The Escort Knight Who Is Obsessed by the Villainess Wants to Escape - Chapter 156

“Hey, Kang Jaewon.”

Kang Jaewon. Kang Jaewon.

Eliza rolled the name around her tongue a few times.

It was hard to pronounce.

And it wasn’t just the name.

The boy in front of her.

And even the scenery around him.

It was something she had never even imagined.

But one thing was certain.

The boy called Kang Jaewon.

This boy, with white gauze clumsily plastered on his face as if he was injured, was the Judas she knew.

The person who had been close to her, who had been with her for a long time.

‘Where on earth is this…?’

Right now, she was inside the memories of Kang Jaewon—Judas.

Thanks to that, she could interpret most of the scenery she was seeing.

She analyzed and understood it based on the information from his memories.

‘This place is called a… school?’

An educational facility provided by the state.

‘And a classroom…’

A divided space primarily used by students attending that school.

‘The uniform clothing students are required to wear, the school uniform…’

In that way, she synchronized various pieces of information with her own knowledge.

‘The boy approaching him…’

Compared to the other students, his attire was disheveled.

His expression and posture seemed intimidating, as if trying to appear tough.

She even figured out that he was called a ‘bully’ or ‘delinquent.’

Eliza overlapped Archan with that figure.

The bloodline that had tormented her most cruelly and actively.

The brat who was desperate to torment her.

From his expression to his sarcastic tone, it was all the same.

The scene shifts again.

“Kang Jaewon. You ignoring me?”

Kang Jaewon… Judas…

Eliza alternated between the two names in her mind.

In the scenery, he was Kang Jaewon, but in her perception, he was Judas.

Anyway.

Kang Jaewon looked up at the male student and answered briefly.

“…What.”

“‘What’ my ass. Do you know how much trouble I went through because of you? The school had to hold a violence committee meeting. I came to say goodbye before you leave, you little shit.”

The male student laughed mockingly, leaning his face close to Kang Jaewon.

It was an exaggerated movement.

Kang Jaewon thought.

‘Should I kill him?’

He didn’t mean actual murder.

But rather, whether to use self-defensive violence to the extent that the other person couldn’t resist.

He was contemplating whether to do it or not.

‘What’s wrong with this guy that he’s been acting like this since forever?’

Kang Jaewon was genuinely curious.

From the day he first entered middle school until now, several months later.

He couldn’t understand the other person at all.

Eliza knew the principles behind such human behavior, but she didn’t have time to recall them.

She hurriedly sifted through his memories.

Gathering clues to understand the context.

At 14 years old, he was a much rawer, more unrefined version of the person Eliza knew.

Less socialized, he essentially had the mindset of a wild animal.

But he hadn’t always been this rough.

In this region, there was a concept called a ‘district school.’

‘It’s a classification of schools within a certain range, and the quality of the district school is determined by the atmosphere of that area, that is, the region.’

And the district school Kang Jaewon attended was among the worst in quality.

‘If I were to compare it to the Bevel Kingdom, it would be like a slum with poor public safety and weak administrative control, or a crime-ridden area…’

And in that poor-quality school district, Eliza also learned what Kang Jaewon had gone through to reach this point.

Kang Jaewon was a student who was bullied at this school.

When he was first exposed to violence, he didn’t resist.

It was unlike the Judas Eliza knew.

There was no trace of the person who had once risked his life to defy even a grand duke.

Instead, he followed the social order and appealed to other authorities.

His homeroom teacher.

‘A teacher, huh? It’s a bit different from the concept I know. But is it really possible for one individual to manage dozens of people fairly and without issues as an educator?’

The homeroom teacher comforted him, as if she would stand by his side and support him.

That was all.

Nothing actually changed.

The teacher simply took on the role of calming the victim to prevent the situation from escalating.

Her presence was like Barak to Eliza.

Someone who knew but chose to ignore.

A person who turned a blind eye to the sacrifice of the minority for the sake of the majority’s benefit and peace.

One day, the situation became so severe that a disciplinary committee was convened.

‘A small-scale local trial… something like that.’

The outcome left Eliza deeply puzzled.

‘Isolation of the victim?’

The victim, Kang Jaewon, was transferred to another school.

There were several reasons, but one of the biggest factors was that the perpetrator’s parents were the heads of the school’s parent association.

For Eliza, this treatment was hard to comprehend.

‘The one who got hurt was Judas, so why is the victim being treated unfairly…?’

