The Escort Knight Who Is Obsessed by the Villainess Wants to Escape - Chapter 151

Eliza sat blankly, hugging her knees.

She didn’t bother to fix her disheveled hair—just sat still.

Her golden eyes burned, yet they were devoid of life.

Before her was a crystal.

Inside it, Maria was sealed, a dagger pierced through her chest.

Lia. She was Maria.

Since when? Why?

Confusion swirled.

Disorderly lines crisscrossed in her mind.

As they overlapped again and again, they ceased to be mere lines and became a solid mass.

The confusion was so overwhelming that, paradoxically, her mind felt as blank as a fresh sheet of paper.

Like a person who had died with their eyes open, she remained still, only occasionally breaking the silence with a question.

“Judas?”

Then, the knight guarding the door would answer.

“He has not returned yet.”

“……”

She could no longer use magic.

The artifact she shared with him no longer transmitted any signals.

She had no way of knowing where he was, what he was doing, or whether he was even still alive.

She was worried, but there was no way to confirm anything.

Without magic, she was no different from an ordinary person—she couldn’t even leave.

Helpless.

All she could do was wait.

Was this how you felt too?

It was a dreadful feeling.

“Mother… isn’t dead.”

Which meant Judas hadn’t killed her.

Then, did that mean the documents she had seen were false?

No, Judas had also been confused.

This cruel twist of fate—

Suddenly, his voice echoed in her mind.

‘Actually, I mean… I’m not really Judas. I came from another world…’

She had ignored him.

She had believed it to be a ridiculous excuse.

But if—by some impossible chance—that was the truth?

If the unbelievable was actually reality, all the uncertainties would be resolved.

If that incredibly convenient excuse was actually the truth—

“……”

Eliza, who had been curled up, slowly lifted her head.

She opened her eyes.

For the first time in a long while, she recalled her own standard of judgment.

“Everything in this world can be categorized by just two criteria.”

Verifiable facts.

And unverifiable assumptions.

Verifiable facts.

Judas liked Eliza.

Judas protected Eliza.

Judas was willing to die for Eliza.

Judas stood by Eliza’s side.

Judas held her hand and embraced her.

At the same time—

Judas was an assassin, raised by the Moon God Church and the imperial family to kill Eliza and Maria.

Yet, her mother was alive.

How?

She had believed her mother was dead.

Why?

Why had she believed it so unquestionably?

“……”

The scene from ten years ago—Maria’s supposed death.

The carriage had burned.

There was no body left behind.

Until now—

Because of the sheer shock—

She had never questioned it.

But looking back—

Something was undeniably strange.

The assassin guild, Lamech, always left proof of their work.

They always left evidence.

Their signature—a special poison.

A victim’s flesh would rot away, turning black.

Which meant—

They never killed their targets by burning them.

Because that would leave no evidence behind.

That was exactly why Eliza had been able to immediately identify Judas’s fake corpse.

Nevertheless, Eliza believed it.

The reason she was told by Barak that Maria had died was one thing, but there was also the fact that Lamech’s poison remained at the scene.

The coachman who had been driving the carriage had died from Lamech’s deadly poison.

But Maria—

Her mother—

There was no corpse.

Nothing remained after the fire.

Only traces of a sword remained in the seat where she had sat, and from those scars, Lamech’s poison was detected.

However, that evidence did not prove that her mother had fallen to Lamech’s poison.

‘…….’

Her mother was dead.

She had believed it to be a verifiable truth, yet the validity of that proposition had been overturned.

Her mother was not dead.

She could have arrived at that truth if she had tried to infer it, but she had not realized it until now.

Red hair with black roots.

Not excessive, but slightly heavy makeup.

Black eyes.

If she had tried to recognize her, perhaps she could have.

But she had not.

Because she had already believed she was gone.

She had received the news that she was dead.

Looking back, the evidence had been weak, but at the time, it had seemed convincing enough.

Since her mother was dead, she could never have imagined that she would remain beside her, hiding her identity.

One cannot believe in something that does not exist.

It was only natural.

Regretting that she could have known in advance after learning the result—it was a pathetic thing to do.

Once the result is confirmed, anyone can think that way.

Scattered clues from the past—

That she could have noticed them.

That if she had only paid a little more attention, she might have realized the truth earlier.

Impossible.

Until one knows the result, humans can never see the end.

And yet, regretting after knowing the result—that is an irrational, illogical, and inevitable defense mechanism of the human mind.

If only she had been by her mother’s side that day, she could have protected her.

It was simply an extension of the regret he had replayed for nearly ten years.

Lia.

For ten years, while she had been by her side—what had she been thinking?

What information had she sent back to the main family?

