The Escort Knight Who Is Obsessed by the Villainess Wants to Escape - Chapter 55.1

Eliza woke up to the sensation of something pressing against her cheek.

When she opened her eyes, she found Judas fiddling with her face.

Still groggy, Eliza looked at him and asked,

“…What are you doing?”

Judas’s face turned pale.

He looked like he might die on the spot, even though he had just been treated. He seemed more fragile now than when he was stabbed or poisoned.

Eliza glanced down at the hand holding her cheek.

Judas was so frozen in place that he couldn’t even think to pull his hand away.

“What are you doing?”

It wasn’t until Eliza asked a second time that Judas hastily withdrew his hand.

“I-I’m sorry…!”

Judas quickly sat up and bowed his head in a panic.

“I asked what you were doing, not for an apology.”

In truth, an apology was indeed necessary.

It was a serious offense, one that deserved more than just begging for forgiveness.

A commoner had dared to touch a noble while she slept.

At the very least, cutting off his hand would be a fitting punishment.

But Eliza had no intention of doing that.

Even though her question sounded cold and stern, she wasn’t angry.

She was genuinely curious.

What on earth had he been doing?

What was his reason and intention for touching her face?

When she was a child, her mother would often touch her face the same way.

The low tone and short words were simply because she had just woken up, but Judas had no way of knowing that.

He assumed that Eliza was extremely angry.

And he couldn’t think of a good excuse.

There was no way he could claim he was wiping away some dust or something like that.

The situation was undeniable.

Judas had clearly pinched and played with Eliza’s cheek with his thumb and forefinger.

So he had no choice but to confess honestly.

“I… touched your face…”

“Why?”

Judas wanted to bite his tongue and faint on the spot.

Should he pretend to be in pain?

If that could get him out of this situation, he was willing to try.

But of course, that wasn’t an option.

Eliza stared at Judas, waiting.

“Well… that is…”

He couldn’t bring himself to answer.

Was he supposed to say he just wanted to touch her cheek for no reason?

Or that it looked so soft that he wanted to feel it just once?

Either way, it was a crazy answer.

And both crazy reasons were true.

If he could turn back time, he would never touch her cheek again.

…Though he wasn’t entirely sure of that.

“I just… wanted to feel it…”

He finally managed to answer in a barely audible voice.

Eliza tilted her head, not understanding.

Just because?

Judas had no choice but to bare his soul and confess the rest.

“Your cheek… looked really… soft…”

Eliza still didn’t understand.

He touched her because her cheek looked soft?

That was the only reason he touched a noble’s body?

And while she was sleeping?

Was that really a sufficient reason?

Out of curiosity, she decided to check for herself.

Eliza pressed her small hands against both her cheeks and squeezed them.

Her warm, soft cheeks filled her hands.

“Is it really that much…”

Judas stared at her as if mesmerized as Eliza murmured to herself, still not convinced.

She wasn’t aware of it, but the sight of her squishing her own cheeks was so adorable it could give someone a heart attack.

Judas seriously began to question whether he was losing his mind.

“You can touch them more if you’d like.”

He wasn’t losing his mind; he had already lost it.

Now he was hearing things?

Or maybe it was the effect of barely surviving a deadly situation.

His mind must not be right.

“Are you ignoring me?”

“Huh? What, uh, what?”

Eliza shifted her chair closer.

She came right up to him and rested her chin on his thigh.

She propped up her round face and looked up at him expectantly.

As if asking why he wasn’t touching her.

Goodness.

Her words weren’t a hallucination.

Was she testing him?

But how could he resist such a test?

“T-Then, um, uh… Excuse me…”

Judas hesitantly placed his hands on her cheeks.

Eliza stayed still like a docile cat.

He moved his hands slowly.

Her cheeks were soft and warm from just waking up.

It felt like he was playing with two little rice cakes.

At the same time, it didn’t feel real.

He was kneading the cheeks of his master, a great noble, a future unparalleled mage who would one day shake the continent, and according to what he knew, the infamous villainess Eliza.

Was this a dream?

As Judas’s mind began to blur, Eliza looked at him while offering her face.

She thought of her mother.

The hands that used to stroke her face at every chance.