It wasn’t just the gauze covering the bruises and cuts on his face.

Kang Jaewon felt pain all over his body from the chronic violence he had endured.

‘…Ah! Is it because of status? Was Judas considered a lowborn here too?’

She couldn’t help but think that way.

Amusingly, it wasn’t entirely wrong.

In reality, Kang Jaewon’s background was disadvantaged, while the other side had power backing them.

‘But… if their statuses are different, why are they studying in the same space? Wait, hold on… Isn’t the concept of status supposed to be gone here? Can it really disappear? How can society function without status…?’

While puzzled, Eliza empathized with Kang Jaewon.

A figure standing before him, backed by an authority he couldn’t oppose.

It was just like the children of Narcissa and the main family.

It should have felt unfamiliar, but to Eliza, it didn’t.

Instead, she immersed herself in Judas’s perspective.

The reason was that his life structurally mirrored her own past.

Like a shadow.

Anyway, after the decision to transfer him was made, Kang Jaewon had an epiphany.

It was as if a blocked passage had suddenly opened, and thoughts rushed in.

The only one he could rely on in this world was himself.

If he didn’t fight for himself, no one else would.

There is no rational or logical reason for one person to exploit another.

When they can do it.

When they are allowed to do it.

People simply act on it.

In the end, to avoid being trampled, he had to show his strength.

Realizing this, he had come to this day.

“Is that how all kids who grew up without parents turn out?”

Aimless, reckless criticism.

It creates a blind sense of discomfort in the target, giving the critic a feeling of superiority and satisfaction, believing they can control the situation and the other person.

Eliza analyzed it this way.

Archan, Barak, and the children of Narcissa.

She had suffered terribly under similar treatment from them.

After countless reflections, Eliza came to understand such people deeply.

On the other hand, Kang Jaewon lacked such knowledge or intelligence.

He thought simply.

‘I have to kill him.’

His judgment was cautious, but his actions were swift.

He grabbed the hair of the male student who had approached him.

“Ugh—!”

And slammed his head into the desk.

-Bang! Bang! Bang!

Repeatedly, with enough force to break the desk.

Amid the silence of the classroom, only the raw sound of violence echoed loudly.

The boy, who had never known how to resist, had reached out with violence.

The crouched figure had shattered his own world.

He had broken out of his shell on his own.

In that moment, Eliza saw herself reflected.

When she had learned of Maria’s death later than others, and realized that everyone in the main family had deceived her.

When she realized that Narcissa was the perpetrator, and had been lying about being alive, using Maria’s life as leverage to threaten her.

When she realized that Barak had known all along but remained silent.

She had grabbed Sarah, who had mocked Maria’s death, by the hair and tore into her.

Back then, Eliza too had felt a refreshing epiphany.

The truth that the only one she could rely on in this world was herself.

Thanks to meeting Judas, that truth had now been revised.

That Maria, in fact, had not died.

Finally, the male student’s eyes rolled back, and he collapsed.

Kang Jaewon threw him aside like trash and walked out of the classroom.

He had committed an act deserving of greater punishment, but surprisingly, nothing happened.

After that, he didn’t care what happened next.

At the new school he transferred to, he got caught up in big and small disputes, just like before.

But he wasn’t the same as before.

If someone picked a fight, he would fight back.

As long as it was one-on-one, he never lost.

It was an utterly hollow victory.

Had I really been so afraid of such weaklings?

I couldn’t help but laugh bitterly.

Sometimes, multiple people would gang up on him, but he never backed down.

Even if it meant dying, he refused to give in.

Even if he lost, he fought to the end.

What tempered his overflowing fighting spirit was a suggestion from the childcare center’s teacher.

Why not try sports?

And so, Kang JaeWon was introduced to the martial art of judo.

***

After transferring schools, he got into a few fights and showed his temper, and after that, no one picked on him.

So, after starting sports, he devoted himself entirely to training.

It was at the gym that he first realized something.

He had a natural talent.

He had been born stronger than others.

Some people possess inexplicable, monstrous strength.

He was one of them.

Beyond just being strong, he was naturally skilled at overpowering others with force.

He just hadn’t known it before because he’d never had the experience.

Once he realized his talent, he became addicted to training.

He stayed at the gym late into the night, working out.

At school, he slept, and at night, he ran as if his life depended on it.

It was only natural that he joined the athletics team, excelled, and got accepted into a sports university focused on practical skills.