What had she felt when looking at her?

When she was tormented by the direct descendants of the family,

When she was beaten to the point of bleeding under Narcissa’s brutal training,

When she had lost herself to despair upon learning of her mother’s death—

What had she thought while looking at her?

She wanted to ask because she wanted to know.

But there was no one to answer.

Anything would do.

Even a cruel answer would be fine.

If she told her she had felt nothing, it would hurt terribly and sadden her, but she could accept it.

As long as she could open her eyes again, breathe, and stand before her alive—then, for her, that would be enough…

Eliza slowly leaned her body against the ice that sealed Maria away.

It was cold.

She stroked the part where her face was.

Just like she had once done for her when she was a child.

She held it gently, as if cherishing it, then embraced the ice.

She pressed her ear against it.

But there was no breath, no heartbeat to be heard.

Was she dead?

Could she really come back to life? Her mother?

‘I… What have I been doing all this time…?’

The final truth.

The final question.

Judas—had not killed her.

He had had countless opportunities to do so.

If it had been to wait for the perfect moment, then too many opportunities had been passed up.

Even if the emperor’s goal was not just her but the entire Bevel family, it did not make sense.

Judas had already had multiple chances to kill her.

Even at the very last moment—

Eliza had begged Judas to end her.

She had been willing to offer her neck without resistance.

But Judas had not.

Why?

At the time, Eliza had been unable to fully grasp Judas’s emotions.

She had been buried in her own.

She refused to see the truth.

She had simply thought that Judas was tormenting her.

That she was deliberately being cruel, trying to hurt her.

“A verifiable fact. Judas was an assassin who tried to kill me.”

And yet, Judas had not killed her, and Maria was actually still alive.

“Ah…”

After a long silence, Eliza finally let out a voice.

“Ah… ah….”

Judas was not guilty.

It was all a misunderstanding—her own misjudgment.

But what had she said to him?

How had she treated him?

She shouldn’t have done that.

Ah.

“Ah… ah, ah…!”

Among all the filtered and chosen facts,

Only one shone wretchedly.

She had said something to Judas that could never be taken back.

The reason everything had gone so terribly wrong, the one truly at fault, was neither Judas nor Maria.

It was her.

Eliza was consumed by self-reproach.

“AAAAAH—!”

She screamed until her throat felt like it would tear.

She pounded on the desk, thrashed about, and eventually tumbled beneath the sofa.

“My lady?!”

The physician, May, ran to her in alarm, but Eliza could not stop her frantic outburst.

“Ugh…! Ugh…! Kgh…! AAAAH—!”

She slammed her head against the floor, shrieking like a madwoman.

“My lady! Please, calm down!”

“Agh… kgh….”

She could only clutch her chest and sob.

Her entire body ached.

Not from the wounds she had inflicted upon herself, but from the inside.

“Agh…!”

Eliza grasped at her chest.

It felt as though her heart was being torn from her body.

As if unseen hands gripped it from both sides, twisting and pulling it apart.

“Hic… kgh, ngh…!”

She couldn’t hold back the sobs that burst forth.

In the end, she covered her face with her hands, weeping uncontrollably, oblivious to the pain in her throat.

If only she had trusted him a little more.

If only she had paid closer attention to Ria.

If only—if only—

Ah. If, in all those countless moments, she had been just a little more rational, a little wiser…

The present could have been a better future.

A meaningless cycle of regret and self-recrimination spiraled on.

“Hicc…! Waaaah—! Haaaah—!”

A wail that was almost a scream.

Everyone in the room, including May, could do nothing but watch, unable to console her.

She cried for a long time before finally lifting her hollow, empty eyes.

Golden eyes, burning with intensity.

She looked down at her hand.

For some reason, the palm of her left hand—the hand that had once intertwined fingers with Judas—was now tinged with gold.

It was reminiscent of the way Judas’s body had darkened and burned.

‘…?‘

Eliza shut off her thoughts.

Judas was out on the battlefield.

She couldn’t afford to collapse here.

She had to fix things.

She had to apologize.

Before it was too late.

Everything had spiraled into disaster because of her.

Eliza berated herself with unrelenting guilt.

A self-condemnation that came with a firm resolution.

At the same time, she felt her magic slowly awaken within her.

The moment she realized she could wield magic again, the pendant around her neck began to glow.

…This is?

It was an artifact she had taken from Barak’s secret laboratory.

It had activated on its own, in response to her magic.

A commotion erupted outside.

Eliza turned toward the window.

A vast estate spread out beyond the glass.

Under the now-darkened night sky, crimson pillars of fire shot up all around.

Barak’s… colors….

Only after the artifact activated did Eliza understand its true effect.

