and reassure her. It’s gonna be a rough ride for both.

Please notify me about any mistranslations, typos or weird grammar you see so I could fix them asap

Previous Chapter || Next Chapter