"The sleeping beauty has woken up, huh?"
Despite my snarky words, he didn't respond.
'He looks a bit groggy and dazed,' observed Cordelia as she turned to face him and got a glance at his cloudy, out-of-focus eyes.
Juder took a minute to regain his bearing while Cordelia stared him down without as much as a hint of fluster or aversion.
Her eyes didn't contain admiration, wordy, adoration, lust, or greed as Juder felt confused by the current situation.
He had just woken up and got stared down by the weird girl with an indifferent, no, it contained something.
'What is... this expression? I... have never seen...'
Sadly, he didn't have time to think deeper as he too was staring at her straight in they eyes with a dazed look.
Flick
Cordelia being Cordelia flicked his forehead not so gently, causing him to grimace and wince, but it wasn't painful enough to make him yelp.
"What? Got enchanted by me or something?" Cordelia smirked at him. Inwardly, however, she totally felt owned.
'I almost got carried away by his face. Why even?? I was 23 in my past life, no way I can't control my desires!'
She stubbornly refused to accept that she got swayed by the lonely look on his handsome face, so she decided to change the topic before he could come up with a retort.
"Well, whatever. You're healed and your pursuers will have a hard time now. So you owe me once more."
She mentioned coyly while tilting her head and wearing a condescending smile.
'I have to admit, this girl... she is really good at getting at someone's nerves!'
Juder cursed his short-sightedness to get caught up with such an eccentric girl.
"Ahem, ahem" Juder coughed to clear his throat before he continued in a hoarse tone.
"As I said before, what do you want in return?"
Seeing his deadpan expression, she couldn't help but think to herself. 'Why do I feel he wants to run away from me? No, right? U mean, I did save his life! Maybe, I am just imagining things?'
After a momentary hesitation she answered with a doubtful expression, "Eh? Dunno... Accompany and protect me, maybe? For the trial?"
Aa if suddenly enlightened, she had a joyous expression on her face while hitting her right fist in her left palm.
"Yes! Why didn't I think of this before? You protect me during the trial and pay of the healing. For owing your life, I'll think about it later?"
"Yep, yep! Isn't that the best!? You will even have the chance to protect a weak girl! Like saving a damsel in distress and being called a hero?"
"Ah! Of course, don't think you would win over ny affection easily though. That only happens in stupid novels where the man saves a girl and she devotes herself to him."
Juder's lips couldn't help but twitch ever so slightly at the brazen request of the "weak" girl in front of him.
'Weak? Weak my ass!? And what's with her bizarre words? Just how shameless can one be!?'
Juder really found himself in a pinch with a female for the first time in his life.
He had always, and always, stayed away from girls as he had formed an aversion to them due to the countless seduction attenpts at him.
If he was an adult, fine, it was understandable. But even his classmates, juniors, seniors, and even young teachers had made moves on him!
Of course, all of them failed as he couldn't be swayed due to the intense training he had to go through in his childhood.
'Even out of the countless tricks women have used on me, this one is really something else.'
Unlike typical young masters, who were arrogant, self-centered, and narcissistic to the point they thought the world should revolve sround them, he thought otherwise.
'Her words, expression, body movements, and eyes are genuine. She truly means what she said.'
'But that just makes the situation even more weird!?'
In the end, he just nodded with a variety of thoughts swirling in his head and tried getting up using the tree stump for support.
Thud
Surprisingly, his hand slipped past and he fell again.
His head wheezed past Cordelia's outstretched head and nearly touched the ground if not for her hurriedly holding his chest to support him.
'W-what!? That was so close...!' Cordelia thought as the vision of his head hitting hers flashed through her brain.
At the moment though, Juder felt wholeheartedly embarrassed.
'How...?'
'Just how? I definitely put my hand on the proper place...'
He couldn't understand how his hand slipped by and he lost his balance, almost colliding head-on with her.
"How long are you going to keep taking support!?" Cordelia inquired through gritted teeth.
'You are so damn heavy! Get up already!' was what she wanted to say, but she didn't let her intrusive thoughts win today.
"Ah..." Juder felt too awkward to even reply and immediately used his hands as support to get up, freeing her from holding him.
The next instant, as he turned to look at her to speak, his intent unknown, wheter to salvage the situation or thank her, his face froze.
There she was, on her knees, massaging her hands and cursing something, most likely him, under her breath.
Luckily for her, he didn't focus on her for more than a second as his eyes turned as wide as they could.
He had just glanced at her and although intrigued, his eyes focused on the monster behind her, ready to impale her.
'Shit! There's not enough time–'
In the heat of the moment, he immediately clasped her left wrist tightly in a haphazard manner as it was closest to him and he didn't have enough time to warn her about the imminent threat.
Pulling her close using all the force he could muster at the moment, he almost lost his balance while she fell to the ground right next to him uninjured, luckily.
Cordelia opened her mouth to curse as she hadn't expected hum to suddenly act like this, and lowered her guard, allowing him to carch her off-guard and throw her off.
However, her expression turned grave, just like his, as she also noticed the weird tree-like monster in the spot she previously stood.
'Is that a...'
"Treant!?"
She blurted out in absolute shock and felt dumbfounded by its presence.
Juder almost reflexively turned around to give her a stare, but stopped himself in time before focusing ahead, and rebuking her words.
"That's impossible. Even the weakest of the weakest Treant is easily (E)-rank or (E+)-rank. It doesn't make any sense for one of them to be here."
Hearing him explain, she also sobered up before questioning the logic, "Then how do you explain the sudden ambush!? I didn't even notice it!"