The gaze and voice that couldn’t resist touching her.

Eliza realized something.

She had, at some point, started to see Judas as her mother.

It wasn’t that her mother was being replaced.

The two feelings filled her heart simultaneously.

So, the fact that this boy was now kneading her face didn’t feel all that bad.

Though, unlike her mother, his expression was a bit silly.

The possibility that this feeling might become a weakness was something she’d think about later.

She ignored the compulsion that she shouldn’t do that.

She just wanted to get lost in this moment, even if only for a brief while.

“I-I’m done now….”

Judas carefully withdrew his hand.

He felt like if he didn’t say anything, he would keep doing it forever.

Eliza lightly touched her slightly reddened cheek.

“Is it really that good…?”

Her reaction showed that she didn’t quite understand.

Judas’s heart felt more precarious now than when he had been stabbed.

He felt dizzy, as if he were drunk.

Eliza was just too, cute….

To suppress his complicated emotions, Judas’s unconscious mind had to blurt out nonsense.

“I-It’s similar to why you carry that doll around….”

“That is….”

Eliza hesitated to respond.

She wanted to say no.

She wanted to say it was different, but then, what exactly was different?

Eliza didn’t know the answer.

She quietly looked down at the doll in her arms.

At some point, she had stopped separating this doll and the red blanket from her body.

It wasn’t a conscious act.

That day.

Since the day Judas protected her from Sardis, those two items had become like a second skin to Eliza.

When they were away from her body, she felt anxious and uncomfortable.

But she had never thought deeply about it.

She just did it.

Even Eliza didn’t know why she did.

Sometimes, she would absentmindedly stroke the doll and then startle herself.

It was strange how she behaved as if she had returned to her childhood.

She shouldn’t do that.

And even more, others must not see her like that.

But Judas was watching.

He was aware of a side of her that even she wasn’t aware of.

The reality made her unbearably embarrassed.

“…….”

Eliza blushed deeply and lowered her head.

Judas wanted to smack his mouth as he watched Eliza.

He had said something unnecessary, creating an awkward atmosphere.

Eliza bit her lip and waited until her flushed face cooled down.

Judas stayed quiet as well.

She wondered if he was still watching her, but she didn’t have the courage to lift her head.

In the end, Eliza didn’t give a particular response and raised her head.

When she saw Judas, who looked more anxious than she was, her embarrassment washed away.

Eliza gave a weak smile.

“Seeing how you’re talking back, it seems like you’re fully recovered.”

“…Uh, yes. Thanks to your care.”

“That’s all I needed to know.”

Eliza spoke nonchalantly and tugged at a dangling rope beside her.

A bell rang.

The rope that Judas didn’t know about was a bell pull used to summon servants.

As soon as the bell rang, the door opened.

May, the physician , and Lia, the maid, led the way inside.

Behind them followed a middle-aged man in a black priest’s robe.

“My lady. Did you call?”

“Yes.”

While Lia attended to Eliza, the physician and the priest examined Judas.

May, the physician, asked as she unwrapped the bandages.

“How are you feeling? Does it hurt or anything?”

“It feels a bit tender, but it doesn’t hurt. It’s a little itchy.”

“That’s because the wound is healing.”

As the bandages were removed, the wound where he had been stabbed was revealed.

The spot where there had been a hole was now filled with new flesh.

It hadn’t fully healed yet, and the pinkish skin contrasted with the surrounding color.

“There might be a scar left….”

Unlike the displeased May, Judas didn’t mind.

In fact, he was impressed.

A wound that had punctured through and created a hole had filled in just one day.

A scar was nothing compared to the speed of healing.

“We can’t use any more divine power here, can we?”

May asked, and the priest who had been standing behind stepped forward.

He was the one who had healed Judas last night.

The middle-aged man with a kind smile examined Judas’s wound carefully.

“There won’t be much effect on a wound that has healed this much….”

“Do it anyway.”

Eliza interrupted.

She didn’t hesitate to speak informally, even to someone much older than her.

However, no one in this place found it worth mentioning, and it wasn’t really something to point out.

Even Judas had grown accustomed to this world by now.

“We shouldn’t expect much, but we should do everything we can,”

May added regretfully.

“Understood.”