Those fire pillars were spells, designed to target only the imperial knights and royal guards.

This was something Barak had created to fight the empire.

Judas was prepared to die.

In front of him stood the Captain of the Guards.

Behind him was Geist, the commander of the Imperial Mage Corps.

There was no escape.

So, he would take at least one of them with him.

A massive Ice Spear materialized like a towering pillar.

He had to kill the Captain of the Guards before that thing struck.

He lunged at the captain, who wielded a Zweihander.

His entire body staggered.

He commanded himself to stay standing, to keep fighting.

His heart felt like it would explode, and his body was already too weak to hold his sword due to countless wounds.

Still, he clenched his teeth and endured.

He lifted the Moon pupil.

He carried through with the momentum and swung.

— Puuuk!

His blade struck the Captain of the Guards at a perfect angle.

But—he had also been stabbed.

“Guh….”

He had cut the enemy, but he was too exhausted to put enough strength behind it.

His blade had gone slightly off-course, slicing from the shoulder down to the chest rather than cutting through completely.

He tightened his grip to finish the job.

“Krah…!”

The Captain of the Guards coughed up blood.

He, too, put in more strength.

He twisted the Zweihander he had impaled into Judas.

The sword piercing his body churned his insides.

Judas desperately tried to kill his enemy, but he knew—it was too late.

The Ice Spear was closing in.

He could feel its overwhelming mass crushing the air as it surged forward.

Yet, he did not resign himself to death.

As long as he was still breathing, he would fight until the very end.

And sometimes, when one does that—

The world grants miracles.

— Fwoosh!

Suddenly, his vision was engulfed in light.

A massive crimson firestorm erupted around the Captain of the Guards.

“Ugh—?!”

Flames roared high into the sky.

The fire was so intense that Geist’s Ice Spear melted the moment it touched it, vanishing without a trace.

Judas knew this was his chance.

He was immune to fire.

Unlike Geist’s Sun, there was still space to breathe within the inferno.

He had to strike now.

“Hah—!”

Summoning the last of his strength, he lifted the Moon pupil and brought it down once more.

The Captain of the Guards, flailing in the flames, could not defend himself.

His body was cleaved in two, and he died.

As he perished, the firestorm began to dissipate.

The battlefield was revealed once more, now consumed by fire.

Flames engulfed everything, with Imperial knights and guards at the center of the blaze.

It looked like a burning hellscape.

“Hah… hah….”

Judas pulled his Zweihander free.

He tried to stay conscious by relying on the Moon pupil, but in the end, he collapsed atop the Captain of the Guards’ corpse.

He forced himself to get up.

He reached out, trying to grasp his sword—but he couldn’t.

He had fought too long with a body that was already exhausted.

He had lost too much blood.

“Eli… za….”

Footsteps approached in the distance.

Was it a remnant of the Imperial army, one untouched by the magic?

‘I have to… get up… and fight back….’

His eyelids slowly closed.

“Eliya….”

‘I’m sorry… I couldn’t tell you sooner….’

***

At the same time, as firestorms raged across the battlefield, Geist received a signal.

A confirmation—the Sun statue’s location had been secured.

He had failed to kill Judas here, but the relic was more important.

Besides, he had seen Judas get impaled.

There was no way that monster could survive.

Without hesitation, Geist teleported away to seize the Sun statue.

“At last, we have it.”

Afterward, he ordered the Imperial forces to retreat.

“You couldn’t kill Eliza? It doesn’t matter. With this artifact, His Majesty will become a new god who rules not just humanity, but the entire world.”

He gave the order to retreat and immediately disappeared through teleportation.

Heading toward Emperor Johan, who was waiting for the Sun Statue.

Eliza was about to leave in search of Judas after watching the fiery storm.

At that moment.

Boom! The door burst open roughly.

She had hoped it was Judas—but it wasn’t.

“My lady.”

It was Dylan.

“The enemy is retreating. Bols reported that a certain mage entered the mansion but fled immediately. It seems the object they revere—the Sun statue—has disappeared. We suspect that was their goal.”

“…….”

“Sir Gawain is currently regrouping our forces and reinforcing the defensive formation. It appears he has decided against pursuing the enemy for now.”

Eliza wanted to ask about Judas’s whereabouts, but the words wouldn’t come out.

It felt as if her voice was trapped below her throat.

“There are many wounded, but fortunately, no fatalities—”

—Thud, thud, thud, thud.

Urgent footsteps.

Rushing toward this room.

Dylan lifted his head in confusion.

Beyond the door, Argon appeared.

Gasping for breath, his shoulders rising and falling, he urgently spoke.

“My lady, Judas is….”